How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

"Absolutely splendid . . . essential for understanding why there is so much bad thinking in political life right now."Â â€”David Brooks, New York Times

How to Think is a contrarian treatise on why weâ€™re not as good at thinking as we assumeâ€”but how recovering this lost art can rescue our inner lives from the chaos of modern life.
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As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harperâ€™s, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in Americaâ€™s culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide usâ€”political, social, religiousâ€”Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because weâ€™re doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply arenâ€™t thinking.
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Most of us donâ€™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 thatâ€™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.
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In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinkingâ€”forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, â€œalternative facts,â€ and information overloadâ€”and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: Itâ€™s impossible to â€œthink for yourself.â€)
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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.
Country USA
Manufacturer Crown Currency
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2017-10-17
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Crown Currency
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2017-10-17
Format	Kindle eBook

How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds

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