Manifesto
Radical Listening —
Why Civil Words
Must Replace
Civil Wars
What if the future depends not on who shouts loudest, but who listens smartest?
Bob Rosenschein
June 4, 2025
© DRAFT V0.99.14b - not for release
Contents
Intro: the Point: Civil Words or Civil Wars
The Story of Self
0. Personal Backstory: Four Stories Drive Me
The Story of Us — How We Got Here
1. All in Your Head: What if I’m Wrong
2. Past/Fast Forgotten: History is Like a Foreign Country — They Speak a Different Language There
3. Unspoken Assumptions: Culture Trumps Strategy
4. Future Shock: Fast & Furious
5. That’s Entertainment: Please Don’t Make Me ThinkThe Story of Now — What Next?
6. Head & Heart & Gut: What Makes Us Tick(ed-off)
7. Freedom Versus Equality: They’re Not the Same
8. Free Speech: How Dare You Hurt My Feelings!
9. Death of All-or-Nothing: Black and White is Easy — It’s Gray that’s Hard
10. In (the) Balance: ±10% Rule
Intro: the Point
Civil Words or Civil Wars
“The problem with people is that they’re only human.” — Bill Watterson
“I can’t hear you when you’re shouting.” — Diane Rosenschein
This is a story in three parts — Self, Us, and Now — presenting a vision of how we listen, speak, and survive together.
Our society has enjoyed peace and prosperity for so long that disaster seems unimaginable. Technology extends our lives but it can’t shield us from societal shocks or external threats. If anger keeps steering, we are heading for a crash.
Numbers hint at why conversation feels brittle. Four in five Americans fear the country is sliding into chaos1. We wake up each morning and read the Daily Me or Daily Outrage.
Some conflicts truly are all-or-nothing, but most involve give and take. Oversimplifying disagreements into “good vs. evil” or “us vs. them,” sabotages us. The trap is binary: you’re-either-for-us-or-against-us. But the greatest black-and-white danger is black-and-white thinking itself.
We must re-learn and reinvent the art of civil discourse, for reasons both moral and pragmatic.
Being right is not enough! You’ve got to be smart, too. Because, in a world of shouting, even truth is easily ignored.
I’m just a software guy watching our communication fray in disrespect and toxicity. This essay is my stand for humaneness, summed up in my ±10% Rule below.
The theme is resilience, supported by self-awareness, mutual respect, empathy, curiosity, humility, and maybe some kindness.
A. AngerNation
“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” — Howard Beale, Network (1976)
“We seem divided between those who think we can do no right and those who think we can do no wrong.” — Daniel Taub
Welcome to AngerNation:
Exhaustion
Dwindling trust
Short attention spans
Defiant arrogance
Moral absolutes
Winning-at-all-costs
Bashing for sport
Fact-free shouting matches.
We are in an age of “can-you-believe!” WhatsApp groups2 and self-inflicted domestic political meltdown.
We spend 70% less time with friends compared to a decade ago.3
It’s natural to feel overwhelmed by rapid change and AI. Our town square has morphed into a digital Colosseum — part cyberbullying, part shaming, part mob rule — an anger-management crisis.
“FOPO” — ‘Fear of Other People’s Opinions’ — may silence us, but the worst censorship is our own — we self-censor or parrot louder voices to dodge conflict (and critical thinking). We live at a time of the Silenced Majority.4
As Daniel Taub explains in his groundbreaking new book, “Beyond Dispute,” our fight-or-flight response kicks in. Some people avoid arguments altogether, while others relish disagreements as battles to win at any cost. But this boat we’re all in together.
Sanctimonious politicians, media, and tech giants profit from polarization, fueling the dopamine rush of outrage to keep us scrolling, voting, and glued to our screens. It all goes into the politics of identity and resentment. Spoiler alert: you’ve been played.
Now, righteous rage does offer an adrenaline hit, but it also breeds anxiety, depression, fried-minds, loneliness, and plain-stupid decisions. Young people bear the brunt, possibly tied to their receiving 237 average notifications daily.5
Social media favors that which divides us. The most popular headlines are ones that disturb, shock, and enrage.6
In “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt identifies four foundational great rewiring shifts in children: (1) a dramatic increase in screen time and social media use; (2) a corresponding decline in in-person social interaction; (3) reduced opportunities for independent play and exploration; and (4) changes in parenting norms that prioritize overprotection. These shifts combine to create a developmental mismatch — children are not receiving the kinds of experiences necessary for healthy psychological growth.
B. Hyper-Reality
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” — Yogi Berra
“You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.” — Marlo Stanfield [Jaime Hector] (“The Wire”)
“Reality, what a concept!” — Robin Williams
Exaggerations may win elections but crumble in reality. Complexity does not mean surrender or naïve hand-holding — it means survival. It means recognizing that opposing views are not inherently ignorant or evil. Instead of mocking, we should be asking each other (and ourselves) honest, even awkward, questions.
C. Healing Path
“The conservative who resists change is as valuable to society as the radical who proposes it.” — Will & Ariel Durant
“If you worry, you don’t need to worry. If you don’t worry, you need to worry.” — Ray Dalio
How do we step back from the brink? Work towards a culture of common decency where disagreements don’t necessarily spiral into blind hatred.
Sam Harris said, “All we have between us and the total breakdown of civilization is a series of successful conversations. If we can’t reason with each other, there really is no path forward but violence.”
This document isn’t about Equator’s new product but rather the rationale and passion behind it: honest questions minus the nastiness or contempt, and refusing to treat every disagreement as a fight to the death.
Wisdom is not just about being right — it’s about humility. As Ed Koch put it, “If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.”
BTW, I hope you won’t agree with me about everything here. How boring would that be!
We push no single ideology. We support candid speech — without fear of cancellation or exile — paired with openness. Cynicism and disillusion can destroy us just as surely as bombs.7
Where civil dialogue dies, civil war — figurative or actual — eventually explodes. Later, we’ll wake up in disbelief and ask, “How did that happen?” We humans are creatures of intense emotions. That doesn’t mean we have to sleepwalk toward an avoidable cliff, propelled by resentment.
How do we move forward, as a people, as a nation, as a species? Rachel Goldberg-Polin says that, in a world where everything can change in the blink of an eye, our job is to reconstruct, our job is to save ourselves.
Mission: Enable constructive, inclusive, and informed conversations on important topics through innovative technology.
Our vision: A world where people engage with more empathy, curiosity, and clarity — online and off.
The Place Where We Are Right
— Yehuda AmichaiFrom the place where we are right,
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, like a plow
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
The Story of Self
0. Personal Backstory
Four Stories Drive Me
“We have two lives, and the second begins when you realize you only have one.” — Mário De Andrade
“Expect surprises.” — Ray Dalio
Here’s what inspires me.
