Readings and Soundings:
In Pursuit of Professional Sense-making
Professional Reading As Platform
Each of us charts a personalized pathway of updating ourselves professionally, through attending workshops, conferences, webinars, public events on our campuses and in our communities, monitoring listservs, and participating in group discussions in our places of work, or in individual conversations with colleagues. My own practices have shifted dramatically during the pandemic and post-pandemic (perhaps the case for many of us) toward webinars and virtual events. Events offered by the HxA (Heterodox Academy), FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), ACTA (American Council on Trustees and Alumni), and IHS (Institute for Humane Studies) are especially rewarding for me. I find the highly interdisciplinary discussions about matters with large social and political consequences offered by these organizations to be thoughtful, scholarly, and always conducted with an eye toward viewpoint diversity and open inquiry—in dealing honestly with complexity and not settling for reductive “answers” where none are possible, but where provisional truths emerge, if only dimly.
However, I find that these events are greatly enriched for me by a continuous program of professional reading. I am including with this article a list of readings that offer possibilities for reinvigorating institutions and communities whose renewal depends, of course, upon finding common epistemic ground. Some of these are books, others are substacks, and all have renewed my own thinking about possible futures for our field. Some of these grapple with the by-now familiar cancel culture/campus free expression debates (Lukianoff/Schlott) or with social media influences and generational change (Haidt). Others delve into the intellectual history of how we have arrived at this point in the academy, and more generally in society, with the current identitarianism that causes group essentialism, preventing individuals and organizations alike from flourishing (Mounk’s Identity Trap). Others speak to the possibilities for individual, civic, and organizational renewal: Hudson’s The Soul of Civility traces civility to ancient roots and promotes small ways with which citizens can live together peacefully across divides. Guzman’s I Never Thought of It That Way champions a conversational mode for bridging those divides, while Kaplan’s new Fragile Neighborhoods depicts the decline in recent decades of neighborhood of all types, urban and rural, because of economic decline, social mobility, and atomization, with options for reinvigorating communities for the 21st century. Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s Generous Thinking discusses ways for universities to renew themselves by returning to a humanistic vision that creates ties within the institution, and then in turn to the larger communities they serve. Her compelling vision imagines overcoming silos and narrowness, turning to the pursuit of the common good, an often-challenging undertaking in large and complex institutions like universities.
Social Trust and Epistemic Divides
The search for common epistemic ground is the constant theme across all of these readings—in creating more flourishing communities within the norms of liberal democracies. That common ground is hugely contested now because of assumptions from postmodern philosophy that shared facts and objective “truth” aren’t possible. The consequences for practice within librarianship have produced two contrary tendencies: that of relying on narrowly conceived instrumentalism to accomplish our individual and organizational purposes; and on the other hand, engaging in enormous expansion of our missions through infusions of ideologies that align all activities on Critical Social Justice—a “concept creep” that often undercuts intellectual freedom and diversity of thought. Between these extremes, I am often left mentally stranded, because professionalism based on individual agency and collective sense-making must create conditions for truth-seeking within our field that transcend both instrumentalism and ideological indoctrination. Those conditions must allow for intellectual freedom and evidence-based professional practice. But the larger culture that impinges on our practice must first be acknowledged, and we should understand the epistemic crisis that surrounds us more thoroughly.
Truth, as far as we can know it, comes from the sensemaking that based on sifting claims through the interpretations of multiple parties in this landscape—and that in turn means giving up certainty, living with fallibility (and the scientific method of fallibilism), and insisting on free expression for everyone as a necessary condition for getting closer to the truth about complex matters where facts are marshalled, often by competing experts, in support of divergent and conflicting claims.
Against this tested method for truth-seeking and collective-sense-making, we are perplexed by imponderables. In recent years, western liberal democracies have been confronted with, and racked by, deep controversies over racial inequities, gender ideology, immigration, climate change, the role of social media in affecting beliefs and behavior, the status of experts, scientists, and scholars, the lack of civic participation, the COVID mandates and their associated controversies and costs, and the decline in literacy and reading. The overriding issue of social trust across all of these contested matters has created a major epistemic crisis, and the epistemic crisis in turn amplifies further distrust.
One of the best-known authors on the epistemic challenge, Jonathan Rauch, writes in The Constitution of Knowledge about “liberal science” and its methods for determining factuality of claims through a network of checks and balances—including competing experts, governmental bodies, think thanks, journalists, and citizens themselves. The “liberal science” delineated by Rauch is based on provisional testing of hypotheses (remarkably like the scientific method itself), empirical fact-gathering, and ongoing debate and discussion through methods best learned through education and experience—and free from ideological inflections coming from various Critical Theories, on the one extreme, or from populist “wisdom”, on the other. Rauch’s “liberal science” is perhaps the best approximation for collective sense-making in a liberal democracy where experts and many institutions are now questioned and distrusted.
