pang'ono pang'ono

Sometimes, your world of ideas networks -- and you don't even realize it. There's a phrase that I kept coming across while I was in Malawi: pang'ono pang'ono. Slowly; little by little. So much of our development of our selves and and our ideas comes pang'ono pang'ono. Recently, what struck me was a slow cook of ideas centered around intellectual kindness.

I listened to an episode of OnBeing with Adam Gopnik. The interview was a rewarding one, especially towards the end. Within a few days of listening to episode, I then came across Maria Popova's article on his book Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life. I've since added it to my now overwhelmingly long book list, but Popova's reading pointed out a key excerpt of Gopnik helpfully dissecting Darwin's rhetorical talent in the art of "sympathetic summary" on display in The Origin of Species:

A counterargument to your own should first be summarized in its strongest form, with holes caulked as they appear, and minor inconsistencies or infelicities of phrasing looked past. Then, and only then, should a critique begin. This is charitable by name, selfishly constructive in intent: only by putting the best case forward can the refutation be definitive. The idea is to leave the least possible escape space for the “but you didn’t understand…” move. Wiggle room is reduced to a minimum.

This is so admirable and necessary that it is, of course, almost never practiced. Sympathetic summary, or the principle of charity, was formulated as an explicit methodological injunction only recently.

Darwin's tactic of "sympathetic summary" is the admirable next step in the approach of persuasion that I advocate for in my essay Looking Across the River. First, understand the nature of a disagreement. Then, address the most powerful thrusts of any counterargument.

Just a few weeks ago, I had jotted down a journal entry about kindness, lightly edited to as follows:

I've noticed my own evolving understanding of the different dimensions of kindness. There's the outward expressions of it; for example, the small moments of external caring where you can turn the present around for someone else. Perhaps because I trade on knowledge, I've also started to see the increasing importance of intellectual kindness. By intellectual, I mean the whole spectrum of intelligence, from abstract ideas to emotional understanding. From the ideas perspective, I have to do the work to properly be aware of what an idea really is, and what it is not. More important to the interpersonal realm, I have to have emotional intellectual charity and only assign to malice to what I know to really be malice.

I've worked and I am working very hard to improve my own practice of what I'm calling intellectual kindness. I don't think it's more or less important than those more outward expressions of kindness, but I think it's an often under-explored space of every-day living. Developing honest vocabulary and capacity for kindness is a worthy pursuit and will only make life richer and more authentic.

It wasn't until I read the BrainPickings article that I became aware of this small network of my own writing, Gopnik's book, the podcast episode, and my journal entry. The more I read and listen and actually grapple with what the various mediums generously leave me with, the more I see just how many hidden connections lie beneath like the roots of a forest of trees.

Clearly, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to wrestle with ideas and what should be the etiquette for working out our disagreements. So much is at stake in the way we answer questions that arise in these contexts. I'm getting better at flexing my muscles of intellectual kindness, looking across the river in earnest and doing my best to sympathetically summarize. That's not to say that it's by any means easy. Pride and ego weakens those muscles, as the openness required to flex them exposes you to the risk of being wrong. I advance and stumble, slowly. Pang'ono pang'ono.

Looking Across the River

The following essay was published on The Caesura Letters on November 11, 2015 in response to the following prompt:

Write about Oliver. Not any Oliver you know personally, of course, but a fictional guy named Oliver. Any of the following might be true about Oliver: he might believe something radically different than you do; he might appear to you be completely unable to critically assess his own beliefs; he might be what you consider ‘dogmatic’ or ‘brainwashed’ or ‘fundamentalist’; he might have reasons for his beliefs that have nothing to do with being reasonable or logical as you define ‘reason’ and ‘logic’. Now, how are you going to have a constructive conversation with Oliver? Why does Oliver think the way he does? Why is Oliver invested in his beliefs? Introduce us to your Oliver, explain your differences, and show us how to move a dialogue forward.

Imagine you are standing on a corner with a clipboard that clearly marks your purpose: voter registration. There’s an upcoming election and you want to make sure everyone has the chance to participate. A young man — let’s call him Oliver — heads in your direction. Seeing your clipboard, his face contorts into a grimace. You steel yourself.

“Good morning! Are you registered to vote?” you ask.

“I don’t vote,” Oliver shoots at you.

The moment freezes. You repeat Oliver’s statement in your head. I don’t vote. Immediately, your mind meets a torrent of frustration and outrage. In this moment, the two of you couldn’t be further apart: a non-voter and a volunteer helping people register to vote.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Oliver’s position as a non-voter is wrong: voting is an essential component of what it means to be a citizen and it is the only way a system like democracy can function. After all, as the United States Supreme Court noted in the landmark case of Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the free exercise of the franchise is, “preservative of other basic civil and political rights.” Put another way, voting is the scaffolding upon which our society is built.

