How To Improve Critical Thinking, Embrace Uncertainty, and Stop Self-Censoring | Jenara Nerenberg
Dan Harris speaks with journalist and author Jenara Nerenberg about navigating increasingly toxic public conversations. They discuss how to develop critical thinking, stop self-censoring, engage with differing viewpoints, and embrace nuance in a world of groupthink and self-silencing.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
The Problem of Toxic Public Conversation and Groupthink
Introducing Jenara Nerenberg and 'Trust Your Mind'
Origins of Interest in Groupthink and Nuance
Groupthink Across the Political Spectrum, Especially the Left
Social Media's Impact on Critical Thinking and Identity
Groupthink and Self-Silencing's Contribution to Loneliness
Health Implications of Self-Silencing
Navigating Past Online Posts and 'Cancel Culture'
Starting Small to Overcome Self-Silencing
Developing Strength to Dissent and Finding Supportive Communities
Exploring the 'Heterodox' Space for Diverse Viewpoints
The Importance of Communicating Underlying Emotions
Balancing Vulnerability and Avoiding Counterproductive Oversharing
Recognizing Your Tipping Point for Speaking Up
Debate as an Antidote to Black-and-White Thinking
The Role of Comedy in Challenging Social Norms
6 Key Concepts
Groupthink
A phenomenon where people in a group conform to the perceived consensus, often suppressing individual thoughts and critical thinking, leading to a diminished ability to see unique individuals and nuance. It is observed across social movements and political spectrums.
Self-silencing
The act of suppressing one's true thoughts or questions due to fear of negative consequences, such as being canceled, fired, or attacked. This phenomenon is strongly correlated with depression and low self-esteem.
Predatory listening
A term describing when someone listens to another person primarily to find a part where they can tear them down or criticize them. This contributes to an atmosphere of fear and self-silencing in the culture.
Heterodox space
Online communities and thinkers who value unconventional viewpoints and dissent, often questioning dogmatism across political spectrums. These spaces aim to empower diverse viewpoints and provide a welcoming environment for curious people allergic to groupthink.
Authentic free speech
Beyond simply 'letting loose' or saying anything, it involves communicating what's truly happening underneath the surface-level 'culture wars.' This means expressing deeper emotions like sadness, hurt, or fear, leading to more authentic and potentially transformative conversations.
Contact Hypothesis
The idea that having contact with people who are different from oneself can lead to increased open-mindedness and reduced stress in cross-group interactions. Exposure to diverse friend circles can build capacity and tolerance for uncertainty.
11 Questions Answered
It means arriving at a point where one can trust their own mind after learning how to question groupthink and developing critical thinking skills.
Groupthink, fueled by algorithms that thrive on outrage and over-categorization of people, combined with a fear of speaking up or saying the wrong thing, strips away nuance and curiosity, making genuine human connection and true relationships impossible.
Self-silencing is strongly correlated with depression, low self-esteem, and low self-confidence, and it contributes to a heightened climate of fear due to uncertainty about how one is perceived.
This is a complex, nuanced, and case-by-case question with no blanket answer, depending on factors like free speech advocacy, the nature of the posts, and the specific context (e.g., hiring decisions).
The first step is to learn to get comfortable holding uncertainty, as asking questions or expressing different views online or offline means not knowing what response you will receive.
Finding other people who are comfortable with dissent and value it, often by seeking out 'heterodox' spaces online, can help build this strength. True community allows for disagreement, rather than just agreement.
One practical tip is to state your positive intention at the beginning of a potentially difficult conversation, explaining that you are sharing vulnerable information because you value the relationship and want to connect more deeply.
While vulnerability has been positive for mental health conversations, it can become counterproductive if it leads to over-categorization, victim mindsets, or contagion effects. The line between helpful and not helpful is often whether the sharing includes something actionable or is 'teaching from scars, not wounds.'
This is both an individual and a structural issue; individually, it involves learning to regulate oneself and stay curious, while structurally, it benefits from exposure to diverse environments, friend groups, and viewpoints, which can reduce stress in cross-group interactions.
Training in debate, especially preparing to argue multiple sides of an issue, forces individuals to see various perspectives and realize that the world isn't black and white, fostering a more detached and empathetic understanding.
Comedy forces critical thinking, offers healing through laughter, reduces stress, and brings people together. Tolerating provocative comedy is important because its benefits in pushing boundaries and unifying people often outweigh the risks of potential offense.
19 Actionable Insights
1. Learn Buddhist Antidote to Anxiety
Attend the live meditation mini-series (May 19-23, 4 PM Eastern) at danharris.com to learn practices like loving-kindness meditation and the Brahma-Viharas, which are described as the ‘Buddhist antidote to anxiety’ and have physiological, psychological, and behavioral benefits.
2. Question Groupthink, Build Critical Thinking
Actively question groupthink and work to develop your critical thinking skills to arrive at a point where you can truly trust your own mind, as this is the core message of the book ‘Trust Your Mind’.
3. Embrace Uncertainty to Overcome Self-Silencing
Learn to become comfortable with holding uncertainty, as this is identified as the crucial first step in overcoming self-silencing both online and offline, because asking questions means not knowing the response.
4. State Positive Intentions in Conflict
Before engaging in a difficult conversation, identify your positive intention (e.g., wanting a good relationship) and articulate it to the other person. This lowers defenses and keeps the prefrontal cortex online, fostering more authentic and productive communication.
5. Teach From Scars, Not Wounds
When sharing personal struggles or vulnerabilities, especially regarding mental health, aim to teach from ‘scars’ (lessons learned after overcoming a challenge) rather than ‘wounds’ (current, active struggles). This ensures that sharing is helpful and productive, coming from a place of resolution.
