excerpts: preface
Preface
A grandma was helping her three-year-old grandson, Benjamin, who had been struggling to zip up his jacket. “The secret is to make sure that you push this part far down before you zip” she said, as she demonstrated the maneuver. Looking puzzled and a little troubled, Benjamin asked: “Why is it a secret?”
We’ve all had the experience of suddenly realizing how differently someone else is interpreting the world. I have been fascinated by how people think, particularly how we can understand the world so differently from one another that other points of view strike us as inexplicable and therefore “stupid.”
Psychology has a long history of being fascinated with “intelligence,” but has only recently turned its attention to “stupidity.” As Robert Sternberg noted, we spend millions on tests attempting to measure how bright people are and to predict who has the intelligence to succeed, but pay little attention to what makes even the brightest people sometimes squander their gifts in “amazing, breathtaking acts of stupidity.” 1
In Blind Spots, I have tried to write a book that would intrigue the person who, like myself, genuinely wonders how smart people can do dumb things! But I also wanted to go beyond theoretical answers to that question, and offer practical suggestions to people who want to overcome their own blind spots and to help others do the same.
In addition, in contrast to authors of most other self-improvement books, I chose to emphasize the major repercussions that our blind spots have in the public sphere. They influence how we understand–and misunderstand–one another, and so they affect our ability to resolve the pressing political and social issues of our times.
My hope is that Blind Spots might help people improve not only their personal lives but the larger communities in which they live.
1 Robert J. Sternberg, ed, Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), p. vii.