proper sense of the word

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.