THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 26

What lesson about human thinking can we learn from a slave who lived in the 5th century B.C.?

Subject:  Cognitive Dissonance - “The Fox and the Grapes”

Event:  William Caxton publishes first English translation of Aesop’s Fables, 1484

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder. -Thomas Aquinas

On this day in 1484, William Caxton published the first English translation of Aesop’s Fables. Born in 1422, Caxton established the first printing press in England and not only printed books but also translated them into English from French, Latin, and Dutch. Caxton’s English translation of the fables was translated from French.

The Greek storyteller Aesop lived in the 5th century B.C. Although we know few facts about his life, we do have legends that report he was a slave who eventually won his freedom.  

One legend tells of his ability to think on his feet and his skill for constructing analogies in story form. One day, walking with his master, the philosopher Xanthus, Aesop came upon a gardener.  The gardener asked Xanthus for some gardening advice, complaining that the weeds in the garden always grow faster than the fruits and vegetables he plants.  Xanthus is a bit flummoxed by the question, but answers that the only explanation is divine providence.  After 

hearing Xanthus’ answer, Aesop laughs, so Xanthus challenges him to give his answer to the question.  Aesop explains that nature is like a woman who has been married twice.  In her first marriage, she had children who she raised and cared for; in her second marriage, however, she inherited stepchildren from her husband's previous marriage.  In Aesop's analogy, the weeds are given special and loving care as Mother Earth’s biological children, while the gardener's crops are her step-children.  As a result, they receive less care and attention. After hearing Aesop’s explanation, the gardener nods with understanding and shows his gratitude to Aesop by giving him a basket of vegetables.  

Today we are familiar with many of Aesop’s Fables because of their popularity as children’s stories, such as “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and “The Lion and the Mouse.”  The Fables are not just for children, however.  Careful examination of their themes will provide profound insights into human thinking and behavior.  One specific example is the “Fox and the Grapes,” which identifies the natural human inclination for rationalization.

                                                            Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.

Cognitive scientists recognize the fox’s behavior in this story as classic cognitive dissonance:   the internal mental conflict that occurs when our thoughts or beliefs run counter to our actions, behaviors, or new information.  

We seek out consistency when it comes to our attitudes and behaviors, just as the fox likes to see himself as a capable hunter of grapes.  When we encounter dissonance, or lack of agreement between our thoughts and actions, we become uncomfortable and seek to excuse or rationalize our behavior.  The fox, therefore, is better able to maintain his image of himself as a capable hunter by rationalizing that the grapes were sour.

Being right feels much better than being wrong, so we tend to see what we want to see.  We like it when our thoughts are consistent and balanced; however, like the fox, the world presents us with curveballs and contradictory information that can throw our thinking out of balance.  When we encounter this “dissonance,” it’s often easier to “explain away” or rationalize than to think deeply and reasonably.  After all, thinking is hard work, so we often avoid it. 

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is cognitive dissonance? How does the fox in Aesop's fable demonstrate cognitive dissonance?

Also on this Day:

March 26, 1892:  On this day, American poet Walt Whitman died at his home in Camden, New Jersey.  Whitman was the first great poet of the United States and was a pioneer of free verse, which abandons traditional poetic forms and meter. In the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, English teacher Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) frequently quotes Whitman, as he does in the following short speech to his students about why they must read and study poetry:

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. 

Challenge - Show Me the Dissonance:  The psychologist who first identified and named cognitive dissonance was Leon Festinger (1919-1989).  Do a bit of research to discover that specific experiment Festinger carried out to empirically demonstrate the reality of cognitive dissonance in the thinking of real people.  What was the experiment, and how did it reveal cognitive dissonance?

Sources:

1-Gibbs, Laura. “Life of Aesop: The Wise Fool and the Philosopher.” Journey to the Sea online magazine 1 March 2009.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 25

If argumentation were a Swiss Army Knife, what would be its six essential tools?

Subject:  Persuasion - Toulmin Argument

Event:  Birthday of British philosopher Stephen Toulmin, 1922

Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument. -Desmond Tutu

Today is the birthday of British philosopher and educator Stephen Toulmin, who was born in London in 1922.

In 1958, Toulmin published a book entitled The Uses of Argument in which he explained his model of argumentation.  Toulmin’s objective was to give his readers a practical, real-world method for constructing or analyzing arguments.  Instead of the abstract, academic proofs written by logisticians, Toulmin proposed a method that could be understood and applied by ordinary people to everyday arguments.

