“We’re complex creatures who sometimes hide the truth from ourselves and sometimes confront it. This book is about the less explored side of that coin, the times we succeed in not fooling ourselves, and what we can learn from those successes”
The Scout Mindset, by Julia Galef, is a guide through the way we reach conclusions. We often fool ourselves for many reasons, but we can see clearly if we try. Galef argues for why we should want to see clearly, and how to take steps in that direction. From climate change to breastfeeding, we often draw battle lines and marshall our arguments to beat the other side, regardless of what is actually true, and Galef’s explanation of these problems is excellent. I would recommend this book for people who make decisions…pretty wide group, but hopefully warranted.
Scouting the Territory
The titular ‘scout mindset’ is when you are motivated to see reality as it actually exists, not the way you wish things were. Scouts, as Galef calls them, try to weigh the evidence carefully, not overstate their case, and want to thoroughly understand all sides of an issue. A scout could faithfully state the strongest version of the other side’s arguments and is keenly aware of how certain they are about their own beliefs. They avoid angry shouting matches because that doesn’t lead to better understanding (except for conversations about the virtues of shouting). Intellectual honesty is extremely important and hopefully allows one to admit they were wrong instead of arguing for their side as hard as possible.
Sounds great, but the convicting part is that we often merely fool ourselves into thinking we are like this, rather than actually following through. After all, objectively speaking, how could the filthy people who disagree with you possibly stay that way? They must be ignoring the facts, reveling in their evil, and probably harming children when they aren’t busy being wrong. This process is so insidious because believing that you are right is easy. If you hold a belief, you must have found reasons to hold that belief that you found convincing. Since we often only think we are the objective ones, we have to employ different mental tricks to get away from fooling ourselves about how right we actually are. Failing to do this, and instead simply arguing for our own side is what Galef calls the ‘soldier mindset’. In this case, ideas are to be defended, rather than questioned.
Badgering Yourself
When we examine our beliefs, our reasoning makes a lot of sense. That makes actual objectivity difficult because we cannot escape our own minds. Galef goes through several thought experiments that help us avoid the trap of wrongly convincing ourselves we are right. One that I liked was the selective skeptic test. When confronted with evidence from the opposing side, we often try really hard to poke holes and make the evidence seem weaker. There is nothing wrong with this as long as the reasons to doubt are real, but the selective skeptic test asks us to go further. How often do we apply the same level of doubt to people that agree with us? We need to spend more time nitpicking our own arguments because they might be weaker than we like.
The other tests look at ways that we commonly deceive ourselves, and try to prevent us from losing touch with reality. In real life, remembering to do this, then following through, and actually doing it takes a ton of effort. I know that some people manage to succeed, but in an argument specifically, this seems to be forgotten more than remembered. Maybe the issue is that trying to be objective in an argument just sounds offputting. If someone calls you stupid, responding with “Well I definitely might be missing something here. What’s your opinion?” might deal such a psychological blow that the other person just leaves. I guess there’s a gap between what seems like a well-thought-out idea and what usually happens in an argument. I wonder if we are supposed to immediately drop into a new argument if someone insults us. If you get called a name, you are supposed to immediately accuse them of not having a scout mindset in turn. Probably not that literal, but is the idea just to avoid people who throw insults in general? Sounds difficult. These tests do raise one worry, which is that many issues in real life are often very unclear. If you don’t decide to believe some sort of evidence, even weak evidence, then you might end up doing less than people who are wrong and confident.
Does it Work?
If the idea of being as objective as possible is truly helpful, why is it not what you see in many of the most successful people? Galef cites a few examples of very successful people who are good at using the scout mindset, but I think this might be cherry-picking. She didn’t randomly select really successful people and happen to find that they all agreed in applying the same mental tricks that she recommends. This is bad because a lot of pop psychology books point out examples of people who became wildly successful after using their trick. “How to win friends and influence people” for example, seems to be almost entirely made of a principle followed by stories of how people used the principle and got rich, famous, and loved from doing so. Her examples do serve as proof that the scout mindset does not hamstring you from doing anything in life, but the people explicitly endorsing her line of thinking are few and far in between.
I wonder if it’s almost a lifestyle, like being a vegan. We have an ethical principle that many people would agree with like “animal cruelty is bad” or “knowing the truth is important”. Then most people, most of the time, myself included, go on to ignore that principle in their actions. We are left with a few people with whom the principle really clicks, and they actually change the way that they live their lives despite the inconvenience. I would guess that people who find communities of other scouts would find the scout mindset much easier than someone who is surrounded by soldiers. Galef encourages us to go online and find people who think well if we can’t find anyone in real life. We are lucky to live in a time where that seems at least doable. Although… this is exactly what a cult leader would say. “Change the way you think, find new friends, and try to convince everyone to read your book!”