A. European Roots
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Viktor Frankl
“Why does it take a disaster for things to change?” — Jonathan Larson
My earliest memories precede my birth.8 My parents grew up in the town of Mukachevo (Munkács) in eastern Czechoslovakia, enjoying quiet lives as storm clouds gathered over 1930s Europe. My Dad once heard Ze’ev Jabotinsky warn Jews to escape Europe while they could. Few listened.
On March 19, 1944, the Nazis marched into Mukachevo. Within a month, on the Seventh of Passover, Jews were forced into an overcrowded ghetto, schlepping what little they could drag. On May 22 they were marched again, neighbors jeering, packed like sardines into cattle cars, no food, water, or sanitation, for their final 3-day journey, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
At “Selection,” my Mom, age 23, and her sister were sent to the right: slave labor. Forty-eight other family members, aged 2 to 70, went left, directly to the airless gas-chambers and cremation-ovens.
On May 25, Mukachevo was declared “Judenrein,” “free” of its 28,587 Jews.
That same day, in Birkenau, my father, age 25, was commanded to write a postcard praising his treatment. When asked whom he was writing, he said, “My mother.” A nearby prisoner smacked his head: “Dummkopf! That is your mother coming out of that smokestack!” Even there, the unspeakable was unimaginable.
Dad endured heavy, pointless labor at Buchenwald Concentration Camp, where guards amused themselves tossing food scraps, watching starving prisoners claw at each other for crumbs.
My mother experienced forced labor at Weißwasser, then Bergen-Belsen, dreading the pre-dawn roll calls in pajamas in the howling subzero winds. But her most traumatic memory was witnessing a mountain of corpses, executed for the capital offense of possessing at least ¼ Jewish blood.
On April 15, 1945, British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen, unintentionally providing food too rich for the skeletal survivors. Mom nearly died of typhus.
My parents married in a refugee camp in Fürth, Bavaria, in 1946, receiving a teacup and saucer as a wedding gift. In 1949, the Truman administration admitted Jewish Holocaust survivors to America. My parents, Meir and Yenti, became Martin and Yolanda, settling in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and opening Rose Family Cleaners.
Dad was a logical, pragmatic, optimistic but never naïve man. His simple lesson was, “If someone threatens to kill you — or your family — just believe him!”
For more about my parents, see my video tribute and posts here.9
B. Sixties Child
“Don’t trust anyone over 30.” — Jack Weinberg
“All you need is love.” — The Beatles
Born in 1953, my childhood in Harrisburg was quiet and happy, alongside my older and younger brothers. Eisenhower was president. Mom and Dad proudly became American citizens in 1958. I attended Yeshiva (now Silver) Academy, then Susquehanna Township Public High School, with summers at Camp Ramah in the Poconos.
My youth bridged cultures during an exhilarating decade. Antisemitism seemed unfashionable. The 1960s reshaped everything — from culture and technology to politics. Just 2½ months after the Kennedy assassination, the Beatles (with their “long hair”) performed on Ed Sullivan (in black & white), sparking a seismic cultural shift. I was ten.
One Camp Ramah teacher was David Mogilner, who told us a simple lesson. “Why on Earth does the scapegoat keep provoking the bully on the playground?” Nobody answered. “Because the unknown is scarier than unpleasant predictability. Nothing terrifies people like having to change.”
Another teacher, Mike Rosenak, taught us how reality defies binary thinking. For example, most people would define a nation as a group with common borders, history, currency, language, and culture. And a religion is a group believing certain answers to unanswerable spiritual questions. So what then are the Jews, nation or religion? The overlapping answer is… yes! They possess elements of nation, religion, and ethnicity.
Tragically, Rosenak predicted to us, you will someday discover yourselves the target of blind hate from people who cannot handle anything but their own narrow so-called logic: that Jews are not, cannot, must never be allowed to dare define themselves as a self-determining nation (cognitive dissonance). They will rather kill than tolerate you. (Dad’s echo = believe them.)
My parents proudly sent my brothers to Columbia, Harvard, Penn, Stanford, and me to MIT. I learned assembler and Fortran on punch cards, studying with AI pioneers Minsky, Papert, and Winston, becoming a software engineer. Dad once asked, “Is there a future in computers?”
I fell in love with Diane already in 12th grade. Our first date was a 1971 Carpenters concert. We both studied abroad in Israel in 1973–74. We were there that Yom Kippur when the sirens shrieked and the Egyptian and Syrian armies surprised Israel successfully and almost made good their vow to exterminate it.
The flaw in Israeli Intelligence was the mindset (“con-cept’-zia”). Highly intelligent people ASSUMED that Egypt and Syria would (rationally) never strike, only to be beaten again. But here is the point: we all have our mindset / conceptzia / worldview blinding us.
Diane and I married in 1975. We spent a year in Boston, then a year in Jerusalem. We briefly met future Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who, hearing Diane’s foreign accent, warmly joked, “I’m not from here either!”
C. American-Israeli
“The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.” — Erik Ericson
“PINE: I guess your long hair makes you a girl. ZAPPA: I guess your wooden leg makes you a table.” — Robert Cialdini
We moved to Maryland, where our first two sons were born. I worked at AMS and consulted for the World Bank and Ashton-Tate. In 1983, we moved permanently to Jerusalem. I dove into PC software development. At 35, I did eight weeks of basic training and then reserves in the Israeli Defense Forces.
On a trip to Ashton-Tate in LA, I heard Bill Gates up close pitch pre-release Windows and was sold. My brother Jeff and I founded Accent Software, creating Dagesh, the first Hebrew-English Windows word processor. Microsoft later hired us to help develop official Hebrew and Arabic versions of Windows, for which I won the Israeli Prime Minister’s Software Award.
When Hebrew Windows shipped, I emailed Gates, briefly sharing my origin story. He humorously replied, “Bob, thanks for your warm words. I never knew anything positive came out of that flight to LA.” The point: you never know which small event might change your life.
Next came GuruNet (later Answers.com), the first “answer engine,” based on an idea from Yossi Vardi and initial investments from Mort Meyerson and Mark Tebbe. We pivoted several times to eventual success, IPO, and sale, becoming the 19th most-visited site in the US. Our success was thanks to an amazing team. We also were lucky for help from journalists (shout-out: Walt Mossberg), business partners (Marissa Mayer), and investors and board members (Yossi Vardi, Bob Lessin, Ed Sim, Jon Medved, Michael Eisenberg, Jerry Colonna, Larry Kramer, Mark Segall, Guy Kawasaki…)
My next startup was Curiyo, which failed.
