I cannot give enough praise to Tim Urban’s recent book, What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies. It is exceptional, and a profoundly important book, in two ways. First, it is an outstanding and clear diagnosis of the social and intellectual ills in our society today – both on the ‘left’ and the ‘right,’ which I’ll explain more about below. Second, he provides a clear framework for helping us understand the different ways in which we are, and are not, open to the ideas of others. Let me take a step back to try and explain both.
Urban is most well known for his blog, Wait But Why, where he writes long-form posts about any number of topics he finds interesting. His particular skill is in synthesizing complex ideas and presenting them in comprehensible and interesting ways, often using comics and graphics to make his ideas more accessible (as he does in the book as well). The seed for this book began about six years ago, when he found himself having an increasingly difficult time understanding why people around him seemed to be becoming increasingly polarized, unable to speak to one another. There was more talk of ‘us vs. them’; people taking the position that anyone who didn’t agree with ‘my side’ was not only wrong but evil; cancel culture; and more. He began to read and speak to people, and tried to make sense of the changes he was observing.
What he came to realize is that when ideas don’t get surfaced because they are canceled, when people don’t listen to one another but only to their ‘tribe’ because the other is evil, polarization and intellectual stultification is the outcome. That’s another way of saying that there has been a movement away from small-L liberalism, and this has been a movement on both sides of the intellectual spectrum. On one hand, he says, there are open-minded people on the left and open-minded people on the right – and when they disagree, it’s with an open mind to one another’s ideas and be changed by them (or refute them), which allows society to function together (that’s liberalism at work). But when each side closes themselves and their ideas off, when they say that people or ideas different from them are a threat or evil, society pulls apart, and liberal democracy stops being able to function. As such, what Urban advocates for is a liberal democracy where people can and should disagree, not only in order for the best ideas to prevail and for people to learn from one another, which is a net-good, but because it’s the best path that allows different people and ideas to live together, peacefully, which stops happening if we think people who are not like us are evil.
Urban also develops a wonderfully user-friendly nomenclature for thinking, or what he calls the ‘idea lab.’ In descending order of characters that support a liberal society, there’s the scientist, who’s not emotionally attached to her ideas, and just want to know the truth of things; the sports fan, who loves his team, but wants to make sure the game is played by the rules – winning by breaking the rules isn’t really a win – so he’s honest about how the game is played; the attorney, who advocates for her client at all costs – the truth be damned; and the zealot, who’s only interested in their ‘truth’ – everyone else is evil. I find this so powerful as a way to check my own thinking (and not just the thinking of others), and as an easy way to talk to kids as well.
Urban is an exceptionally clear and compelling writer. He writes in a very colloquial fashion – even when writing about high-minded ideas. One of the things that makes this book so interesting is the way he uses the history of ideas, an analysis of present day social and intellectual norms, and powerful conceptual frameworks, all in one book. The melding of these elements gives a depth of thinking, and powerful relevance, that I don’t often find in one place.
No matter where you find yourself on today’s social issues, What’s Our Problem will give you a deeper understanding of where your ideas come from, as well as those of others, and how we can begin to heal the political and social challenges that face us.
Just Because I Liked It:
- I found this short documentary about the life of a shepherd quite moving.
- Although old news at this point, I found this brief article describing Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s advocacy for a space for non-Orthodox groups at the Kotel thoughtful and sensitive. Rabbi Melamed is a Torah giant, and the author of the incredible series of accessible halachic books titled Peninei Halacha, many of which have now been translated into English.