Loyalty, Not Merit; Confidence, not Data

The end of the era of social science common sense

Greetings at the dawn of summer.

I have a piece in today’s Current magazine in which I suggest that a major epistemological shift is underway in the Western world. For the last 150 years, the weight of respectable opinion—which is to say the locus of our governing common sense—has rested on what might be termed a social science view of the world, one rooted in fact, evidence, and chains of logic. But in the larger scheme of things—this is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic to use the terminology of psychologist Joseph Henrich), and as such, is both recent and likely to be impermanent. Indeed, there are strong indications that this worldview is losing its grip in the face of an alternative value system rooted in categories like faith and solidarity. I argue (to use a characteristically WEIRD word) that we need to acknowledge this reality as a first step in dealing with it. Which is a major challenge. Anyway, hoping you’ll have a look and find it interesting.