THINKER'S ALMANAC - September 28

How did the closing argument in O.J. Simpson’s 1995 murder trial illustrate an important rhetorical principle?

Subject: Cognitive Fluency - The Rhyme As Reason Effect  

Event:  Murder Trial of O.J. Simpson ends, 1995

On September 28, 1995, the O.J. Simpson murder trial was finally wrapping up after 11 months.  Of the millions of words presented to the jury, it was just seven words proclaimed on this day that stood out.  Defense Attorney Jonny Cochran was speaking to the jury about a key piece of evidence, a pair of gloves found at the scene of the crime.  Earlier in the trial when the prosecution requested that Simpson put on the gloves, it appeared that the gloves were too small for Simpson’s hands.  Cochran was reminding the jury of this fact during his closing argument, saying “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”  A few days later, as the entire nation watched, the jury announced their verdict:  not guilty.

What if Cochran had said, “Mr. Simpson is not guilty because the glove did not fit”?  Is it possible that the way something is said can be just as important as what is said?

To test this Psychologist Matthew McGlone did a study in 1999 where he presented unfamiliar aphorisms in either rhyming or non-rhyming form.  (“Woes unite foes,” for example, versus “Woes unite enemies.”)  The study showed that even though the meaning of the two aphorisms was essentially the same, people labeled the rhyming ones as more accurate than the non-rhyming ones.  When participants in the study were asked whether or not rhyme influenced their choice, they overwhelmingly answered no.  The results showed that what makes sense to us can be unconsciously influenced by our sense of sound.

This study also affirmed what the poet John Keats said in his poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn” in 1819:  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”  In other words, the more elegantly something is said, the more inherently true it appears.  Based on the results of his study, Matthew McGlone dubbed this cognitive bias the rhyme-as-reason effect, also known as the “Keats Heuristic.”

Image by SarahCulture from Pixabay

The impact of rhyme can be seen in the following everyday expressions.  As you read each one, think about how the sound of each expression contributes to its sense:

Fake it ’til you make it

See you later, Alligator

Good night, sleep tight

You snooze, you lose

Put the pedal to the metal

In addition to rhyme, Cohran’s line and the familiar lines above have the advantage of what psychologists call cognitive fluency, a principle that says the human brain has a preference for things that are easy to think about versus things that are more difficult to comprehend.  As a result, we’re much more likely to prefer rhyming slogans and concise, pithy statements to more verbose or less sonically pleasing sentences.  

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is the rhyme-as-reason effect, and why is it important to anyone who wants to persuade an audience?

Challenge - Words that Worked:  What are some examples of the greatest slogans in the history of advertising or politics?  Select one that you like, and explain how cognitive fluency might have contributed to its success.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

September 28 (Each Year):  This day is celebrated in Taiwan as “Teacher’s Day,” the birthday of Confucious, who said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

Sources:

1-Bennet, Drake.  “Easy = True.”  Boston Globe 31 Jan. 2010.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - September 27

How did Socrates illustrate the quest for truth by talking about a toppled statue?

Subject:  Epistemology - The Warren Report and Daedalus’ Statues

Event:  The Warren Report is published, 1964

When I think of the most able students I have encountered in my teaching - I mean those who have distinguished themselves not only by skill but by independence of thought - then I must confess that all have had a lively interest in epistemology. -Albert Einstein

In very simple words, the quotation above encapsulates the purpose of one of the key branches of philosophy.  It is called epistemology: the study or theory of knowledge.  If we are, as Socrates stated, to live examined lives, we must be able to tell what is true from what is false.  The quest for the truth and the questioning of the truth is the core of epistemology.  

In Plato’s Meno, Socrates presents a metaphor to illustrate how belief differs from knowledge.  He began by describing a statue by the Greek sculptor Daedalus -- you might remember him from another story about his son, Icarus.  It was said that Daedalus’ statues were so life-like that they needed to be tethered to prevent their walking away.  Socrates compared a true belief to an untethered statue that might be easily lost or toppled.  Knowledge, however, was a statue that was tethered by cables, giving it stability.  A statue anchored by reason and tethered by examined counterarguments will stand strong even against a strong wind or storm.

