Before You Have That Argument At Thanksgiving...
Ohayogozaimasu and hello from Tokyo! Welcome to the latest Snow Report on thinking different. This week we discuss a tool for recognizing our own, gasp!, political biases:
IF YOU’RE LIKE ME, you probably think you’re right about a lot of things. Even if you’ve been working on practicing intellectual humility, it’s hard to operate in life without being sure about things.
But sometimes we’re sure about things that aren’t true. And one of the biggest areas where this quickly turns tense is—you guessed it—politics.
Well, this week I stumbled on a marvelous little test that blew my mind about my political biases, and it did it in a way that didn’t even bruise my ego. If you’re anticipating any talk of politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table this week (or in your life in general, for those Snow Report readers living outside of the US!), I highly suggest you take a moment out of your day to take:
This thing tests your knowledge of the facts around some current political issues, and then tells you where your own biases are on things you don’t know the facts on. It’s super clever, and really easy to get through.
Now bias isn’t such a scary thing all the time. It can simply indicate what angle you tend to look at things first. But often it indicates where your “guesses” about things you don’t actually know are more rooted in your mind than they should be.
Understanding where your weak spots are is an incredible way to become a better person—and a more pleasing conversationalist over turkey dinner.
So take a minute to give this test a shot, and feel free to pass this along to anyone you’ll be dining with this week. Maybe it’ll facilitate a more fascinating dinner discussion.
*
Stay tuned next time for a big post I’m working on about intellectually dishonest debate—and how to argue like a righteous champion. I’m excited!
Much love,
Shane