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Hey! Welcome to the World of Antiquity Book Review series,
in which I share with you some thoughts about books I have been reading about ancient history.
Now, for this book review, I am doing something a little different and not sharing a book with you
that is explicitly about ancient history. But I do think it would be very helpful to people who study
ancient history, and in particular those who are trying to distinguish between history done well
and history done poorly. Those of who who watch and enjoy my Myths of Ancient History series will
be especially interested in this. As you know, in that series I tackle a lot of pseudohistorical and
pseudoarchaeological claims made by others and, although some have accused me of merely defending the views of
mainstream scholarship, as if I am playing some kind of team sport, that's not the case.
And the book I am about to share comes out strongly against approaching a subject in that way.
It’s a book about how to learn, and how to assess evidence. And it’s called The Scout Mindset:
Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t and is written by Julia Galef.
And it is not only the best book I have read this year, but it is one of my favorites of all time.
Now Julia Galef is co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, she's the host of the podcast
Rationally Speaking, and she has her own YouTube channel - that’s how I first ran across her.
Her writing is very accessible. She's interesting. She's engaging. She uses plenty of examples
from everyday experience and popular culture. If you’re familiar with my e-book, How to Know Stuff,
this is along the same lines, but whereas mine is just sort of a primer to the subject,
this one is fully-developed, and frankly, better.
So let me tell you a little about what she talks about,
and how I think it can apply to the study of ancient history.
Galef distinguishes between two different types of reasoning: the soldier mindset and
the scout mindset. The first she calls soldier mindset because it uses reasoning as if it were
defensive combat. If you are proved right, you score a victory, and if you are proved wrong,
you suffer a defeat. As you can tell, this mindset cares more about fortifying your beliefs and
defending them against enemies than about what’s actually true. The soldier, when finding an idea
that appeals to them, asks, “Can I believe this?” (wishful thinking) and when finding an idea that
does not appeal to them, asks, “Must I believe this?” (denial). A soldier uses directionally-
motivated reasoning: they have a goal, and they will reason themselves into getting there.
As you might guess, she is a critic of this mindset, although she does acknowledge it has
emotional and social benefits. It’s just not the best way to get accurate beliefs.
She instead promotes the idea of the scout mindset (the title of the book). For the scout, reasoning is
not like combat but like mapmaking. The scout seeks out evidence that will make their map more accurate.
If the scout finds out that they're wrong, they revise their map. Instead of asking, “Can I believe
this?” or “Must I believe this?” the scout asks, “Is this true?” The scout uses accuracy-motivated
reasoning. They care more about being correct than about being right. They approach subjects with
curiosity, not with a win-or-lose mentality. Every correction of their beliefs is, in fact, a win.
The benefit of using the scout mindset is that we make good judgment calls.
And that’s just where the book gets started. Galef goes on to provide all kinds of tips
for helping ourselves to cultivate the scout mindset, because it doesn’t come naturally.
We have to make our minds over and constantly check ourselves to ensure that we're doing it right.
I think these principles apply well in the study of history, because there are ideas I am sure
we find more appealing than other ideas, and we might be inclined to use directionally-motivated
reasoning to try to establish their correctness. Keep in mind this is not the same thing as
developing a hypothesis and testing it. The soldier will want to discard any evidence that
contradicts or conflicts with the hypothesis and favor the evidence that supports it. But the scout
will have no attachment to a specific end result. The scout just wants to get to the truth,
as best as possible. Even the most seasoned of scholars needs to fight this tendency.
Honestly, I realize that having a YouTube series that critiques alternative history ideas might
influence me to side with mainstream history just because it’s the side I’m supposed to be on
or something. But I am not on a side. I can’t be on a side. That’s soldier mentality. I have to
go where the evidence takes me. If it takes me somewhere I wasn’t expecting to go, so be it.
And it goes the other way too. Self-deception just hurts us.
Anyway, I highly recommend this book. It gave me happy feelings as I read it,
and I will probably read it again soon. It also would make a great gift, though I would avoid
handing it to one of your family members and saying, “You need this.”
Julia, if you happen to run across this video,
I would love to have you on sometime for an interview to discuss it in more detail.
If you liked this book review, please give the video a thumbs up, and if you have read the book,
let me know your thoughts. I’d be interested to hear what you have to say. Until next time, happy reading!
You might like my little e-booklet, Why Ancient History Matters. It’s designed to persuade people
that the subject is important, even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it to help
spread the word. So feel free to share it with someone you know. It’s free for anyone who wants
it. I’ve left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy. Catch you later!