Believe My Science
One interesting and unique feature that I like is the way Galef finds evidence for her cause. I’m struck that most books, when citing evidence, will appeal to the most official source they can find. This usually means linking to an academic paper. Galef, in contrast, cites academia, as well as blogs and YouTubers. The difference is striking in how much more legible her sources are. While internet sources don’t carry the implied gravitas of scientific journals, they actually affect people’s opinions in real life. Without the authority of an institution, they are also much easier to examine critically. Even if a scientific paper is wrong, criticizing the grand scientists who are certified to be smart is tough unless you carry even more prestigious certifications. On the other hand, if someone is wrong on the internet, disagreeing is trivially easy.
The counterargument would be that we should trust the experts to produce facts. While this would be true in an ideal world, our world is not as great. Anecdotally, isn’t it weird that a promising new drug to cure cancer has been discovered and paraded through the news every few months for the last 20 years? Scientific research is worthy of its own post, my post on scientific freedom touches on it, and here is another podcast which explains why scientific research often produces false or inconclusive results which are passed off as true. In the context of The Scout Mindset, sources are not assumed to be conclusive. That is a refreshing change from seeing a badly done study being passed off as a fact.
Coping Without Moping
One chapter that is especially relevant to me was called coping with reality. I recently broke my ankle pretty badly in a rock-climbing accident (the ER doctor said it was the worst he had ever seen, although my surgeon had seen worse). I had the dubious distinction of taking a tasting flight of opiates including all the name-brand ones that cause addiction and get plastered on the news for destroying lives, and I had to have surgery to fix my leg. As one side effect, I’ve gotten a TON of advice on coping, which lets me compare Galef’s advice.
Often, we hear that bad things are actually the best things ever, or that the bad thing was simply a state of mind. The author’s point is those incorrect modes of thinking are unhelpful and often make things worse. Therefore, a scout copes with bad things without believing things that aren’t true. I’m sure there are a ton of ways to cope like that, but Galef picks a few as examples. Making a plan, noticing silver linings, focusing on different goals, and thinking about how things could be worse are all included. You should buy the book for more specific instances of how these things work, and one hilarious look at how the research on the benefits of self-deception is, itself, self-deceiving. Hopefully the strategies make enough sense, so I’ll apply them to my situation and see how they do against a broken bone.
In making a plan, I have to think about how I will get to walk again in concrete steps. This type of coping seems to primarily oppose thinking about how my ankle will be broken forever and I’ll be cruising on crutches for the rest of my life. The plan is to wiggle my toes, then my whole foot, slowly start bearing weight, walk 10 feet, then around my block, then run and finally, go back to rock climbing (and don’t go bouldering higher than where it’s safe).
This works OK. I do like the idea of being able to see the road to recovery, but I don’t like comparing my current physical goals to my past physical goals. I know that my plan involves eventually returning to my past goals, but involves several inconvenient steps. The key to this seems to be updating your perception of what needs to be done fully to the present, without wistfully thinking about how you would be doing different things if the bad thing weren’t happening.
When we notice silver linings, we try to do so without believing something false, like “I’m so grateful to have broken a bone because my ankle will be even stronger on the other side!” In my case, my silver linings are that the story is cool, and I do rate safety much higher than before in a way that might save my life in the future. Remember kids, always check your landings, and double-check when someone tells you “it’s safe to jump”.
Again, this sort of works. It’s entertaining to think about the WHOOSH of jumping off the wall, the intensity of hopping down to the nearest road, and the fun of riding a knee scooter (you should buy one for fun). It doesn’t exactly dull the pain, but gets at the idea that I get to keep interesting memories after the pain goes away.
Focusing on a different goal was my least favorite. My goals pre-injury were fun to pursue, but perhaps I have not yet been imaginative enough. I did achieve my goal of getting through my entire reading list. Sitting for hours gives me ample opportunity to stare at a book, which I enjoy. The problem is that many of my goals pre-injury seemed much more interesting to pursue. I’ll mark this as incomplete until I find something fun and engaging which I can still do.
Finally, and my favorite, “things could be worse”. I got extremely lucky in only breaking an ankle. Had I fallen differently, I could have broken both legs, both arms, paralyzed myself, or even died. These have all happened to people before and could have happened to me as well. Frankly, a single broken bone is among one of the best outcomes from falling as far as I did. For that reason, even though I only have one leg, it’s awesome to even have that! I can reach cabinets, stand normally, type with both thumbs, and I will recover eventually.
I think my own coping strategy comes from people who have had it much worse. I like reading about books where people persevere through horrible things, so when I read this section on coping strategies, a ton of examples came to mind. I wasn’t the victim of genocide, nor being tortured in a prisoner of war camp, nor did I have any of the diseases which cause extreme pain. There are many people alive right now who would consider their prayers answered if they could swap places with me. I think that coping strategy works best for me, although you might be different. The author never suggests reading about the worst things, but I think it works very well.
Galef points out that you should find your ideal way of coping, and the ways she writes about are not some sort of deeply true wisdom but strategies to test. I hope that walking through my own injury was helpful, and the next time something bad happens, you handle it well.
The End
There is a lot more in this book from interesting stories of people doggedly going after the truth to conversion stories of regular people slowly walking back wacky beliefs that they once thought were true. I haven’t even come close to exhausting it, and you should give it a read. Julia makes great jokes, writes in a new way that is much different from most other writers in this space, and I’m glad to have read it.