RUSH.

A Moment of Clarity...

WORDS.

"...I’d acknowledge that none of us can get through the day without making a lot of assumptions. All of us have intellectual, ideological and moral commitments that we bring to bear upon what we think about almost everything.

But the hyperpolarization of our moment has sped up the rush to (contradictory) judgments, a practice further accelerated by new technologies. We have less patience than ever with the often­painstaking task of gathering facts. We are better informed yet seem more efficient than ever in manufacturing conspiracy theories.

I mistrust moralistic nostalgia for some nonexistent golden age of reason, and I have contentedly joined the bracing new-media world. The past had problems of its own.

Still, I’d insist that “crowdsourcing” is quite different from reasoning together, an art we seem to have forgotten. And at the risk of disrupting the productivity gains of the opinion-creation industry in which I happily participate, I wish we were better at remembering three words: Stop and think."

THE WASHINGTON POST: The culture of preconception