Concerned with eroding civil discourse online, I founded Equator, harnessing technology to create respectful discussions. Social media has lost its “social”, amplifying outrage and polarization. We are beyond social media.
I am passionate about viewpoint diversity and radical listening, today more urgent than ever. I’m lucky to partner with a great co-founder, Ruthie Amaru, our CEO.
From my parents, I inherited resilience, optimism, and calm nerves. Dad taught us vigilance against naïveté. Mom exemplified kindness, keenly aware of what it feels like to be an outsider.
Their values remain my guiding lights, alongside this simple prayer: “Lord, spare me, today and every day, from the arrogance of others — and from my own, too.”
These formative stories drive me: Mom, Dad, Mogilner, Rosenak, among others. They taught me to accept reality even while working to improve it — and offer insights into human and societal divisions. They shape my belief that listening, not shouting, can help heal our divides.
Yochanan Ben-Zakkai asked his five students what is the most important quality a person should seek.
Eliezer said, “A good eye.”
Joshua answered, “A good friend.”
Joseph said, “A good neighbor.”
Simon replied, “The capacity to see what’s coming.”
Elazar said, “A good heart.”
The master responded: “Elazar is correct, because a good heart actually includes the rest.”
The Story of Us — How We Got Here
Here are observations on our current state and why we are here.
1. All in Your Head
What if I’m Wrong
“Man has an infinite capacity for rationalization.” — Sigmund Freud
“Until we make the unconscious conscious, we will be dictated by it and call it fate.” — Carl Jung
Here’s why you’re never wrong — at least, not from your perspective.
A. Skull-Sized Kingdoms
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin
“The first principle is that you must never, ever fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman
You occupy the most exclusive real estate on Earth: the 7½ inches (20 cm) between your ears. Walter Lippmann noted everything you believe passes through that “picture of the world inside your head.”
But that real estate comes with unreliable plumbing and a cracked window or two!
Even when certain of being objective, you’re interpreting — and misinterpreting — reality. You lean heavily on stereotypes to navigate complexity.
Prejudice — literally pre-judging — is a universal mental shortcut.
David Foster Wallace described us as “lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms,” trapped in personal narratives too isolating to recognize our errors. Prehistoric emotional triggers persist despite technological advancements.
The Periscope Problem: we are each in a personal submarine, navigating stormy seas with a flawed periscope. It’s a survival mechanism, not a moral failing.
B. Predetermined-Conclusions "Я" Us
“Nothing is as constant about human behavior as people’s opinion about it.” — Leon Eisenberg
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” — William James
“We are led to believe a lie / When we see not thro' the eye.” — William Blake
Don’t believe everything you think! Confirmation bias filters out pesky contradictory facts. Jonathan Haidt calls it the “emotional tail wagging the rational dog.” Knee-jerk reactions first, then reasoning spins reality to justify them.
Arguing against someone else’s worldview is like reasoning with a drunk. We double down on mistakes, dismiss evidence, and resist new perspectives because maintaining our worldview feels safer than changing, than admitting when we were wrong.
Here’s the paradox: we shouldn’t make assumptions, yet we inevitably must, just to navigate daily life. There goes that “con-cept’-zia” again.
C. Big-5 Biases
“The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces.” — Robert Greene
“The problem is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” — Charles Bukowski
Confirmation Bias: Favoring information that confirms existing beliefs.
Halo Effect: Your judgments are influenced by how much you like someone or find him/her attractive.
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): Judging others by flaws (“what a jerk!”) but excusing ourselves by circumstances (“but I had a good reason!”). Applies to groups and nations too.
Alpha Bias: Society equates loudness with competence (thanks, outdated caveman brain wiring).
Groupthink: Group dynamics overriding reason (AKA “the stupidity of crowds”).
Dunning-Kruger Effect: The less you know, the more confident you feel about your opinions. This was paraphrased by Donald Rumsfeld as “there are things that we don’t know we don’t know.”
Some people actually celebrate ignorance. And never forget the centrality of scapegoats — always having someone else to blame, never yourself. And “what-about-ism”.
D. You Can’t Imagine!
“My neighbor’s favorite position is beside herself, and her favorite sport is jumping to conclusions.” — Danny Kaye
“We are blind and we are blind to our blindness. We have very little idea of how little we know. We’re not designed to know how little we know.” — Daniel Kahneman
When people say “I can’t imagine!” they do mean it, literally. Our brains struggle to visualize experiences beyond our personal bubbles, dismissing unfamiliar ideas rather than exploring them.
Your first impressions are too dominant, especially when skipping the thinking part. When you meet someone, the judgmental sequence is: face, body, brain, then heart. If only the order could be reversed.
Being intellectually gifted doesn’t protect you from arrogance. Information guarantees neither empathy nor wisdom. True open-mindedness requires entering a discomfort zone and wrestling with the possibility that your “rightness” isn’t absolute. It means recognizing others with alternative views are not necessarily evil, ignorant, or deceptive.
Daniel Taub writes, “It requires honest self-awareness and courage. Above all, it calls on us to recognize that we are not the dispassionate, purely rational actors we might claim to be, but rather we are the sum of the experiences, emotions and loyalties which shaped us.”
Imagination failure traps us in our heads. Self-awareness starts with humility — exploring beyond your skull-sized kingdom.
One might think that, being rational creatures, we would eventually grow suspicious of our uncannily long string of rectitude, our unerring knack for being on the right side of any dispute over credit, or money, or manners, or anything else. Nope. Time and again — whether arguing over a place in line, a promotion we never got, or which car hit which — we are shocked at the blindness of people who dare suggest that our outrage is not warranted.
— Robert Wright, “The Moral Animal”
2. Past/Fast Forgotten
History is Like a Foreign Country — They Speak a Different Language There
“Most people throughout history have thought (and still think today) that the future will look like a slightly modified version of the recent past.” — Ray Dalio
“The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” — Georg Hegel
History is everything. We possess this three dimensional view of the world but require a fourth dimension. Obsessed with what’s new and today’s headlines, we happily ignore sixty centuries of lessons.
Civilizations have collapsed innumerable times throughout history, each convinced they’d mastered reality. Santayana’s “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” has never been truer.
Nations prosper or perish based on how they respond to crises.10 Maybe history is just the story of shocks we never “saw coming.”
A. Your Ancestor, Julius Cæsar
“What’s past is prologue.” — William Shakespeare
“If you know the past, your future is different.” — Megan Smith
Most people reckon time in days and years. I prefer generations (roughly 25 years) because they suggest life’s overlapping narratives. Only six generations ago, Abraham Lincoln was president; twenty-one ago, Columbus walked the earth.
