8/30/2023 0 Comments Julia galef emailWhile you’ve never persecuted a French-Jewish officer for high treason, you might follow sports or know someone who does. That’s why I call motivated reasoning “soldier mindset.” And other pieces of information are the enemy, and we want to shoot them down. Some pieces of information feel like our allies - we want them to win we want to defend them. So the question arises: What does it say about the human mind that we can find such paltry evidence to be compelling enough to convict a man? This is a case of what scientists refer to as “motivated reasoning,” a phenomenon in which our unconscious motivations, desires and fears shape the way we interpret information. Other pieces of information are the enemy, and we want to shoot them down. As far as they can tell, the officers genuinely believed that the case against Dreyfus was strong. While you might guess that Dreyfus had been set up or intentionally framed by his fellow officers, historians today don’t think that was what happened. He spent his days there alone, writing letter after letter to the French government begging them to reopen his case so they could discover his innocence. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the aptly named Devil’s Island, this barren rock off the coast of South America. This was called the Degradation of Dreyfus. Afterwards, officials took him out into the public square they ritualistically tore his insignia from his uniform and broke his sword in two. The case went to trial, and Dreyfus was found guilty. His teachers also said that Dreyfus had had a good memory, which was highly suspicious since a spy must remember a lot of things. They talked to his former teachers and learned he had studied foreign languages in school, which demonstrated to them a desire to conspire with foreign governments later in life. They looked through his personal history for incriminating details. This just convinced them that not only was Dreyfus was guilty, but he was also sneaky because clearly he had hidden all of the evidence. They searched Dreyfus’ apartment and went through his files, looking for signs of espionage. The other officers compared Dreyfus’s handwriting to that on the paper and concluded it was a match, even though outside professional handwriting experts were much less confident about the similarity. However, Dreyfus was the only Jewish officer at that rank in the army, and unfortunately, at the time the French Army was highly anti-Semitic. He had a sterling record, no past history of wrongdoing, no motive as far as they could tell. They launched a big investigation, and their suspicions quickly converged on one man: Alfred Dreyfus. Officers in the French general’s staff found it in a wastepaper basket, and when they pieced it back together, they discovered that someone in their ranks had been selling military secrets to Germany. To illustrate the two mindsets in action, let’s look at a case from 19th-century France, where an innocuous-looking piece of torn-up paper launched one of the biggest political scandals in history in 1894. You can also think of the soldier and scout roles as mindsets - metaphors for how all of us process information and ideas in our daily lives. Having good judgment and making good decisions, it turns out, depends largely about which mindset you’re in. In an actual army, both the soldier and the scout are essential. Above all, the scout wants to know what’s really out there as accurately as possible. The scout is the one going out, mapping the terrain, identifying potential obstacles. The scout’s job is not to attack or defend it’s to understand. Now, try to imagine playing a very different role: the scout. Your adrenaline is elevated, and your actions stem from your deeply ingrained reflexes, reflexes that are rooted in a need to protect yourself and your side and to defeat the enemy. Regardless of your time and place, some things are probably constant. Imagine for a moment you’re a soldier in the heat of battle - perhaps a Roman foot soldier, medieval archer or Zulu warrior. Anna Parini Are you a soldier or a scout? Your answer to this question, says decision-making expert Julia Galef, could determine how clearly you see the world.
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