A short history of truth

Absolutely loved this talk. The speaker had such humility, clearly thoughtful, with strong opinions, yet never dogmatic. The philosopher’s portion runs roughly from minute 20 to 50 and is well worth it.

One point that really stayed with me was his take on education. He sees it not just as academic training, but as social training. School, he says, is where we first learn that people are different from us. We discover that we learn at different paces, have different strengths, and come from different stories and contexts. Ultimately, he argues that schools should reflect on and invest more in the kind of character they’re shaping vs "getting people through it".

I also really related to his observation that on many issues, we don’t feel fully informed, so we default to our values. And I couldn’t agree more with his critique of “cluster thinking”: the tendency to bundle together ideas and assign them to political identities, which often distorts and blocks real critical thought. His example was environmentalism being traditionally seen as a left-wing concern, but this idea applies to so many topics.

I’ll stop there because you really have to listen to it yourself, I’m not doing his ideas justice. But one final thing I loved: his reminder that we should "try to understand where people are coming from, rather than writing them off as irrational or insane". (!!!) I can absolutely be guilty of this, although I wouldn't be as eloquent at explaining it!

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/critical-conversations-a-series-addressing/id1587543489?i=1000536620706