Hi friend – Rob here.

Today in Salmon Theory+: a summary of 'Wilful Blindness', by Margaret Heffernan.

This book is a rare breed that:

1. Is well written
2. Is compelling
3. Is not repetitive

Most books are glorified blog posts.

This one is anything but.

Let's get into it.

📝 Five punchy ideas:

1. Wilful blindness is what happens when we refuse to accept uncomfortable truths. Most of the time, we don't do this because we have bad intentions. It's that we crave comfort, conformity and certainty. And a familiar situation will always beat an unfamiliar one.
2. Two things can speed up wilful blindness. Diffusion of responsibility, where no individual is at fault. And distance from consequences, where we don't see effects straight away. This makes unethical conduct easier on the brain. One solution: being closer to the frontlines.
3. Economic incentives help us rationalise objectionable situations or unethical behaviour. This is hard to beat when you work to live. But it's also hard to beat when you get used to a certain standard of living. Knowing what 'enough' looks like for us can help mitigate this.
4. Dissent is a powerful antidote to wilful blindness. This doesn't mean being difficult for its own sake. It means having the audacity to not agree with everyone, and explaining why. There's a difference between being arrogant and being assertive in doing so.
5. Minority opinions don't just benefit minorities, they benefit everyone. The more open we are to them, the more we reduce risk of being victims to our own blindness. So it's not only the right thing to do for an individual, it's the effective thing to do for an institution.

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💬 Five powerful quotes:

• "The law doesn't care why you remain ignorant, only that you do."
• "You can't commoditise relationships and then expect people to care more; it's like trying to accelerate by pumping the brakes."
• "The passionate desire to salvage scraps of dignity and self-respect from the humiliation that is sexual harassment turns a victim's anger against themselves."
• "We make ourselves powerless when we choose not to know. But we give ourselves hope when we insist on looking."
• "The moral mind is not our default mind. In a very competitive environment, where you're under a lot of stress, a lot of cognitive load, you won't necessarily even see that there is a moral consideration at all."​

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✍️ Five practical takeaways:

1. If someone says something you disagree with, consider their incentives (intrinsic or extrinsic)
2. Create spaces where people can argue for and against their own positions
3. If you're in a leading position, practise being the last one to speak on a hard topic
4. Get used to concluding any strong view of yours by asking, "what am i missing?"
5. Get used to evaluating all conversations by asking, "whose views are we missing?"