Thought of the Day 10.07.09

Our culture has a negativity bias. By this I mean that all things negative have prestige over all things positive as a rule for us. Praise is nice, but condemnation is entertaining. So much so that one might say we have a criticism fetish, an unnatural eagerness for the next aria of fault-finding sung by the virtuoso of criticism. And yes. I grasp the irony of me criticizing criticism, even if that’s the only way out of the trap.

In beliefs, skepticism is our default. Question authority. Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Get it in writing. Believe it when you see it. And assume the worst. For Americans, disbelief, distrust, dislike, and disagreement all seem to be the normative starting points.

The benefit of this disposition is that we avoid error and the embarrassment of being fooled. But the price for such security is too high. The culture of “No!” winds up making the worst error of all. By betting on nothing, we lose the entire game because we never had a chance to win.