2019-12-20
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Here's a quote from:
Conversations with Tyler -podcast
with
Masha Gessen and
Tyler Cowen
Published: August 14, 2019
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/masha-gessen/
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COWEN: Why is it that so many dissidents came from the
Soviet worlds of math and physics? There seems to be a
correlation. What's causing what?
GESSEN: I don't know the answer. I can tell you my
personal hypothesis. My hypothesis is that for people
who are both trained and inclined to think in
rigorously logical ways, it is particularly difficult
to adapt to the Soviet system of doublethink. When we
talk about this inclination now, I think we talk about
people being spectrum-y or being neurologically
different and, therefore, having difficulty with the
illogical, irrational ways of life.
But I think we can retroactively diagnose a lot of
dissonance with that because, basically, what we're
talking about is, there is the conditions of not just
survival but of being reasonably comfortable while
living in the Soviet Union were the conditions of
doublethink. You had to be able to live inside
untenable contradictions all the time. The opposite
option was to confront those contradictions, but to
basically be thrown out of society, to be in extreme
discomfort.
Think about the type of person who would prefer the
discomfort of being completely ostracized to the
discomfort of living inside the tension. I think that
that goes some way to explaining why so many people
came from math and physics and the exact sciences.
These days, when I look at Greta Thunberg, who I was
actually, I'm pretty sure, the first American
journalist to interview her -- the now 16-year-old
Swedish girl who went on school strike and has started
this worldwide climate change movement.
She is diagnosed with autism, and she's very, very
clear about talking about how intolerable she finds
life with the way that adults are not acting
rationally in the face of climate change and how, for
her, it is an absolute necessity to confront it. I
really recognized that spirit of Soviet dissonance.
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