Given the strong case for the value and importance of the individual’s vote, your intuitive response to Oliver is understandable. However sympathetic we might be to your response, there exists an important distinction between Oliver’s position and the path to that position. To understand how to engage in a dialogue with Oliver (and ultimately, to convince him of the merit of your viewpoint), we have to put in the effort to understand the nature of his position, including how he arrived there. There are many trails to the position of non-voting.

Could it be that Oliver believes that there is no daylight between the parties in competition, meaning elections present meaningless choices? Perhaps, from Oliver’s viewpoint, there are no real consequences to elections and the systems in which we live in are controlled not by the government but other forces? Does Oliver feel like his vote doesn’t count given the demographics of the area? Did he arrive at his position by way of a particular ethical framework?

Each of these different trails leads to the same position: Oliver is not a voter. However, the work of moving Oliver from this position is radically different depending on which path he took to arrive there. For example, it is easier to convince Oliver that there are real differences between the candidates — say, one supports universal health care and the other doesn’t — than it would be to change his mind about our responsibilities towards others within a particular ethical framework.

Regardless, the key to changing Oliver’s mind is to meet him where he is. Persuasion is an art of building bridges. When we build a bridge, we invite someone to cross the river — to change their position — to the other side. It’s only when we exhaust questions about the nature of someone’s understanding that we can locate where to build the bridge. In that process of location, you also do two important things. First, you garner trust with the person: even though you still stand across the river from them, at the very least you see where they are on the other side. Second, you might find that you’re not up against the demon that you thought you first encountered upon hearing their position.

In a speech in Paris, Teddy Roosevelt famously proclaimed, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena” (1910).

We can go further than Roosevelt: it’s not the critic who counts, nor the man in the arena, but the man in the correct arena. The Oliver in the encounter above can come in many forms in our day to day. No matter Oliver’s position, we must remember that in the battle of ideas, where we choose to stage the battle is important. Today, remember that true persuasion requires that we explore how we arrive at our deeply held positions, not just the positions themselves.

The Stoic Activist

The Stoics (a school of philosophy in the 3rd Century BCE) often used the image of the 'Stoic Sage' as a way of imagining their ideal philosophic practitioner. While recognizing that it was an unattainable ideal, the Stoics found it one nonetheless worth contemplating. Through this contemplation, the individual aims him or herself towards the blissful state of tranquility in which the Stoic Sage resides. This end -- ataraxia -- is very much about the individual and their state of mind. Ultimately, however, Stoicism has much to offer those interested not just in tranquility for themselves but in providing the opportunity for tranquility to arise in others. Put another way, one particular iteration of the Stoic Stage might be the 'Stoic Activist', a vision of Stoicism in the trenches of every day life, taking part in the shaking and moving of history.

A student of Stoicism might give pause here, doubtful of the link between Stoicism and activism. After all, trying to shape the story of the world is bound to lead any Stoic away from the path towards tranquility and into the underbrush of frustration. We can begin to address these doubts by looking to the lives of the great Stoics themselves: a prisoner-in-chains to renowned philosopher in Epictetus, a political advisor and an investment banker in Seneca, and the ruler of the known world in Marcus Aurelius. Certainly, these Stoic thinkers did not sit by idly as the world passed them by; they were change makers, fiercely engaging in the story of a transforming world through their ideas, politics, and governance.

Consider the thoughts of one of these Stoics in particular, Marcus Aurelius. Marcus recognized that in the morning it might be easier to stay under the covers, lingering in the pleasant warmth. Despite this, he counseled himself that to do so was folly: man must do the work of man. And what, then, is that work? Marcus answers, "I am bound to do good to my fellow-creatures and bear with them" (Meditations 5.20, trans. Staniforth, 1969). Even though as he steps out of bed Marcus reminds himself that he will be met with all the awfulness of humanity throughout the coming day, he reaffirms his commitment to others because man is a social animal and to connect is to be human.

Now, then, we can set aside the seeming paradox of the Stoic Activist and imagine what she might look like. The Stoic Activist actively visualizes all sorts of mishaps -- organizing snafus, shifts in public opinion, or more timely matters arising -- and, in doing so, is able to navigate around some and prepare for the cases where they are unavoidable. The Stoic Activist constantly evaluates what is within her control, focusing her energy entirely on what is and not diverting any attention to what isn't. At the end of the day, following one of Seneca's practices, the Stoic Activist reflects on the steps taken to make sure they were in line with her principles. That pause of reflection grows the space of tranquility from which she can be the most effective advocate. Finally, when the cause meets failure, the Stoic Activist is not slowed down by the shortcoming but energized by the existence of any awareness of the issue in the first place.

You might not consider yourself an activist. The word might have all sorts of connotations that you feel do not apply to who you are. Whether you like it or not, though, the world is changing on every level, every day; each rise of the sun you have the chance to exercise whatever control you have, to be part of the unfolding story. To choose not to engage is still a choice. You are an activist, in one form or the other. Today, will you act as a reflective, contemplative agent of change?