New Prisms for Sense-Making
I have also become especially attuned to perspectives emerging from cognitive science that might address the trust and epistemic crises—such as that offered by Mercier’s Not Born Yesterday, which illuminates how all of us already possess the capacities of epistemic vigilance to avoid mass persuasion and propaganda, but often act out of tribal affinities, social signaling, or upon other incentives to be part of “our tribe”. Hence the result is the spread of favored “narratives,” conspiracy theories, or often politicized “misinformation” in pursuit of social goals. How can the epistemic divides in our society be overcome in a time of great polarization? Mercier writes of renewing the “fragile chains of trust” *—that is, shoring up institutions and bodies of experts, and holding them accountable for more accurate communication with the larger public. In addition, citizens themselves should learn a habit of mind, their own epistemic responsibility, that seeks more, rather than less, information, from reliable sources, rather than creating their own curated silos of favored sources from one political or cultural vantage point.
The trust crisis that surrounds our professional work, embedded as it is with a wide range of citizens with varying belief systems, suggests a new epistemology for the field itself may become necessary, beyond the grounding in “systems, sources, policies and practices” that comprise much of our training in Library/Information Science and in our continuing education programs and conferences. One possibility is to anchor our professionalism within a code of practice based on pluralism, and the principled neutrality well described on this substack before, but with the vital addition of virtues based on both intellectual humility and epistemic responsibility to colleagues rather than adhering only to favored and fashionable ideologies. Jason Baehr’s scholarship in The Inquiring Mind gives us one avenue to imagine how professionalism based on virtues might better equip us address contested issues within our own profession (care/harm controversies relating to collections, teaching, and programming, for example).
More generally, the call for a sounder epistemology for all citizens articulated by philosopher Nathan Ballantyne, in Knowing Our Limits, emphasizes the importance of open-mindedness (a cardinal virtue for Baehr as well), perspective-taking, understanding the competing claims of experts more thoroughly, and studying the welter of complex issues surrounding us such as artificial intelligence, data privacy, censorship (in all its forms), and social justice, with more care and due diligence, and less tribal signaling. The trust crisis can be diminished by placing ourselves, as one professional group, on a sounder epistemic footing, and the scholarship of Mercier, Baehr, and Ballatyne offer reinforcing visions for creating that better foundation for discussion within our field.
Whither “Misinformation”?
One immediate example for us related to the trust crisis involves the frequent unfortunate use of the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation”—which are now politicized in a way that the emerging field of Misinformation Studies itself is becoming suspect. We in libraries are fortunately moving beyond our “fake news” and CRAAP checklists, but a deeper understanding of epistemology and human psychology and motivation are much needed to move toward a new consultative and teaching role—and in fact, a new organizational development role within our own field. Philosopher Dan Williams’ new substack Conspicuous Cognition offers a helpful primer on the nuances of “misinformation” and how the crude definitions of it are short-circuiting better discussions of the concept. Trust within our field, even with its divides about free expression, intellectual freedom, social justice, and identity politics, is more likely to be renewed through discussions of Williams’ scholarship, along with that of Jay Van Bavel and Lionel Page, who write about trust issues in relation to “misinformation” based on empirical evidence and careful theory-building.
Questions for the Future
The questions for libraries and librarians that I gain from this ongoing program of reading and discussion with others can best be summarized by the following:
· How can we gain a better sense of emerging research across multiple disciplines, from psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, political science, economics, and media/communication studies that will promote better discussions in our field, at conferences, in journals, in all venues where we share our learning with colleagues? How can these findings be better digested, synthesized, and discussed and debated in a way that improves our practice?
· How can we promote viewpoint diversity and open inquiry professionally using this body of research and scholarship in an active rather than a passive way? How can we plan library programming, collection-building, and community engagement more attuned to emerging scholarship on trust, misinformation, and the epistemic divide?
· How can we forge an interdisciplinary perspective on pluralism in a way that comports with the goals of the Heterodox Academy, and described in its call for Fellows for the new Center for Academic Pluralism?
· How can we create new publishing ventures for sharing new LIS scholarship based on the principles of pluralism, open inquiry, and viewpoint diversity?
· How can we build out from our current professional development model of symposia offered by the HxLibraries group to offer summer institutes and other opportunities for those librarians especially interested in intellectual and academic freedom?
