Discussion becomes impossible on topics people have made part of their identity, so holding fewer beliefs as identity preserves the ability to change your mind.
Graham's observation is that the subjects on which productive argument is impossible are not the difficult ones but the identity-laden ones, and that the labelling is what does it. Once a position is who you are, evidence against it is an attack rather than information. The prescription is unusual in being about what to call yourself rather than what to believe.
In practice
- An engineer who identifies as a partisan of one language cannot evaluate its successor.
- A team that has named itself after its methodology will not be the team that replaces it.
- Standing
- Consistent with research on motivated reasoning and identity-protective cognition, which finds reasoning ability recruited to defend group-relevant conclusions.
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- Razors, rules and the tools of careful thought