One of the most important quests for truth ever published came in the form of the 888-page Warren Report issued on this day in 1964. The goal of the report was to establish the truth behind who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 29, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. The commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

From the moment the Warren Report was published, its validity was questioned.  In the true epistemological tradition, several of these critics were philosophers who were not convinced by the evidence presented. 

One of the skeptical philosophers was Josiah Thompson, who completed his own extensive investigation into the evidence.  In his 1967 book Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination, Thompson concluded that it was impossible for Oswald to have acted alone.  He closely examined the physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, including the Zebruder film, which captured the six-second sequence of gunshots that took President Kennedy’s life.  Because Thompson believed that it was impossible for Oswald to have fired his rifle three times in six seconds, he concluded that there must have been a second gunman.

Of course, Thompson is just one of the hundreds of authors and filmmakers who have questioned the Warren Report’s conclusion.  Kennedy’s assassination is a moment in time that demonstrates the elusive nature of truth.  Even though there were dozens of eyewitnesses and a color film of the assassination, every second of the events in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza continues to be debated (1).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is epistemology, and how does it relate to Daedalus’ statues and the Warren Report?

Challenge - True or False?:  Do some research on quotations relating to truth and falsehood.  What is the best, most insightful quote you can find about either truth, falsehood, or the relationship between the two concepts?  What is the quotation, who said it, and why do you think it is important?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

September 27, 1992:  On this day the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) made a presentation to persuade the general public that “movie popcorn is fatty.”  Standing in front of a table covered with a smorgasbord of greasy entrees, the CSPI spokesperson’s message was short but sticky:  “A medium-sized ‘butter’ popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all trimmings -- combined!” See THINKER’S ALMANAC - May 13.

Sources:

1-Madigan, Tim.  “The Warren Report.”  Philosophy Now March/April 2008.

THIKER'S ALMANAC - September 26

Given just five minutes and limited information, how did a Soviet colonel make a decision that saved millions of lives?

Subject: Decision Making - Petrov’s Life-Saving Decision

Event:  Stanislav Petrov saves the world, 1983

Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. -Malcolm Gladwell

Imagine having to make a life-or-death decision that would decide not just your fate, but the fates of millions of other people?  To add a little more pressure to this decision-making process, imagine you are working with incomplete information and with the clock ticking; you have 25 minutes to make your decision.

Image by 巻（Maki） from Pixabay

These were the circumstances of Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Air Defense Forces on the morning of September 26, 1983.  Petrov’s mission that day was to monitor Russia’s early-warning satellites over the United States. It was the Cold War, and Petrov’s job was to be alert in the event that the U.S. launched intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) against Russia.

That morning a computer sounded an alarm, and the early warning system indicated that 5 Minuteman ICBMs had been launched by the U.S.  Petrov now had to make a decision. Was the early warning system correct?  By reporting an incoming American strike to his superiors, Petrov knew the Soviets would respond with full nuclear retaliation.

To make his decision Petrov relied on his training, which told him that a nuclear first strike would not begin with just 5 warheads; instead, it would begin with a massive number of warheads -- in 1983 the U.S. arsenal consisted of over 23,000 missiles.  Furthermore, radar installations in Russia were not detecting an attack.  Based on this limited information, Petrov contemplated his decision for an incredibly tense 5 minutes.  In the end, he concluded that the computer was registering a false alarm.  As a result, he did not report an attack.  

Fortunately for Petrov and the rest of the world, he was correct.  The Soviet early-warning system had mistaken the sun’s reflection off of clouds for an attack.  As a result of Petrov's cool thinking under pressure, he prevented the deaths of an estimated 136 to 288 million people.  For comparison, the total deaths in World War II amounted to 55 million (1).

