We need to learn to work with political systems that are not perfect instead of taking the view: let's first fix the politics, then we'll fix the rest.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
I mean, I think it's a two-way relationship: I think you should not have too much faith in your own rationality. You should not have too much faith in the rationality of, you know, anybody else either. We all learn together about the way the world is, and I think it's a sort of antidote to wishful thinking of all kinds.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Recognizing the limits of our rationality helps us understand the world better and prevents us from falling into wishful thinking.
In this quote, Abhijit Banerjee emphasizes the importance of humility regarding our own understanding and rationality, suggesting that we should be cautious not to overestimate our ability to reason correctly or judge others' reasoning processes. By acknowledging that everyone is learning together, we cultivate a more realistic perspective on the complexities of the world and counteract the dangers of wishful thinking that can distort our views.
Themes
RationalityLearningHumilityWishful ThinkingUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about decision-making processes, this quote can highlight the importance of considering multiple perspectives.
More from Abhijit Banerjee
All quotes →Here is an entirely banal idea that I think has the potential to change the world: Take evidence seriously. Taking evidence seriously does not mean privileging numbers over all other forms of knowledge - theories, narratives, images. Nor does it mean the kind of radical skepticism that questions everything to the point where no action is possible.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
In the development business doing something for both women and the environment is the equivalent of holding a royal flush in poker.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
One problem with globalisation is that bad ideas seem to travel faster than good ones; first there was smearing tomato ketchup on everything; then drinking sugar-soaked cocktails ('Cosmo'-politanism) instead of our traditional whisky soda, and now this idea that we should abandon the poor to their fate in order to protect their dignity.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
Will we make all poverty history? No. But can we solve some of these extreme and egregious forms of poverty? I think yes, and we should.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
The Korean government is the first to declare that if you replace people with machines you have to pay a tax. It's a tax on robots. They make private companies internalise the social cost of unemployment. Social benefit is not the same as private benefit. We have to realise this.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
Similar quotes
Gifts, believe me, captivate both men and Gods, Jupiter himself was won over and appeased by gifts.
OvidRead
As you know, when Star Trek was canceled after the second season, it was the activism of the fans that revived it for a third season.
George TakeiRead
What is meaningful cannot in fact be isolated…. We achieve understanding within a circular movement from particular facts to the whole that includes them and back again from the whole thus reached to the particular significant facts.
Karl JaspersRead
Identitarianism assumes that people are condemned to identify with the positive (ethnic/ gender/ nationalistic) predicates they possess, as if their subjectivity were exhausted by those properties. Exactly the opposite is the case: the authentic dimension of subjectivity consists not in any positive identity but in that which makes identifications.
Mark FisherRead
... he preferred his own madness, to the regular sanity. He rejoiced in his own madness, he was free. He did not want that old sanity of the world, which was become so repulsive. He rejoiced in the new-found world of his madness. It was so fresh and delicate and so satisfying.
D. H. LawrenceRead
Listen to your life. Listen to what happens to you because it is through what happens to you that God speaks...It's in language that's not always easy to decipher, but it's there powerfully, memorably, unforgettably.
Frederick BuechnerRead