                                                        Image by VintageSnipsAndClips from Pixabay 

The Toulmin model of argument is made up of six key parts:

The Claim is what you believe to be true, what the argument proves.

The Data is the facts, evidence and reasons that lead you to believe the claim is true.

The Warrant is an assumption that connects the data with your claim.  The warrant makes the thinking of the argument explicit, explaining both how and why the data support the claim.  

The Backing is any facts or details that support the warrant.

The Qualifier is the limits of the claim, stating whether or not it is always true or in what cases it is true.

The Rebuttal is where the person writing the argument anticipates and answers possible objections to the claim by stating counterclaims and responding to them.

Toulmin’s model is an excellent way to analyze arguments made by others or to analyze your own.  It gives you a method for carefully thinking through each part and for troubleshooting the parts that don’t hold up under scrutiny.  In essence, the model is a grammar for arguments. Just as grammar allows you to name the parts needed for crafting and revising clear sentences, Toulmin’s model gives you the nomenclature needed to construct and examine sound arguments (1).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  According to the Toulmin model, what are the six parts of an argument? How does a Claim differ from a Warrant?

Challenge:  Try Toulmin’s Toolbox:  What are examples of five claims that you believe in fully?  Brainstorm some possible claims that you could confidently make.  Then, select one claim, and write a well-developed argument employing each element of the Toulmin model.

Before you begin writing your own argument, analyze the example argument below, identifying the claim, qualifier, data, warrant, backing, and rebuttal:

The best way to become a good writer is to read widely. Most good writers build up their experience and understanding of the different ways that words, sentences, and paragraphs work through reading. Furthermore, most writers don’t just express their own ideas; instead, they build and test their own ideas by reading, responding and referring to other writers. One of the common things you will hear when listening to interviews of writers is their references to other writers as well as to what they have read or are reading.  In the words of Stephen King, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” A writer might have great ideas, but without a lot of experience in analyzing the written word through careful reading, the writer is not going to be equipped to package his or her ideas in a way that they can be understood by an audience of readers.  Some may say that the best way to write is to just write; however, that’s a little like saying the best way to build a house is to just build a house. Just as home construction requires knowledge of architecture, good writing requires a solid understanding of the architecture of prose. Construction workers read blueprints before they pick up a hammer; likewise, good writers read good books before they pick up a pen.  

Sources:

1-Grimes, William. “Stephen Toulmin, a Philosopher and Educator, Dies at 87.” The New York Times 11 December 2009.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 24

How did a 1973 album by a British rock group become the soundtrack of the 1939 film Wizard of Oz?

Subject:  Creativity - Mash Up  

Event:  Pink Floyd releases the album Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. -Nathaniel Hawthorne

According to Newsweek, the word “mash-up” was coined in 2001 by DJ Freelance Hellraiser, who used Christina Aguilera’s vocals from the song ‘Genie in a Bottle’ and “recorded [them] over the instrumentals from ‘Hard to Explain.’” Mash-up is not just a musical term, however. A mash-up applies to any combination of two or more forms of media: music, film, television, computer program, etc.

So what does March 24 have to do with this strange new term? Well, on this day in 1973, Pink Floyd released its groundbreaking Dark Side of the Moon album. Later — no one really knows when – someone came up with the crazy idea of combining, or ‘mashing,’ the Pink Floyd album with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The fans of this mash-up claim over 100 different moments where Pink Floyd’s music and lyrics oddly coincide with events and actions in the film. For example, when Mrs. Gulch first appears riding her bicycle, the bells and chimes at the beginning of the song “Time” begin to sound.

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“Mash-up” is just one example of a neologism, a new word that is created to describe some kind of phenomenon, concept, or invention. Some of these words have the lifespan of a common housefly, but others, if they are used enough, eventually are cataloged and included in the English lexicon (1).

Wordsmiths at the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, have the “rule of five” to guide their decision about whether or not to publish a neologism in the dictionary. According to the rule, the word must be published in at least five different sources over a five-year period. As a result, lexicographers are always reading, searching for potential new additions to the dictionary.

