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Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
Our search for solutions should begin with the binary thinking that is at the heart of the problem. Psychologists suggest that we can mitigate binary thinking by developing cognitive flexibility — that is, engaging with the complexity and variability of real life by taking into account multiple points of view. This is part of what we call empathy.
Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
If technology-inflected solitarist identity makes it difficult or impossible to identify and admire heroes, saints and sages, then it will be difficult or impossible for us to learn how to live well in the digital age.
Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
Further, as Zagzebski proposes, a crucial element in identifying moral exemplars is conscientious reflection: reasoning that melds the theoretical and the personal, considers the past and future, and takes place over a span of time and emotional states. Moral exemplars, she writes, are people we admire after this kind of reflection. And a key ingre... See more
Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
All people are flawed, a mix of good and bad, but we tend to see others as only one thing. The philosopher Amartya Sen calls this a “solitarist” approach to identity. And as we are biased toward negativity — a bad apple spoils the bunch — we are thrown off by a person’s bad character traits or past actions. Even minor ones. We identify people by th... See more
Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
What’s the main job of a hero? To save us from the darkness? That’s not quite right. Heroes — even fictional ones — help us become better people. They don’t just solve our problems; they make us better able to solve our problems ourselves.
Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
The way we learn right from wrong and live a good life, she writes, is not by memorizing rules, analyzing concepts or calculating outcomes — but by emulating those who we admire.
Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
It could be said that the success of our human future requires the pursuit of narrative, reflection and empathy. To be sure, we can move in that direction through education, civic discourse and therapy. But if the design of our digital technologies helped us get to where we are, then design can also help get us somewhere better. Indeed, there are a
... See moreTim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA
Solitarist identity is an example of dichotomous or binary thinking, one of the cognitive distortions that are evidently becoming more common, at least among young adults in the United States, according to George Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s analysis in “The Coddling of the American Mind.” Psychologists studying binary thinking have also found it... See more