· What alliances with other professional organizations do we need to forge? With civic dialogue institutes? With Open Science/Open Scholarship initiatives, or the Adversarial Collaboration Project?
· What incentives for libraries rededicated to pluralism, intellectual diversity, and open inquiry can we deploy, within or beyond major national professional associations in our field?
These questions offer my own vantage point, and I am sure there are numerous other questions and perspectives possible among librarians interested in intellectual and academic freedom and the core HxA values of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement. I offer this reading list and its generative potential to stimulate further discussion about our collective sense-making in advancing the profession.
*Hugo Mercier, Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020, pp. 269-270.
Books
Lukianoff, Greg and Rikki Schlott. Cancelling of the American Mind
Haidt, Jonathan, and Greg Lukianoff. The Coddling of the American Mind. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure: Lukianoff, Greg, Haidt, Jonathan: 9780735224919: Amazon.com: Books
Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation. https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic/dp/0593655036/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25ZK0CONKO1OQ&
Ben-Porath, Sigal. Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy. Amazon.com : Sigal Ben-Porath
Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University. Amazon.com: Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University: 9781421429465: Fitzpatrick, Kathleen: Books
Caulfield, Mike, and Sam Wineberg, Verified
Hudson, Alexandra, The Soul of Civility
Mounk, Yascha, The Identity Trap
Kaplan, Seth, Fragile Neighborhoods
Mercier, Hugo. Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe: Mercier, Hugo: 9780691208923: Amazon.com: Books
Rauch, Jonathan. The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth.
The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth: Rauch, Jonathan: 9780815738862: Amazon.com: Books
Ballantyne, Nathan. Knowing Our Limits. Amazon.com: Knowing Our Limits: 9780190847289: Ballantyne, Nathan: Books
Baehr, Jason. The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology. Amazon.com: The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology: 9780199659296: Baehr, Jason: Books
Galef, Julia. The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t. Amazon.com : Galef scout report
Tosi, Justin, and Brandon Warmke. Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk. Amazon.com: Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk: 9780190900151: Tosi, Justin, Warmke, Brandon: Books
Hari, Johann. Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again. Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention-and How to Think Deeply Again: Hari, Johann: 9780593138533: Amazon.com: Books
Sunstein, Cass. Conformity: The Power of Social Influences. Amazon.com: Conformity: The Power of Social Influences eBook : Sunstein, Cass R., Frank, Robert H.: Kindle Store
Edmondson, Amy. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth: Edmondson, Amy C.: 9781119477242: Amazon.com: Books
Cowen, Tyler, and Daniel Gross. Talent: How To Spot Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World. Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World: Cowen, Tyler, Gross, Daniel: 9781250275813: Amazon.com: Books
Guzman, Monica. I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times: Guzmán, Mónica: 9781637740323: Amazon.com: Books
Van Bavel, Jay, and Dominic Packer. The Power of Us. (8) The Power of Us | Dominic Packer & Jay Van Bavel | Substack
Muthukrishna, Michael. A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going. A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going: Muthukrishna, Michael: 9780262048378: Amazon.com: Books
Substacks (cognitive science, philosophy, social psychology, economics, science communications)
Haidt, Jon. After Babel
Hanson, Robin. Overcoming Bias.
Page, Lionel. Optimistically Irrational
Ritchie, Stuart. Science Fictions.
Van Bavel, Jay. (8) The Power of Us | Dominic Packer & Jay Van Bavel | Substack
Williams, Dan. Conspicuous Cognition.
Addendum: I offer the following three examples (there are others) of new or recent ventures of alternative media sites created with the aim of balancing various perspectives from the media ecosystem. While I do not forgo reading of the “mainstream media,” and am aware of its pitfalls, biases and demographic characteristics of its reporters, I strive to find a wide range of both “mainstream” and emergent news sources to adhere to Rauch’s “Constitution of Knowledge.”
News
Ground News
I just saw this post from Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel in their Power of Us substack:
"How Institutions Can Create Social Cohesion," Their research on institutions and trust looks very appropriate for the times we're in.
https://powerofus.substack.com/p/how-institutions-can-create-social
Apt quote here: "Without trusted institutions to create a broader cohesion, people will likely fall back on more parochial identities and nepotistic social networks. The social fabric starts to fray. Things come undone. Corruption and discrimination is likely to follow."
"Mercier writes of renewing the “fragile chains of trust” *—that is, shoring up institutions and bodies of experts, and holding them accountable for more accurate communication with the larger public." I would love to see more accurate communication with the public from institutions. It is disheartening to see institutions settle for simple messages that ignore complexity and even prevent complexity from being explored by oversimplifying. People are smarter than that and it just results in disengagement from anyone of a different mind.