For his decisive role in saving the world, you might think that the Soviets would have held a parade in his honor; instead, as recorded in his 2017 New York Times obituary, the hero received a reprimand for incomplete record keeping:

Colonel Petrov was at first praised for his calm, but in an investigation that followed, he was asked why he had failed to record everything in his logbook. “Because I had a phone in one hand and the intercom in the other, and I don’t have a third hand,” he replied. (2)

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  How did Petrov use the information he had to make a reasonable decision that saved thousands of lives?

Challenge - Decision Precision:  Do some research to find some quotations on decision-making.  Find the one quotation that gives the best insight or advice and how to make decisions or why decision-making is so important.  Explain why you think your quotation is so insightful.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

September 26, 1898:  Today is the birthday of Leonard E. Reed, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).  He is best known for his essay “I, Pencil” (1958), which traces the miracle of the free market from the first-person perspective of a pencil.    See THINKER’S ALMANAC - June 5.

Sources:

1-Matthews, Dylan. “36 years ago today, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war.”  Vox 26 Sept. 2019.

2-By Sewell Chan, Sewell.  “Soviet Officer Who Helped Avert Nuclear War, Is Dead at 77”  The New York Times 18 Sept. 2017.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - June 13

What was different about Charles Darwin's thinking process?

Subject:  Creative Problem Solving by Reversal (Inversion) - Munger’s prescription for a miserable life

Event:  Charlie Munger gives the commencement address to the Harvard School, 1986

Invert, always invert. -Carl Jacobi (1804 – 1851)

On this day in 1986, Billionaire businessman Charlie Munger presented a speech to the Harvard School.  Munger began by explaining that his speech was inspired by someone who had previously spoken at a Harvard School graduation ceremony, the television host and comedian Johnny Carson.  Following Carson’s example, Munger proclaimed that instead of presenting advice on how to live a happy life and to be a success, he would instead present advice on how to guarantee a life of misery.

As his first prescription for misery, Munger advised, “be unreliable.”  Second, he advised limiting your learning to only your personal experience rather than taking lessons vicariously from the good and bad experiences of others.  Unlike someone like Sir Isaac Newton who claimed that he “stood on the shoulders of giants,” Munger facetiously recommended ignoring “the best work done before yours” and becoming “as non-educated as you reasonably can.”  For his third prescription for misery, Munger addressed how to deal with life’s inevitable failures:  “Go down and stay down . . . .”

Munger ended his speech by critiquing the value of the “backward” thinking process he borrowed from Carson.  Citing the mathematician Carl Gustav Jacobi, Munger stated, “It is the nature of things, as Jacobi knew, that many hard problems are best solved only when they are addressed backward.”  As a prime example of “backward” or inverted thinking, Munger cited the revolutionary work of Charles Darwin:

Darwin’s result was due in large measure to his working method, which violated all my rules for misery and particularly emphasized a backward twist in that he always gave priority attention to evidence tending to disconfirm whatever cherished and hard-won theory he already had. In contrast, most people early achieve and later intensify a tendency to process new and disconfirming information so that any original conclusion remains intact. 

                                    CHARLES DARWIN - Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

You don’t need to be a scientific genius to employ Munger’s method.  Simply begin be identifying a problem you would like to solve.  For example, if you are a salesperson, you might seek out ways to make your customers feel more comfortable and welcome in your store.  Maybe you’ve thought about and brainstormed solutions to your problem many times and have not been able to come up with a viable idea.  This is the point where using reversal might give you a new perspective.    Begin by reversing the problem, by stating it in the opposite way, “How can I make my customers feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in my store?”  Now brainstorm a list of ideas to see if something new jumps out.

