Reading for judgment, not just information

Shane Parrish, who publishes the terrific blog Farnam Street, recently posted a piece on how to read profitably. He doesn't explicitly write it, but his argument (rightly) implies that one of our biggest problems is our habit of consuming information rather than reading. His diagnosis is specific, "we fail to remember a lot of the stuff we read because it’s not building on any existing knowledge."

When it comes to reading, Charlie Munger has plenty to add.

Think about how you consume information and the sources for what you read everyday. If we follow Michael Oakeshott in thinking that there are two components to understanding: 1) information and 2) judgment, it's amazing how much better our access is to the former. It's amazing how much better off we could be directly because of digital technologies.

Charlie Munger is famous for saying, "In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time - none, zero." Newspapers and periodicals are two types of publication he mentions as being part of any person's intellectual diet (he, rightly, singles out 'soft science' academics as an area that focuses too narrowly on peer reviewed journals at the expense of newspapers and magazines like the Economist).

But, despite an unprecedented access to information, I'm not sure we're as far ahead regarding judgment. Talking about Facebook, Munger said, "I don't hate the technology, I hate the use of the technology." "I hate the idea of young people putting in permanent form the dumbest thoughts and the dumbest reports of action...I regard that as very counterproductive." Obviously, Facebook and other contemporary technology make more things possible rather than less. The only way technology can limit us is if we use it wrong. Munger talks about some older technologies he likes--ranging from the telephone to the Xerox machine--that are not exactly immune from abuse. But, unlike copiers (the video below notwithstanding), more than a few of our current technologies are built to be used in counterproductive ways.

Munger is an infamous curmudgeon. Still, it's hard to argue that people, including many beyond young demographic Munger targets, use technology to "endless gab on the internet" and other unproductive ways. As Parrish puts it, using technology in these ways is akin to "uncritically letting other people do the thinking for us."

Parrish would, instead, redirect our attention to a technology that Munger professes love for: the book (and I think even the eBook may qualify here). Parrish makes an interesting point: "one thing that most people don’t appreciate enough is that what you read makes a huge difference for how well you remember things." When we're reading about material that's difficult (and it's hard to get significantly smarter without reading tough stuff) those who have a significant intellectual foundation will do better than those who don't. Parrish writes, "We’re often trying to learn complex things (that change rapidly) without understanding the basic things (which change slowly or not at all)."

His prescription will be familiar to anyone who has ever read this blog: "to build a latticework of Mental Models. That is, acquire the core multi-disciplinary knowledge and use that as your foundation."

That knowledge is parallel to the physical foundation that Kelly Starrett thinks makes opens up infinite possibility in physical movement. Once people have the foundation down (what Starrett calls the capacity to "get organized"), then functional movement becomes possible in a range of activities. Munger has talked about the satisfaction that comes from sitting on one's ass for hours until a difficult problem is solved. And anyone who has ever done CrossFit recognizes this prescription. Seeing someone successfully complete a difficult movement or skill for the first time is a memorable event.

Crossfitters are good at many things. They're competitive and capable. Doing CrossFit leads to grittiness. And grit is a great determinate of success in just about every facet of life. One thing CrossFitters are warned against, though, is ego. Letting one's ego get in the way while doing CrossFit can lead to bad form and worse injuries. It's not much different in the intellectual realm.

Ego and CrossFit don't mix.

Shane Parrish writes for an audience that, presumably, uses technology better than the tweens who gab endlessly about the most unproductive activities they'll ever engage in. Still, writing to people who are using a difficult-to-abuse technology (books), he notes that reading uncritically and reading without cultivating a latticework of mental models is "the adult equivalent of regurgitating the definition of a bolded word in our high school textbook." Which leads to "the illusion of knowledge and overconfidence."