Intellectual Humility in a Polarized World

At a time when complex technology of all sorts is exploding, and voluminous information about the world is at our literal fingertips, one commodity in oddly short supply is intellectual humility. And in these polarized times, we’ve become shockingly convinced that somehow our political allies can decipher reality with utter clarity, and it’s only our ideological foes who are thoroughly, utterly, and so very dangerously WRONG. Turns out, according to our special guest Dr. Kurt Gray, of UNC-Chapel Hill’s “Center for the Science of Moral Understanding,” our brains are designed to notice patterns and make generalizations to keep us safe, not so much to find truth with accuracy. This design quirk leads to us overgeneralizing what we think we know in unproductive ways. We’ll imagine what we might achieve together if we remember and restore intellectual humility to our politics and planet.