Exploding Heads, Fragile Worldviews

If we can’t even entertain challenges to our basic beliefs without our heads exploding, we might have what I’ll call a fragile worldview.
April 28th marked the debut of the New York Times newest columnist, Bret Stephens. Stephens, who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at the Wall Street Journal, was already a controversial hire for many Times readers, who apparently felt that Ross Douthat and, depending on the topic, David Brooks, are more than conservative enough for their fragile bubble.

The phrase “fragile bubble” may sound harsh, but consider the reaction to Stephens’s first column.

The subject of the column was the relationship between data and certainty. Citing examples of the 2016 Clinton campaign and how their data-driven models led them to disregard signs they were underestimating Trump, Stephens wrote, “There’s a lesson here.”

That lesson is, quote, “We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude beget