Sublime

If you are not in a position of authority, then you can help protect troublemakers by making sure they are invited to meetings. And when they do say something that creates disequilibrium, you can choose to be curious: ask them to say more about their idea rather than allow everyone else in the room to ignore them.

“He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”

We’re talking about what psychologists today would describe as the “adaptive unconscious.” Timothy Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, has described this in his important book Strangers to Ourselves (a very Augustinian title!). Over the past twenty years psychology has come to appreciate the overwhelming influence of

Social Justice approaches that focus solely on group identity and neglect individuality and universality are doomed to fail for the simple reasons that people are individuals and share a common human nature.

My favorite bias is the “I’m not biased”25 bias, in which people believe they’re more objective than others. It turns out that smart people are more likely to fall into this trap.26

the people adopted just enough of the majority stance to be seen as acceptable members of the town.

We are all subject to reactions that researchers call the “halo effect.”