How Deep Thinking Drives Social Progress
Thinking deeply “is not a dismissal of the urgency of the issue,” says Cal Newport. “It’s actually an affirmation of the urgency.”
Readers of Reframe the Day and this newsletter know I’m a fan of Cal Newport’s work. Recently I’ve found his Deep Questions podcast to be a nice break from the political podcasts I usually consume, as well as a helpful reinforcement of the key ideas in his books (like time block planning).
A few months ago, Newport responded to a listener question that straddles two worlds —politics and work-slash-life—that I’ve been writing about, and increasingly attempting to connect, over the past few years: What learnings from Deep Work [Newport’s 2016 book] would you apply to the movement for racial justice going on right now?
This question caught my attention because it’s a different way of thinking about a challenge I’ve raised here more than a few times, which is how to make sure that a quest for self-improvement doesn’t devolve into self-indulgence. (For more of my explorations on this topic, see this newsletter from June, as well as this article, which was featured in audio form on the Optimal Living Daily podcast.)
Recognizing that I’m a privileged white guy and so is Newport, our perspectives on social progress aren’t necessarily the most enlightening. But I still found his response interesting:
One thing I’m really convinced about is that deep problems, historically speaking, almost always require deep thought as a precondition for their solution. … If we go back historically, we can see case after case of problems where there are egregious obstacles and there is no doubt—especially looking back—there is no doubt on what the right side of the issue is. And yet, those on the right side still required deep thinking to figure out “how are we going to take this egregious obstacle and actually demolish it?”
Newport points to three examples of people who believed in a cause that was clearly just but who still required deep thinking to make their case: Cicero’s orations against Catiline, Abraham Lincoln’s studious preparation for debating Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Illinois Senate race, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Consider Dr. King. In April 1963, King was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama. After a few days in jail, as historian Taylor Branch describes in Parting the Waters, “King remained isolated in his cell, allowed no phone calls. He had no mattress or linen, and was sleeping on metal slats.” To keep King informed of developments in the Birmingham campaign, one of his lawyers, Clarence Jones, would sneak newspapers into his cell.
In one of these papers, King came across a story about a group of white religious leaders who had issued a lengthy statement criticizing the movement in Birmingham. These white clergymen “invoked their religious authority against civil disobedience,” Branch writes. Even though some of them had criticized segregation in the past, they were now parroting the language and rhetoric of the racist city government, writing that “such actions as incite hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems.”
Upon reading this, Branch writes, King “sat down and began scribbling around the margins of the newspaper.” When Clarence Jones returned a few days later, he found that “King had pushed the wandering skein of ink into every vacant corner.” His response to these white preachers would eventually become the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
As Newport put it in this recent podcast, King “knew in his bones that what was happening in the south was wrong. There was no doubt about it. But the time for deep work and deep thinking is what allowed him to actually articulate that argument in a way that could take [these] reactionary critiques… and completely deconstruct them.”
Parting the Waters, which chronicles the civil rights movement through King’s life, is full of scenes in which King and his advisers and fellow movement leaders work late into the night. Even after exhausting, often dangerous, days of preaching and marching and mobilizing and fundraising and speechmaking, they still set aside time to think. To reflect. To strategize. To debate. To figure out how to move forward.
They share the righteous conviction that their cause is just, but they know that conviction alone won’t integrate lunch counters or expand access to the ballot box or inspire a quarter-million people to march on Washington for jobs and freedom.
This anecdote is dramatically oversimplified to make a larger point: Even if deep thinking isn’t part of the narrative of how social progress happens, it’s almost always a critical component. There are countless examples beyond Cicero, Lincoln, and King. Consider the deep thinking that enables an overworked public defender to defend a wrongfully accused client (or a rightfully accused one).
Consider the deep thinking required to craft the books and movies and TV shows that expose people to uncomfortable truths and painful histories and lived experiences of other human beings.
Consider the deep thinking necessary to organize a march or run a campaign or pass a ballot measure, and to understand how to convey the urgency of a cause or candidate.
Consider the deep thinking that it took to become one of the most powerful and influential legal minds in American history, particularly at a time and in a nation that threw endless roadblocks in front of pioneering women who dared to strive for such things.