Trace your ancestors combinatorially and the numbers explode quickly: theoretically, over two million ancestors since 1492. Reducing that number by 99% discount for overlap, you still have 10,000 unique ancestors from the last five centuries and know almost nothing about them.
In your bloodline: peasants, kings, victims, and tyrants — even Cæsar or Genghis Khan may be hiding there. We’re all interconnected through DNA and culture.
B. Sins of the Fathers
“One generation’s verities so often become the next generation’s falsehoods.” — George P. Schultz
“Civilization is hideously fragile and there’s not much between us and the horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.” — C.P. Snow
Times change and now we’re shocked!
It’s too tempting to judge past moral failures with modern eyes. Of course, we must correct old wrongs and condemn brutality, but don’t dismiss entire epochs for not knowing what we know today.
Someday your grandchildren may confront you about micro-plastic pollution or eating hamburgers, and certainly climate change. Maybe you’ll respond, “it seemed a good idea at the time.”
C. Collapsing Trust
“Good history inoculates us to shallow ideology.” — Haviv Rettig Gur
“Unfortunately, facts don’t come highlighted in yellow. A false sentence reads the same as a true one. It’s not enough to battle falsehood with truth; the truth does not always win.” — Richard Stengel
A recurring theme of the last half-century is the steady erosion of trust in institutions, due to crises and scandals — from assassinations and riots and wars to environmental disasters and governmental lies.
As trust weakens, civic structures unravel. Winston Churchill warned that judging the past too harshly could jeopardize our future. Cynicism undermines the foundations essential for progress.
“Historicide”—killing our own history — emphasizes our systemic sins rather than any good we’ve been responsible for.11
Some define Conservatives as people believing society is changing too fast, and Progressives as thinking it isn’t changing fast enough.
The worst consequence of lost trust is believing, if your side doesn’t win, that the system must be rigged.
D. Kafka Lives
“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.” — Arthur Miller
“History carries a whip in its hand. To ask whether this premise is right or wrong is meaningless.” — Arthur Koestler
Only four generations ago, the Czech Jewish author Franz Kafka died at age 40 of tuberculosis, before there were antibiotics. He sold insurance but wrote in his spare time. He told his friend Max Brod to burn his writings, but Brod ignored his instructions and published his masterpieces, including “The Trial”, “The Castle”, and “The Metamorphosis.” Kafka didn’t make it until WWII, but his three sisters Gabriele, Valerie, and Ottilie, were all murdered by the Nazis.
Today, “Kafkaesque” describes absurd, nightmarish situations marked by bureaucratic oppression and a sense of helplessness — a reminder that that history can spiral overnight into horror.
E. History Ain’t Over
“The real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technologies.” — E.O. Wilson
“While we are sleeping two-thirds of the world is plotting to do us in.” — Dean Rusk
“Treat history not as inevitable. It’s about a sense of agency.” — Daniel Gordis
Humans struggle to grasp lessons beyond their personal experience. Ray Dalio says, “The swinging of conditions from one extreme to another in a cycle is the norm, not the exception… It’s simple. Nothing lasts forever.”
We’re smug, imagining that turmoil won’t reach our shores. Until it does.
Eric Weinstein warns the West is awakening from a 80-year slumber when war seemed unnatural — the post-WWII order might be collapsing.
Eric Schmidt says, “to win the race for the future of technology, and in turn the war for global leadership, we must discard the belief that America is automatically always ahead.”
There is no final lesson — only the ongoing struggle to face reality soberly, transcend our biases, remain humble and vigilant amid complexity, and to understand that the line between stability and chaos is razor-thin.
Bottom line: ignore history at our peril.
Sons of
— Jacques BrelSons of the thief, sons of the saint,
Who is the child with no complaint?
Sons of the great or sons unknown
All were children like your own.
The same sweet smiles, the same sad tears,
The cries at night, the nightmare fears,
Sons of the great or sons unknown
All were children like your own.
3. Unspoken Assumptions
Culture Trumps Strategy
“Mentality is a fabric of unspoken assumptions.” — James Joll
“People think what they think and expect everyone else to think the same.” — Diane Rosenschein
So many unstated assumptions, so little time! The real rules are the ones nobody tells you, and we cling to our narratives and mindsets as sacred beliefs. At least some of us recognize it.
There’s genetic DNA and there’s cultural DNA. You’ve heard of company culture, but culture exists at every level from family to nation. We’re not talking about stylistic quirks, like no chewing gum in Singapore, no jaywalking in Germany, smiling at strangers in the US, or Japanese comfort with silence (“stomach talk”).
A. Hollywood + DisneyWorld
“The United States will never understand the Middle East’s peoples so long as we judge them by the rules we are accustomed to apply to ourselves.” — George McClellan (1856)
TV and movies shape cultural norms. Cowboy culture and rugged individualism dominate not just Westerns, but Star Wars, Avatar, and Marvel, too. There’s a damn-the-torpedoes moment when Scotty tells Kirk, “There’s a hundred to one chance, Captain, but we’ve got to take it!” Thank goodness for daring, optimistic endings!
For Americans, it’s polite to small-talk, smile, and show interest in a person they just met by asking a lot of questions. To Europeans that feels superficial or invasive — it’s polite to observe but not ask too many questions. Both cultures are just being polite in their own ways.12
Culture isn’t inherently right or wrong. There may be limits to multicultural tolerance, of course, but understanding underlying values helps.
B. East Meets West
“The world is not a mirror. It is a kaleidoscope that can be understood only by people who are experts in each individual shard, and even then only partially.” — Matti Friedman
“America has this habit of looking at the world and thinking very simple thoughts that would make sense if the whole world was made up of Americans — and then insisting that must be how the world actually works.” — Haviv Rettig Gur
Ray Dalio notes Eastern, particularly Chinese or Confucian, values prioritize collective harmony, hierarchy, and social order, emphasizing responsibilities to family, community, and society above individual desires. Personal fulfillment is linked to one’s contribution to the larger group, guided by respect for authority, education, discipline, and long-term planning. Chinese society tends to encourage humility, harmony, and the suppression of individual ego to maintain social stability and collective prosperity.
In contrast, American values are fundamentally individualistic, emphasizing personal freedom, self-expression, and fierce independence. American culture rewards individual achievement, innovation, and assertiveness, often encouraging people to challenge authority or convention in pursuit of personal goals. This leads to a society more comfortable with conflict, debate, and competition as means of progress and success, in stark contrast to the Chinese emphasis on consensus and collective well-being.