Sometimes reversal can yield results when it happens accidentally.  In 1968, after a long, late night recording session, John Lennon went home, carrying a tape of a song that The Beatles had been working on.  When he arrived home, he decided to listen to the tape.  Tired and not paying full attention to what he was doing, he accidentally spooled the audio tape on backward.  As he flipped on the play button, he became mesmerized by the novelty of the song’s vocals playing backward. In fact, he liked them even better than when the song was played forwards.  On May 30, 1966, The Beatles released their song “Rain,” the first song ever to feature backward vocals.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

June 13, 1966:  Today is the anniversary of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona.  The case involved a man convicted of rape and armed robbery, Ernesto Miranda.  His case was appealed, and his lawyers argued that he had not been advised of his rights before he signed a confession.  Miranda’s attorneys won the case by a narrow 5 to 4 vote.  The Miranda case changed the way police operate when taking a suspect into custody, compelling them to advise the accused of his or her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

Sources:

1-https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/1986/06/13/charlie-mungers-speech-to-the-harvard-school-june-1986

THINKER'S ALMANAC - May 30

What food item’s taste sparked such a vivid memory that it resulted in a seven-volume memoir?

Subject: Memory - Proust’s Madeleine

Event:  First Memorial Day, 1868

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. –Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

Today is the anniversary of the celebration of the first Memorial Day in 1868.  

                                                            Image by Keturah Moller from Pixabay

After the Civil War ended in 1865, many communities in the North and the South began holding tributes to fallen soldiers.  These commemorations, which were originally called Decoration Day, were held in the spring when flowers were readily available for the decoration of graves.

On May 5, 1868, American General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans group, issued General Order Number 11, which said:

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.

Decoration Day gradually evolved to be called Memorial Day. And after World War I, it became a day to honor not just fallen Civil War soldiers, but all war dead. Not until 1971 did Memorial Day become an official federal holiday.  In that year, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May, which created a three-day weekend for federal workers (1).

While Memorial Day is a day to remember those who gave their lives in past wars, it can also be a day to remember the power we all have to revisit the past through the genre of memoir.  In memoir, we are given the ability to time travel and vicariously take part in the intimate experiences and thoughts of writers who have documented the significant moments of their lives.

There is no greater example of this than in Marcel Proust’s The Remembrance of Things Past, a seven-volume memoir published over a period of fourteen years (1913-1927). Proust’s flood of memories is launched in a single remarkable moment, as he is sitting drinking a cup of herbal tea with a madeleine, a small shell-shaped cake:  

And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.

Through his sense of taste, Proust’s memory is magically unlocked, and he is involuntarily and instantly transported in an instant to a vivid remembrance of his past. We often view memory as a conscious process, where we actively try to recall information, such as our Social Security Number.  Psychologists call this type of memory voluntary explicit memory.  A different type of memory is called the Proust phenomenon, or involuntary explicit memory.  This is the type of memory that came to Proust as he tasted the madeleine, instantly triggering powerful emotions and memories from his childhood (3).

Proust’s work is just one example of many brilliant memoirs that allow us to see, smell, taste, feel, and hear what others have experienced in their past.

Here are a few examples:

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

Boy by Roald Dahl

Confessions by Augustine

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

My Left Foot by Christy Brown

Stop Time by Frank Conroy

The Story of My Life  by Hellen Keller

Reading Lolita in Tehran:  A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

This Boy’s Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the Proust phenomenon? What specific experience triggered Proust's vivid memory?

Challenge:  Proust Phenomenon:  What is a sight, smell, taste, feeling, or sound that triggers your involuntary explicit memory?  Explain what the specific trigger is and what specifically you remember.  What images and emotions flood your mind?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

May 30, 1868:  Today is the anniversary of the celebration of the first Decoration Day, a holiday known today as Memorial Day.  After the Civil War ended in 1865, many communities in the North and the South began holding tributes to fallen soldiers.  These commemorations were held in the spring when flowers were readily available for the decoration of graves.

May 30, 1431::  Joan of Arc burned at the stake

-May 30, 1975:  Marissa Ann Mayer, who helped develop the Google Search engine and who later became president of Yahoo is born

Sources:

1-History.com. “Memorial Day.” 24 May 2021.

2-Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time Volume I: Swann’s Way. Trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. New York: The Modern Library, 2003.

3-”What is the "Proust phenomenon"?” brainstuff.org 31 Dec. 2018.