“College is supposed to be an uncomfortable experience.” — Thomas M. Nichols College Copy Share Image
“Just as we are not all equally able to carry a tune or draw a straight line, many people simply cannot recognize… — Thomas M. Nichols Straight line Copy Share Image
“These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so… — Thomas M. Nichols Dangerous Copy Share Image
“While expertise isn’t dead, however, it’s in trouble. Something is going terribly wrong. The United States is now a country obsessed with… — Thomas M. Nichols Expertise Copy Share Image
“Anti-intellectualism is itself a means of short-circuiting democracy, because a stable democracy in any culture relies on the public actually understanding the… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“The modern media, with so many options tailored to particular views, is a huge exercise in confirmation bias. This means that Americans… — Thomas M. Nichols Fitness Copy Share Image
“In a passage often cited by Western conservatives and especially loved by American libertarians, the Austrian economist F. A. Hayek wrote in… — Thomas M. Nichols Hayek Copy Share Image
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a… — Thomas M. Nichols Fitness Copy Share Image
“This illustrates an important point: then as now, Americans tend to think about issues like macroeconomic policy or foreign affairs only when… — Thomas M. Nichols Foreign affairs Copy Share Image
“Colleges are supposed to be the calm environment in which educated men and women determine what’s true and what’s false, and where… — Thomas M. Nichols Colleges Copy Share Image
“If the public has no idea about the substance of an issue, and will vote based on who they like rather than… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“Not only do increasing numbers of laypeople lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to… — Thomas M. Nichols New knowledge Copy Share Image
“Unable to see their own biases, most people will simply drive each other crazy arguing rather than accept answers that contradict what… — Thomas M. Nichols Reject Evidence Copy Share Image
“Americans no longer distinguish the phrase “you’re wrong” from the phrase “you’re stupid.” To disagree is to disrespect. To correct another is… — Thomas M. Nichols Disagree Copy Share Image
“The tendency to bring up Nazi Germany in any argument inspired Godwin’s Law and the related reductio ad Hiterlum. The deeply entrenched… — Thomas M. Nichols Argument Copy Share Image
“The most obvious problem is that the freedom to post anything online floods the public square with bad information and half-baked thinking.… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy theories Copy Share Image
“Experts need to remember, always, that they are the servants and not the masters of a democratic society and a republican government.… — Thomas M. Nichols Civic virtue Copy Share Image
“Worse, what I find so striking today is not that people dismiss expertise, but that they do so with such frequency, on… — Thomas M. Nichols Internet Copy Share Image
“Laypeople complain about the rule of experts and they demand greater involvement in complicated national questions, but many of them only express… — Thomas M. Nichols Ignorance Copy Share Image
“The American attachment to intellectual self-reliance described by Tocqueville survived for nearly a century before falling under a series of assaults from… — Thomas M. Nichols Average american Copy Share Image
“The two most important facts about grade inflation, however, are that it exists and that it suffuses students with unwarranted confidence in… — Thomas M. Nichols Confidence Copy Share Image
“In 2015, a Massachusetts accountant named Stephen Pasceri lost his seventy-eight-year-old mother to cardiovascular disease. Mrs. Pasceri had a long history of… — Thomas M. Nichols Cardiovascular disease Copy Share Image
“Arguing at length with a conspiracy theorist is not only fruitless but sometimes dangerous, and I do not recommend it. It’s a… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy Copy Share Image
“It was probably inevitable that the anti-intellectualism of American life would invade college campuses, but that is no reason to surrender to… — Thomas M. Nichols American life Copy Share Image
“The issue is not indifference to established knowledge; it’s the emergence of a positive hostility to such knowledge. This is new in… — Thomas M. Nichols American culture Copy Share Image
“We are supposed to “agree to disagree,” a phrase now used indiscriminately as little more than a conversational fire extinguisher. And if… — Thomas M. Nichols Agree to disagree Copy Share Image
“What is different today, and especially worrisome when it comes to the creation of educated citizens, is how the protective, swaddling environment… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“What used to be a jocular and usually benign ridicule of intellect and formal training has turned into a malign resentment of… — Thomas M. Nichols Fitness Copy Share Image
“To faculty everywhere, the lesson was obvious: the campus of a top university is not a place for intellectual exploration. It is… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“Of course, there’s also the basic problem that some people just aren’t very bright. And as we’ll see, the people who are… — Thomas M. Nichols Confidence Copy Share Image
“Many of the people who campaign against established knowledge are otherwise adept and successful in their daily lives. In some ways, it… — Thomas M. Nichols Arrogance Copy Share Image
“Most causes of ignorance can be overcome, if people are willing to learn. Nothing, however, can overcome the toxic confluence of arrogance,… — Thomas M. Nichols Arrogance Copy Share Image
“And when voters lose control of these important decisions, they risk the hijacking of their democracy by ignorant demagogues, or the more… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“As it turns out, however, the more specific reason that unskilled or incompetent people overestimate their abilities far more than others is… — Thomas M. Nichols People Overestimate Copy Share Image
“This is not a trivial obstacle when it comes to the problems of expert engagement with the public: nearly 30 percent of… — Thomas M. Nichols Journalism Copy Share Image
“Actually, this is an understatement: the public not only expressed strong views, but respondents actually showed enthusiasm for military intervention in Ukraine… — Thomas M. Nichols Lack of knowledge Copy Share Image
“The lack of metacognition sets up a vicious loop, in which people who don’t know much about a subject do not know… — Thomas M. Nichols Argument Copy Share Image
“In 1787, Benjamin Franklin was supposedly asked what would emerge from the Constitutional Convention being held in Philadelphia. “A republic,” Franklin answered,… — Thomas M. Nichols Constitution Copy Share Image
“Citizens no longer understand democracy to mean a condition of political equality, in which one person gets one vote, and every individual… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“The relationship between experts and citizens is not “democratic.” All people are not, and can never be, equally talented or intelligent. Democratic… — Thomas M. Nichols Ignorance Copy Share Image