C. Top-7 Western Cultural Values
1. UnderDogma. You want to help the downtrodden and disenfranchised, so you favor underdog over top-dog (unless you’re top-dog). Strong is wrong, weak is peak. It feels fair, even if we might (rationally) accept the profound Biblical dictum “Favor neither rich nor poor; rather, judge fairly.”13 Ah, but what when the underdog happens to be wrong! For example, a homeless man breaks into your home and threatens your family. There’s no doubt that he is the underdog, but so what? Many prefer the moral ease of victimhood to the complexities of power.14
2. Generosity works, except in corporate or divorce law. The other side usually appreciates your kindness and will reciprocate in kind. In your culture, maybe. But what if generosity backfires, signalling weakness instead. What if giving an inch provokes demands for a foot? Appeasement leading to more aggression.
3. Split the difference. Meet in the middle. Above all else, be reasonable. But, is everyone really reasonable? Again, great in theory, but there are situations and places where the other side fails your “reasonable” standard.
4. Solutionism. Roll up our sleeves and we can accomplish anything, right? We are taught to think of an argument as a problem to be solved. There’s some truth to this, but there also exist crises more manageable than soluble. For example, were a leader to announce that, within one year, cancer would be cured, or violent crime eliminated, people would laugh. Sounds great — but good luck with that (easier said than done). Granted, we want to believe that there is a practical solution. But occasionally can-do… can’t-do. Not everything has a fix.
5. The why-obsession. AKA there MUST be a reason. After tragic events like school shootings, we desperately seek reasons: loneliness, hate, abuse, bullying. But sometimes there’s no simple answer—maybe the perpetrator was simply a psychopath?
6. Misplaced trust, AKA they wouldn’t LIE, would they? Whenever someone states a bald-faced lie or wild claim, our tendency is to believe it at face value (e.g. “according to health officials”). But he who praises you is not necessarily your friend. (Shakespeare: a man may smile and smile and still a villain be.) Call it well-meaning gullability.
7. Everyone thinks like I do. My favorite. Sorry. False!
In our Culture War, zero-sum, dog-eat-dog world, when mocking and gratuitous hate are the new normal, your awareness of cultures, biases, mindsets, and hidden assumptions can only help.
Dane-Geld
— Rudyard KiplingIt is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:–
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane…
4. Future Shock
Fast & Furious
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” — Isaac Asimov
“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” — Paul Simon
There’s a perfectly good reason why humans struggle to think clearly nowadays: decision fatigue, an unintended effect of technology.
Source: Mary Meeker
A. Overchoice
“In the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded. Our irrationality has turned up to an eleven.” — Amanda Montell
“Choice drains energy.” — Steve Jobs
Barry Schwartz, in “The Paradox of Choice — Why More Is Less” (2004), explains how too many choices do not make us freer or happier. They leave us anxious and stuck. Confronted by endless options — from supermarket aisles to streaming shows to online dates — we’re paralyzed by fear of choosing wrong.
Ironically, more options lead to fewer decisions: commitment-phobic analysis paralysis. Every choice feels like an opportunity lost, “what could have been.” Schwartz warns that unlimited choice backfires, eroding satisfaction, happiness, even our sense of self.
B. Overloaded
“We double, triple, centuple our speed, but we shatter our nerves in the process and are the same trousered apes at two thousand miles an hour as when we had legs.” — Will & Ariel Durant
“Everything’s in free fall. We’re not wired to cope with that, so we’ve all agreed to pretend that it isn’t happening. But it is.” — Dan Chase [Jeff Bridges] (“The Old Man”)
Alvin Toffler understood the crisis early. In “Future Shock” (1970!), he warned that humanity was racing from industrial to super-industrial society faster than our minds could manage. Toffler called this dizzying acceleration “future shock” — a societal motion sickness caused by rapid change.
Jobs, relationships, identities — everything is now temporary and transient. Young people move farther away from their hometowns. We chase novelty, tossed around by waves of tech advances, intensified by AI, leaving us stressed and overwhelmed. John Naisbitt captured it perfectly: we’re “drowning in information but starved for knowledge.”
C. Overwhelmed
“During an earthquake, solid ground is an illusion.” — Scott Galloway
“The dogs of technological and economic change have slipped the leash: that things are happening to us faster than we can understand, much less control.” — Walter Russell Mead
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” — Ian Malcolm [Jeff Goldblum] (“Jurassic Park”)
How does it feel to live in this whirlwind today? In a word: exhausted and overwhelmed. (I know that’s 2 words.) We’re bombarded by alerts, beeps, and reminders that everyone else seems happier, smarter, prettier, richer — killing it (“virtue signaling”). Social media constantly reminds people of what they’re missing, especially for young people, and especially in the looks & likes department.
Jean Twenge documents the correlation between smartphone usage and a dramatic increase in ER admissions for intentional self-harm among girls aged 10-14.15
Anxiety, stress, and numbness become our coping mechanisms. Rationality takes a hit, pushing us toward even more emotionally-driven and irrational decisions. We sleepwalk in short-term thinking, craving simple narratives to make sense of our world. We retreat into echo chambers, which are places we develop intolerance for perspectives different from our own and shield ourselves from ideas we find objectionable. We numb ourselves with dopamine hits from endless scrolling, and cling stubbornly to illusions of control and certainty.
Peter Coy says our brains are breaking because change — driven by AI and tech — is faster than regulators, let alone everyday citizens, can comprehend.
Being overwhelmed is scary because it nudges us away from rational debate toward polarized, tribal gut reactions. We reach instinctively for comforting certainties, even false ones, over nuanced truth. The less we comprehend, the louder we shout, and the more split we become.
Understanding these traps — overchoiced, overloaded, overwhelmed — is not just a mental exercise. Recognizing them is our first step toward regaining our resilience, rationality, and mutual respect.
Overwhelmed people seek entertainment as an escape, worsening societal disengagement, which leads us to…
5. That’s Entertainment
Please Don’t Make Me Think
“Here’s a simple truth about the politics of dishonesty, insult, and scandal: it’s entertaining.” — Bret Stephens
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes — including you.” — Anne Lamott
We’re no longer just amused by politics — we’re addicted to spectacle. Even outrage has become a product. Today we don’t just watch entertainment — we live it. Ours is an information-saturated attention economy. Style, volume, and shock value trump substance.
Neil Postman saw it coming already in 1985 with “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” We’re not as oppressed by Orwell’s Big Brother as willingly seduced by trivial amusements. Instead of Orwell’s nightmare “1984”, we’ve chosen Huxley’s “Brave New World” — complacently consuming technologies that charm rather than oppress us.
Our society idolizes distraction and excels at avoiding meaningful thought. We trade our attention / drop in concentration for endless amusement, addicted, not to ideas, but nonstop entertainment.
