When a child told me that a certain politician was rotten I was tempted to say “yes, he is!” But I stopped because I realized this child was simply parroting something they heard at home and not thinking for himself. So I asked “what makes you think that?” Which led to an interesting conversation. I told him that I didn’t disagree or agree but that I wanted to know how he knew and we discussed different ways of knowing. You can trust someone you know’s opinion, you can trust the media (should you?), you can have direct experience, you can do research. What are some other ways you can know? I wrote this book to help encourage looking behind mere appearances and exploring where things…and ideas…come from. My hope is that perhaps we can foster resilience to the forces of media and culture that are designed to pull us toward hard lined ideas. The reality is that things are beautifully complicated.