6. Recognize Discomfort with Groupthink
Pay attention to and honor feelings of discomfort or an ‘allergic response’ when you notice a lack of diverse viewpoints or difficulty speaking up in your social circles or online. This discomfort is a healthy sign that you are recognizing an unreal, ‘flattened’ culture and is the first step towards seeking authenticity.
7. Privately Explore Diverse Viewpoints
Privately seek out and get informed about models for diverse conversations and viewpoints, such as emerging ‘heterodox’ spaces online. This helps you learn how to engage in healthy, productive dissent without immediately confronting your existing social circles.
8. Initiate Nuanced Small Group Talks
After privately getting comfortable with diverse viewpoints, initiate one-on-one or small group conversations by sharing what you’ve noticed or read and asking open-ended questions like, ‘What do you think about that?’ This allows you to articulate nuances and discover that others may share similar thoughts or questions.
9. Find Others Who Value Dissent
Actively seek out and connect with people who are comfortable with dissent and value diverse opinions. This is crucial for feeling comfortable expressing your own differing views and building real community based on authenticity.
10. Explore Heterodox Online Communities
If you are genuinely curious about diverse viewpoints and have an allergy to groupthink, explore ‘heterodox’ spaces on the internet, such as the Heterodox Academy or related podcasters and YouTubers. These communities are described as welcoming and full of curious people.
11. Redefine ‘Safe Space’
Shift your understanding of a ‘safe space’ to mean being around people with whom it is okay to disagree, rather than just those who agree with you. This allows for authentic interaction and dissent, fostering genuine connection.
12. Connect While Disagreeing
Cultivate connection and a sense of belonging with others, even when you hold differing opinions. This approach builds real community based on authenticity, rather than simply repeating talking points for the sake of belonging.
13. Be Comfortable Being a Loner
Develop comfort with being a bit of a loner, as this mindset is often necessary to feel comfortable dissenting in various settings and to seek out authentic connections.
14. Practice Seeing Multiple Sides
Engage in practices, such as competitive debate where you don’t know which side you’ll argue, that require you to see many sides of an issue. This develops the skill of imagining others’ perspectives, reduces black-and-white thinking, and fosters compassion and empathy.
15. Diversify Your ‘Viewpoint Diet’
Actively expose yourself to a ‘viewpoint diet’ by seeking out opinions from people in different social circles, not just different media. This can encourage critical thinking and increase your capacity and tolerance for uncertainty.
16. Build Cross-Racial Friendships
Cultivate friendships across racial lines and diverse backgrounds. Extensive exposure to cross-racial friendships reduces stress about cross-racial interactions and helps your nervous system feel reassured, expanding your capacity for uncertainty.
17. Ask About Cultural Backgrounds
Overcome fear by asking basic questions about someone’s cultural background or how they grew up doing something. These questions used to be a source of rich conversation and can help foster connection and curiosity.
18. Share Solutions with Vulnerability
When sharing vulnerability, particularly around mental health issues, ensure you also share something that can be done about it or a solution. This makes the sharing productive, providing normalization and help rather than just ‘wallowing’.
19. Tolerate Provocative Comedy
Be open to tolerating provocative comedy, even if it seems risky or potentially offensive, because its benefits in forcing critical thinking, healing, reducing stress, and unifying people often outweigh the cons of potential offense.
7 Key Quotes
I think the left has been such a powerful force in championing marginalized communities, but then when we only see people as a group, I think we really lose the plot.
Jenara Nerenberg
If we're all so tight and in fear of saying the wrong thing or asking a question, there's no way that human beings can connect with one another because friction and tension are part of life and they're frankly part of connection and love and getting to know someone and feeling close to someone.
Jenara Nerenberg
You can say whatever you want to me because I'll never kick you out of my heart.
Seven A. Selassie (quoted by Dan Harris)
I don't think a safe space is just being with a bunch of people who agree with you. It's actually being around people who it's okay to disagree with.
Jenara Nerenberg
We should teach from scars, not wounds.
Dan Harris (quoting an unnamed source)
I think the next place that we need to go in this national debate is for people to figure out what's going on underneath.
Jenara Nerenberg
I think the first step is really noticing that and honoring it and not really questioning it, just being like, okay, like this is the reality. I'm part of this online world. There seems to be a very flat, a flattening effect, flat culture that I'm observing.
Jenara Nerenberg
1 Protocols
Overcoming Self-Silencing and Fostering Authentic Communication
Jenara Nerenberg & Dan Harris (quoting Mudita Nisker and Dan Klerman, and another unnamed source)- Recognize your 'tipping point' by noticing when you feel fed up with the flattening effect of online culture, the lack of diversity in thought, and the difficulty of speaking up or disagreeing, honoring this 'allergic response' as a healthy sign.
- Get informed and seek models by privately looking into 'new emerging spaces for diverse conversation and viewpoints,' such as 'heterodox' communities online, to see how healthy and productive dissent can be done.
- Initiate small, private conversations by bringing up what bothers you or what questions you have in a one-on-one or small group setting, for example, by saying, 'Hey, I was reading this thing, what do you think about that?' or 'I've kind of noticed X, Y, and Z.'
- Communicate positive intention by prefacing vulnerable or revelatory statements with your goal for the relationship, such as 'I'm telling you this because I want to have a good relationship with you' or 'I want to get closer,' to help lower defenses.
- Teach from scars, not wounds, ensuring that if you share personal struggles, especially mental health issues, you are on the other side of the experience and can offer something helpful or learned, rather than sharing from a place of active decompensation.