A. Age of Distraction
“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” — Aldous Huxley
𝄞 Hello iPhone, my old friend / I’ve come to talk with you again. (— apologies to Paul Simon)
We swipe, scroll, binge, consuming content that requires nothing but our passive gaze. TikTok claims hours of daily attention precisely because it demands no reflection — just mindless immersion.
In “Alone Together”, Sherry Turkle calls smartphones our “insurance policy against boredom,” ensuring we’re superficially engaged yet profoundly disconnected.
American teenagers spend an average 4.8 hours on social media every day!16
B. Politics as Performance
“Politicians no longer get into politics to pass legislation. They do it to become celebrities. The more feverish they are, the better it sells.” — Bret Stephens
“In an unforgiving culture, the people who thrive are those without shame.” — Jonathan Sacks
Political debates are staged like wrestling matches, performers cast for charisma, not competence. Real issues vanish into catchy soundbites and polarizing productions. We don’t demand thoughtful solutions — just a good show.
Outrage sells. As Eric Weinstein observes, politics resembles professional wrestling: entertaining, scripted, detached from reality. We’ve exchanged civic discourse for celebrity status and shock value, ensuring constant entertainment but persistent ignorance.
C. Entertained on Empty
“We are amusing ourselves to death.” — Neil Postman
“We have overprotected children in the real world and underprotected them in the virtual world.” — Jon Haidt
Our obsession with mindless amusement dulls critical thinking. Instant gratification and simplified narratives replace nuance and complexity. Flooded with fragmented, irrelevant, jaw-dropping, nerve-wracking, adrenaline-popping information, we mistake trivial knowledge for wisdom.
The ancient Romans called this quieting the public with “bread and circuses” (“panem et circenses”).
Even the news we consume is one-sided — echoing our biases. Renee Blodgett says, “News is designed to polarize us,” not inform objectively or question, but captivate and addict with its slant in our attention economy. You are what you watch.
We’re informed yet ignorant, connected yet lonely, entertained yet empty. Beneath the laughter and clicks lies creeping disillusionment.
Parts of the Internet exist to harm you. Power wants you softening in your chair, your emotions dissipating on the screen.17
The solution isn’t less technology or entertainment but reclaiming control. Postman insisted the antidote lies in awareness. Recognizing entertainment’s seductive traps helps us choose substance over spectacle and conversation over distraction. The fight against triviality begins with daring to think again.
Micah Goodman reminds us that we could use some depth, patience, downtime, and maybe some boredom.18
D. Our Age of Stupefication
“Never mistake funny for harmless.” — Dave Pell
The word stupefaction has two definitions: (1) becoming groggy, numb, or insensible; (2) becoming stupid.
The Story of Now — What Next?
Just because it’s so hard hardly makes it not worth improving.
6. Head & Heart & Gut
What Makes Us Tick(ed-off)
“The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand.” — Blaise Pascal
“There are two reasons why a man does anything. There’s a good reason — and then there’s the real reason.” — J.P. Morgan
So, can we agree, it’s complicated?
Humans are loaded with emotional baggage, and we are short-term, selfish, self-absorbed, and self-centered. We blend rational thought with deep emotions and instinctive gut feelings. Yet we act shocked when logic fails, emotions explode, and instincts misfire.
We pretend to be rational beings but are really rationalizing beings. Understanding this helps manage conflict better.
A. Emotional Elephants
“Anyone who values truth should stop worshiping reason.” — Jonathan Haidt
“The belief that rational self-interest is a governing principle — is a belief common to rational people.” — David Wolpe
Jonathan Haidt describes the mind as elephant and rider. The rider is our conscious mind — logical, deliberate. But the elephant, our subconscious emotional mind, is far stronger and more impulsive. The rider thinks he’s steering, but the elephant calls the shots. Rationality frantically justifies what the heart has already decided.
This explains why facts rarely persuade. We confuse thinking with feeling. We ignore data that challenges our feelings, clinging fiercely to comforting falsehoods. Why? Because admitting we’re wrong threatens our identity — our sense of self. We’re lazy, and it’s easier to double down than confront self-doubt.
But self-awareness changes the game. Recognizing our emotional elephant helps us guide it gently, avoiding disaster.
B. Gut Feelings and Tribal Instincts
“Most people, given a choice between hating themselves and hating others, will hate others.” — Thomas Sewell
“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.” — Albert Einstein
We pride ourselves on individuality but naturally seek tribes. Tribal loyalties shape decisions far more than we admit. Our “gut” pulls us toward conformity, wary of outsiders, protective of team. Simple prejudices — “us versus them” — feel safer than objective thinking.
Mother Teresa said, “The problem with the world is that we draw our family circle too small.”
We adopt slogans and selective facts to match our tribe’s narrative. Complexity is exhausting; righteous certainty exhilarating. Unfortunately, gut instincts shaped for prehistoric survival often mislead us today.
Awareness of these instincts can help defuse conflict. Understanding means seeing not just what others say, but why their gut reactions push them toward conflict rather than curiosity.
And never forget the power of envy, jealousy, and resentment (which accumulates interest).
C. Humility: Balancing Head, Heart, and Gut
“You can play the cards you’re dealt — or blame the dealer.” — David Yammer
“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.” — Albert Einstein
“Allow yourself to see what you don’t allow yourself to see.” — Milton Erickson
Navigating life means balancing intellect, emotions, and instincts. None of these alone is enough. Reason without empathy becomes cold; emotions without reason become chaotic; unchecked instincts run wild.
Humility tempers arrogance and challenges our assumptions. It invites curiosity instead of contempt. It fosters empathy and dialogue rather than defensiveness.
You might be a never-forgive / never-forget person. But humility helps us forgive. Thomas Fuller said, “He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for everyone has need to be forgiven.” Breaking that cycle requires the courage to look beyond pride.
Ultimately, our humanity lies not in flawless logic, emotional purity, or perfect instincts, but in our ongoing struggle to balance these forces. Acknowledging our imperfections — and those of others — is profound strength, not weakness. This delicate, shifting balance is key to resilience and respectfulness.
Margaret Heffernan said, “We must resist the neurobiological drive of preferring people mostly like ourselves. We must seek out those with different backgrounds, disciplines, ways of thinking and experiences, and engage with them. That requires a lot of patience and energy.”
We’ll get to my ±10% Rule later.
Pop quiz: Modern society suffers from:
A. Extreme self-certainty
B. Defiant ignorance
C. Arrogant hyper-selfishness
D. All of the above
7. Freedom Versus Equality
They’re Not the Same
“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” — Bernard Berenson
“Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.” — Theodore Roosevelt
Freedom and equality are beloved ideals but often at odds. Absolute freedom means no taxes, no rules, total autonomy — which could quickly spiral into chaos and deep inequality. Absolute equality demands identical rewards regardless of effort or talent, extinguishing motivation, innovation, and individuality.
