We don’t have to look far to find examples of poor thinking. If social media is good for anything, it proves beyond any doubt that humans aren’t as smart as we think we are. Turns out we don’t really want to know what our friends and family think all the time about every issue. And if we’re honest, we might even be guilty of such poor thinking ourselves, at least at some point.
But what if most don’t actually want to think? As Alan Jacobs writes in his new book, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds:
Thinking troubles us; thinking tires us. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits; thinking can complicate our lives; thinking can set us at odds, or at least complicate our relationships, with those we admire or love or follow.
Why, then, would anyone dare to think? And how does thinking make us better disciples of Jesus Christ? I asked Jacobs those questions and more in this episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast. Jacobs teaches in the honors program at Baylor University. His many books include The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction and The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis.