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intellectual takeout

spent the past weekend relaxing with old friends. While it was a busy weekend, we had plenty of time to catch up. Over the course of the weekend, we discovered how much we have changed in just a few years. We live very different lives and hold very different—I would even say opposing—views on religion, politics, and life in general.

But that didn’t stop us from having a great weekend. Nor should it have. Few friends agree on everything, but we can—and should—be willing to make friends with people who hold different beliefs and come from different backgrounds.

Maintaining these friendships is easier said than done, especially if we find the other person’s views disagreeable or offensive. But it is possible. The secret to staying friends with someone who disagrees with us lies in our attitudes towards each other. Here are three attitudes that are key to being able to maintain friendships with people you may disagree with:

(1) Intellectual Humility

We need intellectual humility—an awareness of our own intellectual limitations and fallibility and a willingness to consider new ideas—to have good friendships.

Every one of us has likely talked to someone who lacks intellectual humility. This sort of person is easy to sniff out. When confronted with an opposing view, they react in one of two ways: they bully their opponent into submission or retreat into a chilly, patronizing silence. Either way, a person lacking intellectual humility can’t handle anyone challenging their (often tenaciously held) beliefs.

The intellectually humble person, on the other hand, is a pleasure to be around. While they won’t compromise their beliefs to get along with other people, they will take other people’s beliefs seriously. They are passionate about finding the truth, and an intellectually humble person will readily change their mind if they can be proven wrong.

It’s easy to see why this virtue is necessary to a good friendship. Even the slightest disagreement will disrupt a friendship with someone lacking intellectual humility. And on the flip side, intellectually humble friends will listen to even the most eccentric theories and weigh them fairly, which allows friendship to thrive even among people with different beliefs.

(2) Respect for the Individual

If we would like to be friends with people that we disagree with, we must also recognize their individual character. It can be dreadfully easy to think we know all about a person just from knowing their race, political leanings, religion or orientation. But even if we know these details about a person, do we really know them?

Saying that we know a person just because we know a few demographic details is like saying that I know exactly what Argentina is like just because I can list off a few facts about the country. Obviously, I know nearly nothing about Argentina compared to someone who lives there.

But similarly, we can’t claim to know a person unless we spend time with them and get to know them. Even if we know their political leanings, do we know why they lean that way? And if they are from an ethnicity different than ours, do we know how growing up with that background has affected them?

Properly speaking, friendship is between two people. If we look at people as if they were just the sum of a few general details, we aren’t looking at them as people, and we will never be able to be friends with them. But by learning more about their thoughts, motivations, questions, and stories, we start to see them as they are. Getting to know a person in this way is the foundation of a good friendship.

(3) Brotherly Love

I use brotherly love to describe the general goodwill between friends, but it could also be referred to as humanity or benevolence. It consists in seeing and loving the good in another person.

Brotherly love plays a critical role in preserving a friendship between two people who disagree. For instance, if two people disagree about hot button issues, it’s frighteningly easy for one friend to get in a fit of anger, accuse the other of injustice, and storm off. But brotherly love prevents this sort of reaction among friends. Instead of getting angry, the friends give each other the benefit of the doubt because of their mutual goodwill. They strive to see the good in their friend’s beliefs. And even if they find their friend’s views wrong or offensive, they take the time to investigate why they hold these views.

While there are some things that friends may never agree on, the brotherly love they share, coupled with intellectual humility and care for the individual person allows them to remain friends despite profound differences. Could developing these attitudes help preserve our friendships with the people that we both love and disagree with most?

UNDER PRESSURE: GAIL ANN DORSEY ON PLAYING BASS FOR DAVID BOWIE

Gail Ann Dorsey shared stages with Charlie Watts, Lenny Kravitz, Jane Siberry and Olivia Newton-John, but she was there for Bowie for nearly 20 years

Disillusioned early on by working with record labels as a solo artist, bassist/vocalist Gail Ann Dorsey channeled her love and talent for music into a career as an in-demand session and touring player. Dorsey is best known as bassist/vocalist in David Bowie’s band, a position she held for almost 20 years. Her first outing with David Bowie was the 1995 “Outside” tour, which saw the ‘hits’ excluded in favor of lesser-played catalog material. She continued with the live band until Bowie’s final live performance in 2006 and appeared on his secretly recorded 2013 album The Next Day.

Even during her tenure with Bowie, Dorsey found the time to work with such artists as Dar Williams and Jane Siberry. She has built a staggering resume, including work with Tears for Fears, Charlie Watts, Gang of Four, and Olivia Newton-John. Currently, Dorsey is part of Lenny Kravitz’s band.