As Newport puts it:
When you feel affronted by a condition of the world, when you feel drawn, instinctually and magnetically, to a cause, to then add to that instinct, “I want to think deeply, and I want to read deeply, and I want to contemplate deeply about this issue”—that is not a dismissal of the urgency of the issue. It’s actually an affirmation of the urgency. … Deep thinking is how you approach deep problems, if you want a sustainable, morally clear, and really effective solution. So read hard things, have challenging conversations, and put aside time for just raw thinking, raw reflection, trying to make sense of what you read, how you feel about it, how it all makes sense.
Of course, the stereotypical image of a deep thinker—a solitary individual, often a well-off white man who is lucky enough to spend his days in a university library pondering and pontificating—isn’t the definition of a deep thinker. Different people think deeply in all sorts of different ways and under all sorts of different circumstances.
Plus, like anything that falls under the broad header of “self-improvement” or “personal development,” deep thinking can easily become an indulgent, or at least a very individual-focused, activity. Having the time and resources to read and reflect and study is a luxury. As I wrote in June, “pursuing self-improvement is indeed a privilege, and it can easily become a selfish endeavor. But it doesn’t have to end up this way.”
Whatever our circumstances, developing an ability to think deeply can make us better leaders, better followers, and better allies. Investing time in reading, writing, thinking, exploring, asking questions, getting uncomfortable—these activities can (and almost certainly will) help us spend our time in more enjoyable ways. But their more important power is that they equip and strengthen us for our collective struggles. The work that really matters.
Honoring the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The passing of the iconic and pathbreaking (and notorious) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made for yet another tough weekend in what feels like an unending stretch of tough weeks that have made for a tough year. As Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith wrote of Justice Ginsburg:
She carried too much weight, and for too long. We should live in an America where we only need to send condolences to everyone who knew and loved Justice Ginsburg, and not to the nation and democracy as a whole. I wish that we could simply mourn her.
What do we do next? Colorado State Senator Kerry Donovan put it beautifully in her tribute to RBG:
With so many tragedies, so many gut punches, piling up at once, it might be tempting to give into despair. But then, consider Justice Ginsburg’s final words for our nation: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” I see these words not simply as a request aimed at the President or the Senate; I see them as a call to action for all of us. Justice Ginsburg knew that much of her life’s work would be in peril upon her passing. We are all now charged with protecting and preserving her monumental legacy. To put this another way: RBG fought like hell for us. Now it’s our turn to fight like hell for her.
American readers: Get registered to vote (at home or abroad). Get involved (at home or abroad).
This week in high-quality internet content…
“Only Justice Ginsburg would have added the fairly unpoetic coda to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous declaration that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ It does, she agreed in her oral dissent to an opinion striking down part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, but said, only ‘if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.’ No wonder she’s refused to retire—she still has work to do.” That’s Irin Carmon in a 2015 column in The New York Times.
“It is the primary job of the powerful to know the facts of America. … Trying to educate these powerful producers or defenders or ignorers of American racism about its harmful effects is like trying to educate a group of business executives about how harmful their products are. They already know, and they don’t care enough to end the harm.” That’s Ibram X. Kendi in Stamped from the Beginning.
“All of this marks a fitting finale to Britain’s catastrophic mismanagement of the Brexit process, which started with the resignation of the prime minister who called the referendum without any plan for what would happen if he lost it (David Cameron); continued with his successor triggering a two-year countdown to Britain’s final withdrawal without any plan for what future relationship she wanted to negotiate (Theresa May); and was followed by her successor signing an international treaty without any guarantee of a future trade deal, only then to rip up this agreement when its consequences began to reveal themselves (Johnson). Regardless of the merits of Brexit, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Britain’s leaders dealt themselves one bad hand after another—and proceeded to play them badly.” That’s Tom McTague in The Atlantic.
“It’s true that the post-Obama party has stretched its ideological spectrum; it’s also true that Biden’s nomination, on top of the 2018 election results, revealed a Democratic coalition still anchored by the center-left. Not that any such nuance matters. To be a Republican today requires you to exist in a constant state of moral relativism, turning every chance at self-analysis into an assault on the other side, pretending the petting zoo next door is comparable to the three-ring circus on your front lawn.” That’s Tim Alberta in Politico Magazine.