“If looking for a break from the relentless assault of Trump news, one could do worse than George Saunders and his new novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. With the book’s release, the acclaimed writer of weird, short fiction is also doing the requisite press rounds, dispensing insights just about on par with his life-affirming commencement address from a few years back.”
“He brings up Ivan’s exhortation on book tour: “One role of literature, I’ll tell them, is to be the guy with the hammer, saying, ‘Look, we’re all pretty happy right now, but let’s just not forget the fact our happiness doesn’t eradicate the suffering of others,’” he explains. That’s the “lazy nature of happiness”: If you’re breezing along feeling good, you won’t bother yourself with thinking about all those that have it bad.”
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason.
www.newyorker.com/…
“Once formed,” the researchers observed dryly, “impressions are remarkably perseverant.”
“Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” the researchers noted. In this case, the failure was “particularly impressive,” since two data points would never have been enough information to generalize from.”
“The Enigma of Reason,” “The Knowledge Illusion,” and “Denying to the Grave” were all written before the November election. And yet they anticipate Kellyanne Conway and the rise of “alternative facts.” These days, it can feel as if the entire country has been given over to a vast psychological experiment being run either by no one or by Steve Bannon. Rational agents would be able to think their way to a solution. But, on this matter, the literature is not reassuring. “
Now on with the tweet train: