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This Lawrence Hirschfield attack on cross-cultural psychology makes many good points, and several flawed ones booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journa…

Hirchfield doesn't like the concept of 'culture.' As in "you and I come from different cultures." He attacks it from two angles one stronger than the other.

The weaker angle is the broader deconstrcutionist project anthropology has waged against the concept since the 1980s. Most cultural groupings are fluid, imaginary, etc. etc. My response to this type of argument amounts to this: so what?

o I am a sucker for "Great Books" reading lists. About once a year I check the two St. Johns' reading lists to see what is part of their current canon.

Reading it this year has prompted a question.

I notice that these lists crawl slowly forward through time. The general rule seems to be not to add anything less than 80 years old. They end with Wittgenstein and Heidegger (the '30s).

Say you had to push the lists forward 40 y. What "great thinkers" would need to be added?

My take is that you'd need to add four things (categories really).

The first would be one of the great writers to confront Totalitarianism at its full tide. Arendt, Levi, Grossman, solzhenitsyn, Havel, or what have you. Choose whoever best fits the book schedule, I suppose.

How do we know what we know about what is happening in Xinjiang? The gov won't be honest on the podiums, so where do we find out what is up?

There are 5 streams of info:

[1/x]

1) Reporters (and other travelers) who actually go to Xinjiang & write up what they see (examples: wsj.com/articles/twelv…; japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/2…)

2) Official statements, statistics, or information published by the government--especially for administrative reasons/domestic consumption, or leaks from CPC officials themselves (examples:hrw.org/news/2018/05/1…; apnews.com/17fc345187e74e…; rfa.org/english/news/u…)

#1 thing I have done to become a sharper thinker and analyst this last year:

For every major belief I have, I write down what information I would need, how the situation would have to change, or what would need to be proven to me to convince me that this belief is false.

Why is it so important to write it down? (Or at least tell someone else?)

Because rationality did not evolve to help us be better thinkers. It evolved to help us conquer, cajole, and justify.

We are built to rationalize.

So basically, if you write down what you will need to change your mind prior to actually encountering those things, you are much, much more likely to actually change your mind.

I have a few thoughts on this. I'll suggest that there is more that separates reporters from the great mass of humanity than the money their parents make. Class, yes. But class is more than just money.

What follows applies not just to journos--think tank world is very [1/x]

https://twitter.com/melissakchan/status/1035206969706127362

similar. So is academia, but to a slightly lesser extent.

Go into any international newsroom and ask, "how many of you went to an Ivy league school?" 30-60% will raise their hands, no question. If we bump that to "top 20" then the % would climb even higher

This si why there are 500x the articles published 'bout Harvard than there are published 'bout community colleges, despite the numbers and relative importance each holds in American life