Ebook: Thought under Threat: On Superstition, Spite, and Stupidity

Thought Under Threat combats the forces diminishing the role of critical thinking from our political and cultural spheres.

Thought Under Threat is an attempt to understand the tendencies that threaten thinking from within. These tendencies have always existed, but today they are on the rise and frequently encouraged even in our democracy. People “disagree” with science and distrust experts. Political leaders appeal to the hearts and guts of “the people,” rather than their critical faculties. Stupidity has become a right, if not a badge of honor; thinking is considered “elitist.” For Miguel de Beistegui, however, thinking is intrinsically democratic, a crucial part of exercising freedom.

For de Beistegui, stupidity is not simply the opposite of intelligence or common sense; spite is not only a moral vice, distinct from the exercise of thought; and superstition is not reducible to a set of false beliefs. Rather, he argues, thoughtlessness grows from within thought itself. Thought Under Threat alerts us to the blind-spots in our thinking and shows how thought itself can be used to ward them off, making possible productive deliberation, and, ultimately, a thinking community.