In defense of doubt: Act of resistance in an age of bogus certainty

In an age where certainty is weaponized and ambiguity is treated as weakness defending doubt may be one of the greater part democratic acts we have left When Donald Trump called Harvard a radical recruitment center and vowed to slash its research funding I was alarmed not just as a professor but as someone who believes democracy depends on doubt As a professor of social psychology I ve spent two decades studying how people respond to uncertainty and how those responses shape moral and political life What I heard in Trump s rhetoric and in broader attacks on elite universities wasn t just hostility toward higher training It was hostility toward ambiguity itself That may sound abstract but it has real consequences Setting change artificial intelligence migration war these are deeply complex challenges with no easy answers Yet populace discourse increasingly punishes hesitation and rewards certainty Doubt is framed as weakness Complexity as betrayal Related Why MAGA can t let go of the Epstein files Consider atmosphere change addressing it requires aligning national interests economic incentives and populace behavior none of which submit to a simple fix The same applies to AI governance where ethical technical and societal concerns clash In migration program humanitarian principles collide with nationalist sentiment Each of these domains resists binary thinking yet debate flattens them into ideological fault lines This dynamic creates fertile ground for populism Populist leaders don t just offer solutions they offer cognitive relief They reduce systemic problems to moral clashes They name enemies They speak in absolutes You are right They are wrong I alone can fix it In moments of dilemma that clarity is intoxicating But the comfort comes at a cost My research and that of others in psychological science shows that uncertainty creates emotional discomfort anxiety tension even paralysis In response people often seek compensatory control the sense that there is order in the world even if that order is imposed from above This can lead people to embrace authoritarian leaders conspiracy theories or absolutist ideologies not because they re irrational but because they are trying to escape uncertainty Interestingly compensatory strategies can take multiple forms When ambivalence the mental conflict of having mixed feelings becomes too uncomfortable people often cope by polarizing their attitudes on unrelated topics In other words the discomfort of holding two opposing views can spill over pushing people to become more extreme elsewhere as a form of psychological compensation We need your help to stay independent Subscribe this day to aid Salon s progressive journalism At the same time certainty serves a powerful social identity function Declaring a clear position especially a strong one signals belonging If you know exactly where you stand you know who your people are Certainty is rewarded not just with clarity but with area Ambivalence by contrast is lonely Sparse movements rally around moderation People don t take to the streets with signs that read It s Complicated Certainty becomes a badge of identity It distinguishes us from them And in this way a large number of populace debates shift from reasoned exchange to tribal contest Argument gives way to allegiance The substance of a position matters less than the clarity with which it s held This pattern spans the political spectrum The content may differ nationalism on the right moral purity on the left but the psychological function is strikingly similar Certainty signals virtue and doubt is mistaken for disloyalty On the right this can take the form of conspiracies or authoritarian nostalgia on the left it may manifest as moral purism or ideological litmus tests In both cases strong opinions offer identity clarity and social rewards The underlying mechanism is the same In uncertain times certainty sells and it sells best when it comes with a sense of belonging We live in an age of information abundance yet emotional scarcity When everything feels uncertain clarity becomes a form of comfort even if that comfort is false This trend is supercharged by social media Filter bubbles and algorithmic curation feed us opinions that reinforce our own while posts that express moral clarity and outrage spread faster than those that express caution or doubt Platforms reward emotional intensity not nuance Over time this reshapes our expectations of what counts as persuasive informed or intelligent That might explain why conspiracy theories spike during crises When the world feels chaotic a story however false that names culprits and draws lines of causality can feel more tolerable than the admission that a multitude of things are beyond our control And this is precisely why universities are being targeted Higher development at its best trains people to tolerate ambiguity It rewards provisional thinking revises conclusions and accepts that knowledge is perpetually unfinished At its best higher schooling doesn t just tolerate uncertainty it cultivates it In the sciences this ideal is embedded in the Popperian method Theories must be falsifiable and progress comes not through confirming our beliefs but by trying to disprove them In the humanities and philosophy figures like Socrates remind us that knowledge begins with recognizing the limits of our understanding I know that I know nothing he famously stated not as an admission of ignorance but as a commitment to relentless questioning This beliefs of intellectual humility of testing revising and learning forms the core of what universities are meant to instill That epistemic humility the willingness to admit what we don t know is increasingly out of step with a inhabitants discourse that values performance over inquiry Start your day with essential news from Salon Sign up for our free morning newsletter Crash Discipline Authoritarian leaders recognize this Institutions that teach people to question revise and reflect are dangerous to regimes that rely on narrative simplicity That s why they