Fighting Intellectual Exclusion.

• Author: Leef, George

Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us

By Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro

307 pp.; Princeton

University Press, 2021

Does it seem that the United States is, to borrow the title of a Charles Murray book, coming apart? Our political divisions are increasingly vicious and intractable. Tolerance for those "on the other side" is waning. Families are torn apart and friendships severed over the discovery that someone holds a different set of views. Listening and civil discussion have largely been replaced by angry, reflexive denunciation. Ad hominem attacks have become the norm.

If you think this is a serious problem, so do Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro. The former is a professor of arts and humanities at Northwestern University and the latter is president of that institution. The two have written a book meant to shed light on the rising acrimony in America.

They argue that our discord stems from "fundamentalist" thinking that makes people unable to see any merit in opposing viewpoints or consider weaknesses in their own. They write:

Not so long ago, it seemed as if [the era of] "grand narratives," ... as Jean-Francois Lyotard observed, was over. No longer would people rush to adopt theories that explain everything.... Also, not so long ago, it was an unchallenged commonplace that cultures are undergoing a far-reaching secularization that, in spite of occasional resistance, is unstoppable. The rise of militant Islam and what some have termed "fundamentalist Hinduism" have called the "secularization thesis" into question. Where are the inevitabilities of yesteryear? Missionary nihilism/ As Morson and Schapiro view matters, people are increasingly prone to categorical thinking that explains everything in terms of some essential text or belief system. They only see confirming evidence for their opinions and treat those who disagree as evil persons who must be squelched.

This sort of thinking is not limited to supposedly backward segments of society. Bear in mind that the authors are at one of America's most prestigious, extremely selective educational institutions. Here's what they say:

In our classes, we have seen students who adopt fundamentalist ways of thinking almost by default: not as a choice, but because they imagine that is just what thinking is. These students seem genuinely surprised that there are situations where one cannot find a uniquely correct answer, where one needs to make choices under uncertainty, and...