If you want to be ahead of the curve on new words, check out the website Wordspy.com. The site is maintained by Paul McFedries, a technical writer with an obvious love of language. Here is the description of his site in his own words: Wordspy “is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren’t ‘stunt words’ or ‘sniglets,’ but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, websites, and other recorded sources” (2).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What two forms of media were combined after the release of "Dark Side of the Moon" in 1973? What is the "Rule Of Five"?

Challenge - The Old Man and the Dictionary:  What are some examples of words that fit the following categories:  abstract noun, plural noun, common noun, possessive noun, adjective?  Make a list of at least three words in each category.  Then, use words from your list to complete the titles below.  By doing this, you’ll slightly alter the title of a classic work by mashing it up with your new words.  Select one of your titles and imagine it is a novel you have written. Write the blurb for the novel, a brief description of the story’s plot that you would place on the back cover of the book to attract and interest readers in the story.

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the __________ (plural noun)

War and Peace

War and __________ (abstract noun)

The Strange Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The __________ (adjective) Incident of the _________ (noun) in the Nighttime

Lord of the Rings

Lord of the ___________ (plural noun)

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet ___________ (noun)

The Grapes of Wrath

The __________ (plural noun) of Wrath

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to ___________ (plural noun)

Snow Falling on Cedars

Snow Falling on __________ (plural noun)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of _____________ (noun) Maintenance

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

One Flew Over the ____________  (possessive noun) ____________(noun)

The Old Man and the Sea 

The __________ (adjective) Man and the __________ (noun)

Sources:

1-”Technology: Time For Your Mashup?” Newsweek 5 March 2006.

2-Paul McFedries. Word Spy: The Word Lover’s Guide to Modern Culture. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.

THINKER'S ALMANAC: March 23

Is it possible to run a sociological experiment that could determine the innate nature of the human species?

Subject:   Social Psychology - The Stanford Prison Experiment

Event:  Birthday of Philip Zimbardo, 1933

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.  -Mahatma Gandhi

On this day in 1933, psychologist Philip Zimbardo was born in New York City.  After earning his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University in 1959, Zimbardo became a professor of psychology.  Zimbardo is best known for what is perhaps the single most famous psychological experiment in history:   his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

The experiment began with the “arrest” of nine young men who actually volunteered for the experiment.  On the morning of August 15, 1971, each of the men was arrested at his home and booked for either theft or armed robbery.  Instead of being taken to an actual jail, however, all nine were transported to the basement of the Stanford University psychology department building, where a makeshift jail had been set up for the two-week experiment.  Greeting the inmates were nine additional volunteers who had been selected to play the role of guards.  Each wore a khaki uniform and mirrored sunglasses.

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The inmates were first stripped of their clothes, chained around their ankles, and given a knee-length smock and a stocking cap to wear.  They were then confined three to a cell; from this point on each inmate was addressed only his four-digit ID number.  In only the second day of the experiment, the prisoners staged a rebellion by barricading themselves in their cells by pushing their beds against the doors.  The guards countered by punishing the inmates, spraying them with fire extinguishers, taking away their beds, and stripping them of their clothes.

The behavior of the guards continued to devolve, becoming more and more inhumane and sadistic.  On the sixth day Philip Zimbardo, who was playing the role of prison superintendent, was visited by his girlfriend.  As she watched the cruel behavior of the guards and the emotional distress of the inmates, she questioned Zimbardo and made him realize how out of control the whole experiment had become.  He immediately stopped the experiment, putting an end to it eight days early.

For years the Stanford Prison Experiment has been held up as proof of how ordinary people can be transformed and stripped of their individual wills when put into certain situations or roles.  Zimbardo calls this the Lucifer effect, where normal individuals become capable of evil, sadistic acts when put in the right circumstances.  In short, it’s not bad apples, but bad barrels that lead to evil actions.

Although many have accepted Zimbardo’s Lucifer effect, others have raised doubts.  In his 2020 book Humankind, historian Rutger Bregman claims to have evidence that Zimbardo’s experiment was a hoax.  One key question is the behavior of the guards.  Although Zimbardo claims that the guards made their own rules and that their sadistic behavior was not at all directed, Bregman claims that Zimbardo briefed the guards before the experiment, in effect coaching them to be cruel and to create fear in the inmates.  Furthermore, Bregman claims that one of the guards, an undergraduate named David Jaffee, was the person who actually came up with the idea of the experiment.  And not only did Jaffee have the idea, he also ran a dry run of the experiment in May 1971 with six guards and six inmates.  Jaffe’s active role in the planning and carrying out experiment places an element of doubt into the experiment’s outcome, making us wonder how much of the Stanford Prison Experiment was true science and how much was staged.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the Lucifer effect? What happened during Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment?