This essay was originally published by The Caesura Letters on October 22, 2015 as part of ongoing reflections on Stoicism. This submission marks my second published piece on the site (the first being The Adjacent Possible) and I'm grateful for the chance to share my writing more widely on such a wonderful site.

We Need More Animal Farms

I recently re-read Animal Farm. It's a short, compelling story that serves as a reminder of the pitfalls of perusing utopia. I think it has a lot of parallels to that of the tech world, but that's not the point I want to explore. (One could consider Dave Eggers's "The Circle" an attempt -- ineffectual, in my opinion -- to port Orwell's piercing satirical style to a book about a tech dystopia.)

I think we need more Animal Farms. We live in a world where the domain of facts is too easily manipulated. You have your facts; I have mine. Climate change skeptics are perhaps the most prominent example of this. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus, climate change deniers are simply not seriously considering the immense importance of the issue of climate change. Even among those who don't deny it, what's at stake isn't fully in view. For example, I think only one Democratic presidential candidate on the stage really got this question right.

The skeptics are suffering from epistemic closure ("closed systems of deduction, unaffected by empirical evidence), a phrase I first came across from reading Andrew Sullivan They exist in their own universe where the agreed upon rules of logic, evidence, and reason simply don't apply.

How then, do we pierce epistemic closure? Stories. Trojan horses with all the logos, pathos, and ethos to break them free. Neil Gaiman, in a truly wonderful seminar at the Long Now, neatly captures this idea:

The reason why story is so important to us is because it’s actually this thing that we have been using since the dawn of humanity to become more than just one person… Stories are ways that we communicate important things, but … stories maybe really are genuinely symbiotic organisms that we live with, that allow human beings to advance.

(some more transcribed highlights here)

We need more Animal Farms. If we don't find a way to pierce the epistemic closure of others, or spread stories to inoculate the unaffected from those who already suffer from a narrowed universe, we might not have a future in which to share more stories. Or, at the very least, we will constantly be wondering about the road not taken. We need more stories.

The Adjacent Possible

Stuart Kauffman, a complex-systems biologist, coined the term “adjacent possible” to explain the progression of simpler chemical structures to more complex ones. When simple chemical structures occupy the same space, they network with one another, each chemical structure talking to the others. The potential products of this mingling — new, more complex chemical structures — are possible realities that exist in a space Kauffman calls the adjacent possible. When new chemical structures do emerge, their very existence defines a new adjacent possible: a new mingling network with a new set of potential products.

Steven Johnson took Kauffman’s concept and applied it to ideas. “The adjacent possible,” Johnson writes in Where Good Ideas Come From, “is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself”. When the right components mingle in the same space, they chart out new territory of possible innovation. As an example, Johnson examines the isolation of oxygen as a component of air. Two pieces — the idea of viewing air as not a void but a substance with elements and the development of sensitive enough scales — connected to create an adjacent possible that included the isolation of oxygen. It was only when those two components were together that the adjacent possible was created and then made into reality. When that discovery was made, the scientists redefined both the edge of our knowledge and the edge of our potential knowledge.

Education is the means of getting to the edge. The raison d’être of education isn’t the raw accumulation of knowing; it’s interplay between what’s known, knowable, and possible. After all, knowledge by itself isn’t intrinsically useful. It’s only when, with that which is known firmly in hand, we enter into the shadow future and pull something back into the present that we actually create value. Humanity’s progress may simply be the process of trading glimpses into the adjacent possible for reality. With this in mind, education must equip us with the tools to tell the stories of the future. Standing at this edge of the possible, we are constantly remaking what the world is and what it could be.

What, then, does a good education look like in light of our role as storytellers of the future? To start, we recognize education’s role as a facilitator of new adjacent possibles. With this role, education becomes as much about better questions as is it is about better answers, as much about connecting ideas as it is creating new ones. An interdisciplinary education becomes a requirement, not a luxury. Problem solving looks less like looking for solutions and more like changing the recipe. A good education, then, is like a a good party planner, providing for the student a space for ideas to network and plenty of modes of transportation for the student to arrive at the edge.

This very essay could be a transport vehicle. The thoughts here -- Kauffman's and Johnson's ideas and what education ought to do for society -- are not new ones, per se; however, the paragraphs become playgrounds when the ideas come together. Through the play -- the connections between ideas -- the adjacent possible transforms. Old ideas, unlike old dogs, can learn new tricks.

Today, consider your own education. For your personal development, your knowledge as a member of a team, or for your studies in a particular discipline, what “structures” could you add in order to alter the adjacent possible? Who knows what could come from it? According to Johnson, you cannot know until you try.

This essay was originally published by The Caesura Letters on September 22, 2015 here as part of a week of pieces on the theme of education. The site is one of the most thoughtful spaces on the Internet (more about it here) and I'm very grateful for having my submission published.