proper sense of the word
20
proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves
profess. (129)
Yet this skill of sophisticated unnatural belief is not much understood or
celebrated in our culture—and almost never taught.
Imagine, for example, a seminar or a meeting where lots of ideas
come up. One person is quick to point out flaws in each idea as it is
presented. A second person mostly listens and gets intrigued with each
idea–and tends to make comments like these: “Oh I see” and “That’s
interesting” and “Tell me more about such and such” and “As I go with
your thinking, I begin to see some things I never noticed before.” This
second person may be appreciated as a good listener, but the first
person will tend to be considered smarter and a better thinker because
of that quick skill at finding flaws.
I used to feel that I was unintelligent because when one person
gave an argument I would feel, “Oh that’s a good idea,” but then when
the other person argued the other way, I found myself feeling, “Oh that
sounds good, too.” I wondered what was the matter with my loose,
sloppy mind to let me agree with people and ideas that are completely
at odds with each other. The “smart people” tended to argue cleverly
and find flaws that I didn’t notice. But now I’m finally insisting that my
instinctive ability to play the believing game is not just “niceness” or
sloppy thinking; it’s a crucial intellectual strength rather than a weakness-
–a discipline that needs to be taught and developed.
Let me emphasize that I’m not arguing against the doubting game.
We need the ability to be skeptical and find flaws. Indeed, the doubting
game probably deserves the last word in any valid process of trying to
work out trustworthy thinking. For even though the scrutiny of belief may
lead us to choose a good idea that most people at first wanted to throw
away, nevertheless, we mustn’t commit ourselves to that idea before
applying the scrutiny of doubt to check for hidden problems.
My only argument is against the monopoly of the doubting game as
the only kind of good thinking. We need both disciplines. Some of our
most needed insights come from opinions that are easy to criticize or
dismiss. But those insights are only available if people work at entering
into such opinions in search of unnoticed virtues.