defund discredit or discipline universities This isn t just happening in the United States In the Netherlands where I live the not long ago fallen right-wing populist cabinet implemented sweeping budget cuts to higher mentoring as part of a broader agenda to diminish the role of universities in general life Under the guise of defending national identity and fiscal prudence these cuts threaten academic freedom and international collaboration In Hungary Viktor Orb n forced Central European University into exile India s authorities under Narendra Modi has tightened control over academic speech In Argentina President Javier Milei s drastic budget cuts have sparked mass protests Around the world universities are being punished not for their politics but for their independence This mistrust of ambiguity is not just a initiative challenge It s a psychological one We live in an age of information abundance yet emotional scarcity When everything feels uncertain clarity becomes a form of comfort even if that comfort is false The craving for clarity is not limited to the political right In progressive spaces too ideological purity often trumps complexity Doubt and nuance are sometimes treated as signs of complicity or cowardice This tribal certainty may differ in content but not in structure On social media we are rewarded for certainty and punished for doubt Posts that express outrage ridicule or moral clarity go viral those that admit complexity or uncertainty vanish We may scorn populist leaders for their absolutism but we often engage in the same dynamic endorsing takes that simplify shaming those who hesitate resharing content that flatters our tribe Algorithms amplify the effect Platforms reward emotional intensity not epistemic humility Over time this reshapes what counts as persuasive or intelligent We may scorn populist leaders for their absolutism but we often engage in the same dynamic endorsing takes that simplify shaming those who hesitate resharing content that flatters our tribe Yet there is hope In our own research we revealed that people who felt a loss of control didn t just turn to conspiracy theories or strongman figures They also turned to belief in human progress in science in institutions in our collective maximum to learn and adapt In one examination participants who felt a lack of control expressed stronger belief in scientific and moral progress and were more supportive of high-tech solutions to environmental challenges That belief ironically depends on embracing uncertainty the idea that we can change rests on the idea that things are not fixed Work I was involved in has shown that people who are dispositionally ambivalent that is who are more content holding contradictory thoughts or feelings are less prone to cognitive biases like the confirmation bias Our experiments identified they were more likely to consider disconfirming evidence resist motivated reasoning and remain open to revising their views In this way doubt functions not only as an emotional buffer but as a cognitive asset It allows people to reason more methodically evaluate insists more fairly and engage in more productive dialogue These are precisely the habits that democratic societies require That is the radical promise of doubt It s not paralysis It s the engine of progress Doubt makes science viable It makes learning feasible And it makes democracy doable Because in order to listen to compromise to revise you first have to admit you don t already have all the answers As John F Kennedy once disclosed The greater our knowledge increases the greater our ignorance unfolds If we already know the answers we want to find the process of asking becomes secondary This not only erodes populace trust but undermines the very foundation of science And it s a bitter irony that Robert F Kennedy Jr formerly a leading anti-vaccine voice and now secretary of Soundness and Human Services has already dismantled the Centers for Disorder Control and Prevention s vaccine advisory panel This was not merely a political gesture It is part of a broader effort to undermine the institutions that majority embody provisional thinking research evidence science and replace them with a worldview that trades doubt for dogma As traditional institutions lose authority they are often replaced not with better systems of knowledge but with influencer-driven echo chambers In such spaces truth becomes a matter of tribe not evidence and doubt is not welcomed but punished Yet if we defend science as a refuge for doubt we must also look inward In modern years multiple researchers including myself have embraced the idea that science should serve society combat circumstances change reduce inequality promote justice These are noble aims At the same time universities themselves are not immune to the very pressures they seek to resist In a few cases the pursuit of justice or clarity of mission has led to a narrowing of acceptable viewpoints a trend that ironically undermines the openness and epistemic humility that science depends on But when research becomes a conveyance for mission-driven advocacy it risks shifting from inquiry to ideology If we already know the answers we want to find the process of asking becomes secondary This not only erodes general trust but undermines the very foundation of science the significant idea that knowledge is provisional and even our greater part cherished assumptions are open to revision Defending doubt means resisting the urge to retreat into moral certainty even on our own side It means championing the messy iterative process of learning individually and collectively It means demanding more of our constituents discourse than slogans and certitudes In an era of dangerous certainty defending doubt is not a retreat It is resistance Read more from Salon on psychology and politics Why Appalachia and rural America clings to Trump Feel like nothing you do matters It may be learned helplessness More people than ever identify as empaths but particular weaponize it The post In defense of doubt Act of resistance in an age of bogus certainty appeared first on Salon com