Society needs to balance both, even if achieving harmony is tough.
A. Isaiah Berlin: Two Freedoms
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” — George Box
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Isaiah Berlin identified two fundamental freedoms: negative and positive. Negative liberty is freedom from external constraints — interference, coercion, oppressive rules — allowing personal choice without imposed limits.
Positive liberty, meanwhile, is freedom to achieve one’s goals, requiring resources, education, opportunities, and societal support.
These concepts can clash: excessive negative liberty lets the powerful exploit inequalities, while excessive positive liberty imposes control and curtails individual freedom. Finding a balance is essential but complex.
B. Individuals versus Community
“Don’t imagine yourself an individual just because you create your own salad at the salad bar.” — Ted Koppel
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” — Jean-Paul Sartre
We cherish individualism yet instinctively seek belonging. Tribes offer identity, safety, and fairness, whereas pure individualism can feel isolating. Freedom emphasizes autonomy; equality promotes collective well-being, fairness, and shared responsibility.
David Brooks notes, “We oscillate between individualism and communitarianism, cynicism and idealism, secularism and religiosity, irrational pessimism and irrational optimism.”
These conflicting impulses drive social tensions and political debates. We champion individual freedom until confronted by inequality; then we demand collective fairness; then we demand collective fairness. Understanding these contradictions helps navigate the dilemma.
C. What John Lennon Missed
“Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace”
— John Lennon
Sounds great, doesn’t it, though I wish he’d added “Imagine there’s no private property, it isn’t hard to do…”.
Here are the two problems. First, equal is very different from equivalent. One speaks to rights, the second to being identical, indistinguishable.
The second problem is this. If we were to somehow eliminate borders, whose culture would dominate? Maybe John Lennon’s?
There’s greater dignity, I claim, in respecting differences.19
D. Managing Cognitive Dissonance
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair
“The majority of us are for free speech only when it deals with subjects concerning which we have no intense convictions.” — Edmund Chaffee
We easily rationalize inequality as a natural outcome of freedom, at least until it affects us personally. Then we pivot dramatically, advocating for fairness and equality. This cognitive dissonance reflects our emotional biases and how our ideals shift with circumstances. Genuine dialogue emerges when we recognize our inconsistencies, enabling productive conversations respectful of freedom and fairness.
Besides, debates about freedom and equality inevitably lead to tensions around free speech…
8. Free Speech
How Dare You Hurt My Feelings!
“No matter what side of an argument you’re on, you always find some people on your side that you wish were on the other side.” — Jascha Heifetz
“Tact = tongue-in-check.” — Sue Dytri
Most of us passionately defend free speech — until someone offends our side. We demand candid speech yet insist on protection from offense in today’s sensitive society. George Orwell stated, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people things they do not want to hear.”
A. Speech vs. Offense
“I know people who are extremely careful about what goes into their mouth, but never give a thought to what comes out of it.” — David Wolpe
“Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.” — Voltaire
“If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.” — Bertrand Russell
Speech can hurt deeply, but equating offense with violence blurs boundaries.
The paradox is that dangerous rhetoric easily turns into violent actions. Free speech is not absolute; there are legal limits to it. True threats, harassment, bullying, and intimidation deserve punishment.
Yet censoring uncomfortable opinions weakens vital dialog. Tolerating discomfort and distinguishing genuinely harmful speech from merely offensive ideas preserve honest conversations.
B. Canceling vs. Criticism
“Attack the idea, not the person.” — Andy Grove
“A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.” — Adlai Stevenson
“Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?” — Lillian Hellman
Cancel culture targets people, shutting down discourse instead of improving it. Genuine criticism enriches dialogue, by challenging beliefs without personal attacks. True freedom of speech demands humility to entertain opposing views and courage to reconsider our own.
On the other hand, we are suffering from over-emotional reasoning, and a culture of safetyism — protecting people from discomfort.20
Rejecting cancellation and encouraging open debate strengthen societal resilience and personal maturity.
But something has changed in the past several decades. The instant nature has changed the online medium. For journalists, that meant dramatizing the news. For Twitter/X users, it meant making it up.
Modern propaganda doesn’t just misinform or push an agenda — it exhausts your critical thinking and annihilates truth.21 Greg Lukianoff said, “You are not safer for knowing less about what people really think.”
Bots do not help.
C. Resilient Dialogue
“Our obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.” — Edward R. Murrow
“Never be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” — Walter Kotschnig
There is a gap between what we can legally say and what we should say to each other as community members. Somewhere we’ve lost the tradition of civil discourse. There’s a crucial difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that just sound good.22
Effective conversations require resilience, empathy, and humility. Real dialogue isn’t comfortable — it’s challenging, often painful, but necessary.
People get away with outrageous insults they want by merely appending “only asking” or “just kidding.”
Fostering free and respectful speech builds resilient communities capable of productive disagreement and collaboration.
9. Death of All-or-Nothing
Black and White is Easy — It’s Gray that’s Hard
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James
“If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.” — Yogi Berra
Maybe the problem is the either-or culture of one-side-must-win. Did you know that 55% of US Senators in the 118th Congress have law degrees or practiced law?
Immersed in our easy-to-chant slogans and sense of righteousness, black-and-white thinking feels satisfying, simple, and reassuring, but it’s dangerously misleading. Life rarely fits neatly into absolute truths or obvious falsehoods. Reality usually lives in shades of gray, subtle, complex, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory.
A. Embracing Complexity
“Truth is sometimes plural.” — David Wolpe
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein
The message sent is not always the message received.23
Certainty is comforting but unrealistic. Progress demands embracing uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity. Wisdom acknowledges doubt and contradiction without flinching. Learning to handle uncertainty fosters intellectual humility and deeper understanding.
Yascha Mounk explores the intellectual roots, cultural rise, and societal consequences of what he calls “the identity synthesis”—a worldview that prioritizes race, gender, and sexual identity as the central lenses for understanding social justice and power dynamics. He argues that this framework, while emerging from legitimate grievances and noble intentions, ultimately undermines liberal democratic principles like free speech, individual rights, and social cohesion.
B. Rejecting False Choices
“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” — Walter Lippmann
“The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” — Niels Bohr
False binary dilemmas — Left vs. Right, Freedom vs. Equality — trap us in limited thinking. Reality rarely boils down to two stark options. Rejecting oversimplification encourages creative solutions and meaningful dialogue. Resisting polarization fosters nuance and effective collaboration.