Hailing from Philadelphia, Dorsey initially pursued music in New York City before heading to London. She released her debut solo album, The Corporate World, in 1988 and followed it up with Rude Blue in 1992. It was at that point that Dorsey decided to focus on session and touring work. She continued to work on solo material as well, but on her terms and without label interference. Her third solo album, I Used to Be came out in 2003 and she’s looking to have another album out this spring.

read more: UNDER PRESSURE: GAIL ANN DORSEY ON PLAYING BASS FOR DAVID BOWIE

The 10 Habits of Logical People

Becoming a logical person is not just a matter of memorizing and applying formulas, or learning how to tell the difference between a valid and an invalid syllogism. Rather, it involves cultivating intellectual habits and skills that, though they may seem simple and obvious, are only achieved after years of struggle and education.

In his book Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking [1], venerable philosophy professor D.Q. McInerny lays out the following 10 habits that people must cultivate if they are to think clearly and effectively:

1) They’re Attentive.

“Many mistakes in reasoning are explained by the fact that we are not paying sufficient attention to the situation in which we find ourselves,” writes McInerny. The logical person has thus trained himself to always pay attention to the details—even in situations that are familiar—lest he make a careless judgment.

2) They Get the Facts Straight.

“If a given fact is an actually existing thing to which we have access, then the surest way to establish its factualness is to put ourselves in its presence. We then have direct evidence of it. If we cannot establish factualness by direct evidence, we must rigorously test the authenticity and reliability of whatever indirect evidence we appeal to so that, on the basis of that evidence, we can confidently establish the factualness of the thing.”

3) They Ensure That Their Ideas Are Clear.

Our ideas are the means by which our minds understand the objective world. Clear ideas faithfully reflect that world, whereas unclear ideas give us a distorted view of the world. The logical person is constantly testing his ideas to make sure that they accurately depict their objects.

4) They’re Mindful of the Origins of Ideas.

The logical person knows which of his ideas are based on things that actually exist in the world. He knows, for instance, that his idea of “cat” corresponds to things in the objective world known as “cats”. As a counterexample, there are a lot of people who have an idea that there existed a female pope named Joan in the 9th century. But if they spent time looking into the source of that idea, they would find that it’s widely regarded by respectable historians to have originated in legend.

5) They Match Ideas to Facts.

Writes McInerny, “To prevent my idea from being a product of pure subjectivism, in which case it could not be communicated to others, I must continuously touch base with those many facts in the objective world from which the idea was born.” This is easy to do with ideas that have a simple correspondence to things in the world outside our minds (e.g. my idea of “cat” refers to an actual cat). It’s much harder to do, as we’ve all experienced, with more complex ideas such as capitalism and socialism, or conservatism and liberalism. For these ideas to remain sound, they must constantly be linked to, and supported by, facts that are accessible to all.

6) They Match Words to Ideas.

We can only communicate our ideas to others if we use words that accurately convey those ideas. But finding the right words can be difficult. When difficulty arises, we should go back to the sources:

“How do we ensure that our words are adequate to the ideas they seek to convey? The process is essentially the same as the one we follow when confirming the clarity and soundness of our ideas: We must go back to the sources of the ideas. Often we cannot come up with the right word for an idea because we don’t have a firm grasp on the idea itself. Usually, when we clarify the idea by checking it against its source in the objective world, the right word will come to us.”

7) They Communicate Effectively.

Logic is ultimately about determining whether statements are true or false. If others are to accurately determine a statement’s truth, it needs to be communicated to them in a clear manner.

McInerny offers the following guidelines for clear communication:

• Don’t assume your audience understands your meaning if you don’t make it explicit.
• Speak in complete sentences.
• Don’t treat evaluative statements (e.g. “That work of art is ugly”) as if they were statements of objective fact.
• Avoid double negatives.
• Gear your language to your audience.

8) They Avoid Vague and Ambiguous Language.

“Vague” and “ambiguous” both come from Latin words that mean “wandering”. Vague and ambiguous language tends to wander about ideas rather than having a fixed, definite meaning. A logical person uses precise language so that his listener knows exactly what he is talking about, and can adequately evaluate the truth of his claims. If he refers to more complex terms such as “freedom” or “equality,” he makes sure to establish his particular understanding of those terms.

9) They Avoid Evasive Language.

“The problem with evasive language, language that does not state directly what a speaker or writer has in mind, is twofold. First, and obviously, it can deceive an audience. Second, and more subtly, it can have a deleterious effect on the people who use it, distorting their sense of reality. The user shapes language, but language shapes the user as well. If we consistently use language that serves to distort reality, we can eventually come to believe our own twisted rhetoric.”

10) They Seek to Arrive at the Truth of Things.

The purpose of logic, according to McInerny, is to arrive at the truth of things. He explains that there are two basic forms of truth: “ontological” truth—what actually exists and has real being; and “logical” truth—the truth of statements. Ultimately, he reminds us, “What determines the truth or falsity of a statement is what actually exists in the real world. Logical truth, in other words, is founded upon ontological truth.”

The authentically logical person, therefore, keeps his logic rooted in truth, and never lets it devolve into mere verbal trickery.

source: intellectual takeout