"Absolutely splendid . . . essential for understanding why there is so
much bad thinking in political life right now." *--David Brooks, New
York Times
*
How to Think is a contrarian treatise on why we're not as good at
thinking as we assume--but how recovering this lost art can rescue our
inner lives from the chaos of modern life.
As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications
like The Atlantic and Harper's, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life
belonging to communities that often clash in America's culture wars. And
in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us--political,
social, religious--Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes
occur not because we're doomed to be divided, but because the people
involved simply aren't thinking.
Most of us don't want to think. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force
us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our
relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and
that's a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly
online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan
bickering, and confirmation bias.
In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many
forces that act on us to prevent thinking--forces that have only
worsened in the age of Twitter, "alternative facts," and information
overload--and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means
to think well. (For example: It's impossible to "think for yourself.")
Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson,
basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart
Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and
bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can
reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all.
Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live
together, too.
