(upbeat music) - All right, who do we got next, Jesse? - Next up we have Anthony. He has a question. You've been getting a lot of these questions lately about seeking counter arguments. - Hi Cal, Anthony here. Thank you for your books, your articles, and this podcast. They truly inspire me to keep living the deep life.

Keep up the great work. My question is about your advice to seek out the best counter arguments when developing a philosophy or stance on an issue. I think the advice makes sense. I was just wondering if you could provide some tips on how to actually go about finding the best counter arguments and engaging with them.

What does this process look like? How do you go about doing it? Any details you could share would be helpful. Thank you. - Well, Anthony, this question has come up a couple of times recently. And the answer I gave last week in responding to a similar question was find someone that you know or trust or respect that is on the other side of a topic and then ask them what are the great sources here?

Like what's the writing that inspires you? What's the writing that's the foundation of whatever it is you care about, right? So like let's say your natural instinct is towards a sort of big government political theory. You're like, I should probably understand what these libertarians are about. So I kind of understand the opposite side of it.

Find, you know, everyone has the libertarian friend. They kind of advertise. And be like, what's the thing you're reading, man? What got you into this? Like, who do you think the big books are here, the ones that made you into this? And then they tell you, like, great, okay.

So these were the books they read that were quite inspiring to them. And then you know what to go read. So that's what I'd recommend. Find someone that seems reasonable on that side of the argument and ask them not for their arguments, not for their particular reasons, but what they read that was most inspiring.

It's usually not that hard to find. Almost every stance and almost every position on almost every topic has some foundational text. So it's all about going and finding foundational text. Here's the added benefit of doing that that I wasn't able to mention last time. Put aside the particular content that you are exploring when you do this exercise.

You are being exposed when you do this on a regular basis to foundational text. Foundational texts in abstract are incredibly interesting and useful to encounter. 'Cause what makes a text foundational? It means someone was able to come in on some topic and deliver such a well-organized and persuasive structuring of the world that many people changed the way they lived their lives because of it.

Those are cool books. I think Tyler Cowen calls these quake books. They cause an earthquake in your personal intellectual life. Just being exposed to that type of writing, I think is exciting. And it also really sharpens your own rhetorical skills because you're being exposed to the very highest level of people trying to be persuasive about understanding the world.

So even if you don't care about what they're saying, even if after you read what they're saying, it doesn't change your mind because you read a quake book on the other side. And when they combined, you realize like that side's probably right. You're still picking up the raw craft tools.

And it's a really interesting, fun reading experience. And it infuses in you the power of nonfiction done right. So that is the hidden benefit I wanted to point out here is that not only do you enrich in your own understanding of a topic by reading the best stuff on the other side, not only does that give you more authenticity, not only does that give you more deeper roots of understanding, not only does that give you the confidence to take actual action, it also exposes you to a really cool genre of writing, those type of books that can change the way that people live.

And I gotta say, I just have to, I continue to double down on this idea that it is not wrong to expose yourself to people that you worry or disagree with. Be very, very wary of anyone who says, "I don't want you being exposed to that "because you might be tricked." I won't be.

I'm smart, I'm sophisticated, but you might be tricked into believing the wrong thing. So I don't want you to listen to that. And in fact, we should probably make that thing go away because people might hear that and be tricked. We need to be very careful about what you hear.

That is always the character you don't wanna be in the Orwell novel. That's always the character in the Huxley book that you're saying like, "Ooh, that's not the guy I like." All right, so just be very wary of that. I can think of no better way to build convictions than to expose those convictions to good arguments that disagree.

It's going to nuance and sophisticate your understanding. And as I talked about last week, it means you're gonna take more action, more action in the service of things you care about if you're exposed to the countervailing arguments because you get more confidence in your stance. You get more nuance.

You're not just online firing emojis at people. You actually say, "I get this and feel strong about this. "And I have a sophisticated, "dielectrically formed vision on this. "So why don't we actually get out there "and make some change?" So a lot of great things come out of that strategy, Anthony.

So seek out those books, read those books, and you will be well off. (upbeat music)