Developing Intellectual Honesty

One of the most important skills that any intelligent person can acquire is that of intellectual honesty.  Learning to be honest with yourself, learning to value truth, and to seek to see the world as it really is, rather than as we want to believe it is, will do more for helping us get along with others than just about any other skill we can acquire.  It is so easy to self-gaslight.  Or in other words, to convince ourselves of a reality that we really want to believe, because it plays into our fantasies and our narratives for how we believe that the world operates.

It is natural to seek out “facts” that confirm our biases and to avoid things that force us to confront where we may be incorrect.  It is much easier to live in a fantasy of half-truths than to open our eyes and see that we may have misunderstood or misinterpreted some aspects of the the world and how it really functions.  In the end though, we must ask ourselves what is more important:  Being comfortable in our false narratives, or understanding the world as it really exists?

Do we care more about our comfort, or more about basing our worldview on truth?

When we fool ourselves into believing things that aren’t really true, who suffers?  Who are the victims of the lies that we sometimes tell ourselves?  The answer is of course that we are.  We suffer far more than does anyone else!  Such behavior causes us to believe that others are out to get us, that they are bad people, that we are victims, and so forth.  It causes is to feel paranoid, and to feel more anxiety.  In its extremes, a lack of intellectual honesty can lead to our justifying our own hatred and intolerance by convincing ourselves that the other person was intolerant first, and that they deserve our wrath.

Considering the importance of intellectual honesty, it is worthwhile to explore the topic, and to work to improve this trait in ourselves.

What this course WILL do:

• Help you to build your own framework for how you view and value intellectual honesty.
• Provide you with things to consider as you build this framework.

What this course WILL NOT do:

• Tell you what your framework should be.  We can’t!  It is too personal.  Our role is only to provide you with things to consider, as you work towards creating your own framework.
• Help you learn to dance the tango!  Totally outside the scope of this course… (just saying!)

Before we start, let’s get some boring technical stuff out of the way.  This is to satisfy the instructional designers… They want us to tell you what it is that you are going to be learning.  You know how instructional designers can be…

Performance Objective:
After completing an online program, students will be able to explain what intellectual honesty is from memory, and will be able to express their own values regarding how they use intellectual honesty in their own lives.

Alright!  Now that we got the boring part over with, and without any further ado, buckle up and get ready to face your own self-deception!  Yikes!!