Challenge - Rousseau And Hobbes:  What is the natural inclination of humans?  Are we innately good or evil?  Whenever these two philosophical questions arise, the discussion typically begins with the contradictory views of the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78).  In his great work Leviathan (1651), Hobbes claimed that in the state of nature the life of humankind is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  For Hobbes, only a civil society held together by a strong governing authority held humankind in check.  Rousseau, however, saw human nature as innately good.  For him, life before the modern state was peaceful and happy.  It is the institutions of civilization that have turned humans toward wickedness.  What is your view?  Do you see the cup of humanity as half full of good or half empty with bad?  State your claim, and include evidence from your reading, observation, or experience that supports it.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

March 23, 1775:  Patrick Henry delivered one of the most memorable and most important speeches in American history.  The speech was delivered at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, to the 120 delegates of the Second Virginia Convention, which included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  (See THINKER’S ALMANAC - May 29)

March 23, 1926:  Writing in her journal on this day, American writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937) reflected on life by juxtaposing two metaphors:  “Life is always a tightrope or a featherbed.  Give me the tightrope.” (see Word Days 1-24)

Sources:

1-Bregman, Rutger. Humankind: A Hopeful History.  New York:  Little, Brown and Company 2019: 140-57.

THINKER'S ALMANAC: March 22

How can the fatal fall from a tightrope by Karl Wallenda teach us to be more successful?

Subject:  Leadership - The Wallenda Factor

Event:  Karl Wallenda falls to his death in Puerto Rico, 1978

I think that at the start of a game, you're always playing to win, and then maybe if you're ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win. -Tom Brady

On this day in 1978, the high-wire artist Karl Wallenda fell to his death while performing in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Wallenda was 73 years old and had been performing on tightropes since he was 6 years old.  

While the death of Wallenda was blamed on high winds and an improperly secured wire, Wallenda’s wife had another possible explanation:  his mindset.  She claimed that prior to his attempted tightrope walk between the towers of the Conando Plaza Hotel, he contemplated something that he had never thought about before: falling.  In his wife’s words, “. . . it seemed to me that he put all his energies into not falling rather than walking the tightrope.”

                                                            Image by Peter Fischer from Pixabay 

Based on Wallenda’s long career of successful tightrope walks rather than his final fatal fall, leadership expert Warren Bennis coined a leadership principle called the Wallenda Factor.  In his thousands of successful high-wire walks, Wallenda focused on walking across the rope with his eyes focused forward on his goal rather than looking down and contemplating thoughts of falling.  The Wallenda Factor is a mindset that focuses on strategies for success rather than on the possibility of failure (1).

There is a fine but very important line between focusing on succeeding rather than on not failing; it’s the same fine line between focusing on winning rather than not losing.  One excellent example comes from one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time, Geno Auriemma.  Auriemma’s University of Connecticut women’s basketball team went undefeated in two straight regular seasons.  Unfortunately, both teams lost in the Final Four championship tournament.  The following year in the 2012-13 season his team lost multiple games in the regular season, which according to Auriemma gave them a better mindset going into the NCAA Championship Tournament:  “This team wasn’t burdened by being afraid to lose and was playing to win. [My past] teams 

were more afraid to lose a national championship than wanting to win a national championship” (2).

According to Warren Bennis, successful leaders don’t even have the word “failure” in their vocabularies.  Instead, they attempt to reframe failure, using terms with less harsh connotations, such as “mistake,” “glitch,” or “setback.”  That is not to say that great leaders never fail; instead, they don’t allow failure to 

take center stage.  When failure does happen, great leaders don’t let it intimidate them; instead, they put it in its proper perspective, using it as an opportunity to learn strategies for future success.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the Wallenda Factor? How do successful leaders approach failure?

Challenge - Focusing Like a Laser on Success:  Research what successful people say about success.  Identify your favorite quotation on success, and explain why you like it.

Sources:

1-Goldberg, Philip.  The Babinski Reflex.  Tarcher, 1990.

2- Fournier, Julie. “Playing To Win vs. Playing Not To Lose.” Basketball Is Psychology 11 April 2019.