A simple example is health care. Freedom of choice need not imply binary 100% free or 100% private.
C. Yin and Yang: an Exquisite Balance
“Trust and doubt.” — Gil Troy
The ancient yin and yang symbolizes harmony through balancing opposites. Yin represents darkness and passivity; yang brightness and activity. Neither exists without the other; each contains seeds of its opposite. Balance creates equilibrium and resilience.
Examples:
Day & night
Rain & sunshine
Summer & winter
Activity & rest
Introverted & extroverted
Self-assurance & self-doubt
Rigidity & flexibility
Justice & mercy
Optimism & pessimism
Speaking & listening…
If you think any one of these is always superior, think again.
D. Courage of Nuance
“Changing your mind a lot is important.” — Jeff Bezos
“Just because you win a debate doesn’t make you right.” — Elisheva Gordis
Black-and-white thinking comes from insecurity and arrogance, demanding certainties reality can’t deliver. Genuine courage embraces complexity, tolerates ambiguity, and admits when answers aren’t clear. Accepting life’s nuances improves dialog and decision-making.
Growing up avoiding discussions about politics and religion creates ignorance of both.24 We should rather learn to engage respectfully.
Get over yourself: ditch your all-or-nothing thinking. You’re not as good as you think you are, and the world isn’t as bad as you fear.25
Real conversation means disagreeing yet continuing the dialogue.26
10. In (the) Balance
The ±10% Rule
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am older, I admire kind people.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Always take the high road; it’s far less crowded.” — Charlie Munger
Civilization is mankind’s attempt to overcome some of our animal instincts. But how do we move forward, as a nation, as a species?
The challenge of our time is exhausted, nihilistic indifference, the belief that life is meaningless. Our enemies (but not only) thrill to see our self-inflicted wrecking ball. You see it in the blind, vengeful rage posing as activism. The irony is that this “LOL-nothing-matters” attitude is possible only for people living comfortable lives in a prosperous democracy.
The answer hinges on HUMILITY and BALANCE — less outrage, more understanding, less indignation, more ideas.
My cardiologist once warned that dieting cold turkey can backfire, advising me to gradually cut sugar, salt, and fats.
My ±10% Rule states — be just 10% less offensive and 10% more unoffendible (thick-skinned). Try getting under people’s skin less and inside their skin more.
Change is tough, but gradual change more achievable. Again, it’s not all-or-nothing.
Speak candidly but listen humbly. Avoid the Enragers, Screamers, and Blame-Throwers. Avoid people who feel “unsafe” around diverse perspectives and intellectual heterodoxy. Avoid wishful thinking’s Class-War-on-Reality.
Radical listening starts small — one conversation, one question, one pause at a time. Together, we can choose civil words over civil wars.
A. Hyper-Reality and the Great Unknown
“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn
“This belief that the future is knowable is crazy. People need to have the freedom to take more chances.” — Malcolm Gladwell
It’s time to reinvent. Be radically open-minded. Ray Dalio says, “Find the most believable people who disagree with you and understand their reasoning… Debt risks aren’t the only reason countries go broke. Societal collapse contributes, too.”
Championing hyper-reality while embracing the unknown is tough! Rapid change is scary. Who doesn’t crave predictability and security? Darwin never said “survival of the fittest”, he said “survival of the most adaptable.” That’s why Jack Welch was correct: “Change before you have to.”
Here’s an exercise. Try arguing the devil’s advocate position on a subject you deeply care about. You don’t have to buy it, just try it on for size to understand it better, even if your goal is to argue against it.
B. Smart, Not Just Right, Revisited
“For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man.” -- Wilbur Wright
“The most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘It has always been done this way.’” — Grace Hopper
“Thoughtful discourse starts in the spaces between reaction and reflection.” — Ruthie Amaru
There are three barriers to growth. One is self-righteousness, the belief that we are already great. A second is false humility, the belief that we can never be great. The third is learned helplessness, the belief that we can’t change the world because we can’t change. All three are false.27
Human change is achievable, however unlikely. Positivity helps. Curiosity helps. And so does dry-eyed pragmatism.
Have a heart — and go with your gut — just never forget to take your brains along!
Right + Smart. You, too, can both dream and embrace reality.
C. In This Together
“The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.” — Erich Fromm
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
Listen, step back sometimes, making room for other perspectives.28
Everyone knows the common wisdom about rationality, intelligence, and facts. But there is another side: the wisdom of the heart, of compassion and empathy. Only balanced might they thrive in our modern world.
Consider positive tribalism: a healthy commitment to community, connectedness, and the history anchoring us.29
This is no top-down effort, driven by politicians or celebrities, though personal responsibility and example matter. It is a grassroots, bottom-up, we-can-do-better approach. “It may not be your duty to finish the job, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”30
These points are not just nice-to-have, but essential to survival in our polarized world. It’s how we can reduce today’s gratuitous hate.
D. tl;dr — rehumanize
Don’t sink into self-pity. Overcome your inner zombie.
Stop losing your temper so easily. Trash talk is uncool. Criticize the act, not the person.
Conquer your inner crybaby. First, look at yourself with kinder eyes. And then others. Compassion is a superpower, as is curiosity.
Challenge your perceptions. Attempt to communicate with people you disagree with, because your opinion is not the only one. Connection changes everything, especially intergenerational perspectives.
Hyper-realism means avoiding denial and wishful thinking.
Label the emotion; don’t become it. Self-awareness breaks the loop.
Neither over- nor under-confident be.
Never/Always make assumptions.
Think 10% more carefully. Have a heart, but never forget your brain behind.
I’ll close with the world’s shortest poem, by Mohammed Ali, which encapsulates the challenge of our time: “Me? We!”
Copyright © 2025 Robert S. Rosenschein. All rights reserved.
Footnotes:
Campbell Brown
Scott Galloway, No Mercy No Malice: “Addiction Economy”
Gil Troy
Kristen Rogers, CNN: “Teens are exhausted by phone notifications but don’t know how to quit”
Scott Galloway: “Adrift: American in 100 Charts”
Kenneth Clark
Moshe Vardi
Scott Galloway
Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy
June Kirri
Leviticus [19:15]
Michael Oren
Timothy Snyder
Micah Goodman, “The Attention Revolution”
Jonathan Sacks
Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, “The Canceling of the American Mind”
Garry Kasparov
Burton Hillis
Virginia Satir
Jim Wright
Ze’ev Wolf of Stryków
Dwight MacDonald
Jonathan Sacks
See Mordechai Rotenberg: “The Psychology of Tzimtzum”
Natan Sharansky and GIl Troy
Tarfon