Dealing with Others’ Irrationality

If we preoccupy our minds with anger and frustration at the irrationality around us, it can seriously affect our ability to flourish in life.

Do you ever get frustrated with people who refuse to think for themselves? Do you ever get angry with the irrational values and conformism prevalent in our culture? Do you ever find yourself wishing you could somehow change the way others think and act to be more rational?

Feeling this way is understandable in today’s society. In a survey of the American public, the Reboot Foundation found that 60% of people reported never being taught any critical thinking skills at school. 86% of the same respondents reported that they think the public at large lack critical thinking skills. With a public school system that teaches conformity and memorization rather than independent, rational thinking, it’s no surprise that these skills are lacking in the majority of people, but it’s interesting that an even larger proportion regard this as a problem with other people and not themselves.

It’s also no surprise that our culture has developed accordingly. TV stations, streaming platforms, magazine shelves, and social media are packed with content providing little-to-no intellectual depth. Thought-provoking content, meanwhile, is regarded as a niche interest and struggles to survive in competition—see, for example, the dominance of such shows as Keeping Up with the Kardashians and the relative obscurity of such shows as The Expanse. In a culture where thinking isn’t taught, thought doesn’t sell.

For now, we’re stuck with this reality—it’s not going away any time soon. It’s a consequence of a hundred years of a one-size-fits-all public education system that turns learning into drudgery, not to mention a much longer history of irrational values behind that. Fixing this situation—creating a more rational culture by changing our educational institutions, media, and cultural values—is a noble goal, but that’s a generational undertaking. As tempting as it is to fantasize about an overnight change to a more rational society, in reality, such a radical change is only likely to happen over many decades.

But you’re living your life right now—you don’t get to wait for a rational society that might arrive in a hundred years. How do you deal with the reality we live in, knowing no amount of wishful thinking or resentment can change the situation? The answer is to focus on progressing your rational values. Chief among these is your own wellbeing, followed by all the principles and other values that serve your life and flourishing. 

Doing this unfortunately sometimes requires dealing with irrational people. You will, at times, have to defend your values from their attacks. You will, at times, have to mitigate their influence on the better people around you. But you do not have to let irrational people and the irrationality of our culture occupy your thoughts and thereby affect your ability to pursue your values and flourish.

To that end, I have made a list of a few practices that have helped me deal with irrational people and reduce how much the irrationality around me affects my ability to enjoy my life:

1. Keep Others’ Context in Mind 

A big part of why I value reason and critical thinking so highly is that my father taught me the importance of those values from an early age. He exposed me to a wide range of ideas—from the Bible to humanism and even to the “ancient aliens” theories of Erich Von Daniken—and encouraged me to critically examine and evaluate them for myself. Tragically, however, many people grow up never being explicitly introduced to those ideas. That fact doesn’t absolve them of all responsibility for their irrational ideas and choices—all humans possess the faculty of reason, and, if we open our eyes and activate our minds, we can all see that reason is the only valid way to make decisions—but people are not responsible for how they were raised. Learning the importance of reason on your own takes time, and it’s made a lot harder if you’re surrounded by irrationality from an early age. 

People who grow up in environments where irrational ideas and values are taken for granted or explicitly taught have a much longer way to go than those of us lucky enough to be taught reason from an early age. It’s important to keep that context in mind when evaluating irrational people, especially younger ones who haven’t yet had the time to develop their independent thinking. 

Anger is an understandable reaction to seeing ideas and behaviors in others that are destructive to your life and values. It’s not always easy to subordinate that emotion to a rational assessment of the other person’s responsibility for those things, but it’s fairer to them, and it’ll spare you unnecessary negativity. Judge others to the extent that they deserve to be judged once you’ve accounted for their context—don’t let them become a receptacle for your feelings about society at large.

2. Don’t Fixate on Changing Others

Ultimately, you’re only in control of your own thoughts and actions, not those of others. You can use that control in various ways to affect the world and people around you, but doing so uses up your energy and the limited time you have in your life. Rarely, if ever, is focusing your energy on changing how somebody else thinks the best way to advance your own life and values. It’s an often-futile endeavor that sacrifices your time and energy (in other words, your life) for the sake of someone else.

Your values are much better served by cultivating rationality in yourself and in others who share your values. The energy you invest into others ought to go to those who embody the values you hold dear, so that that investment ultimately serves those values. (If you have friends or family who don’t embody or share any of your core values, it may be time to reconsider those relationships.)

The best way to deal with irrational people is not to deal with them wherever possible. Ultimately, to the extent that their ideas are out of alignment with reality, they will struggle and fail. As long as they’re not threatening or coercing you, you needn’t do anything about them. It’s far more valuable for you to help rational people develop their thinking and succeed in their goals. That will have a leveraged impact on your life and the wider world. (That, incidentally, is the purpose of Reason for Living—to help rational people excel and live the best lives they can. Helping good, rational people flourish is one of my highest values.)

3. Take a Wide-Range, Holistic View

Anyone who’s studied history will know that widespread irrationality is nothing new. Writers and thinkers from Plato to the present have complained about it. But that doesn’t mean reason can’t win. We have the world of technological wonders we do today because a small minority of rational minds were able to flourish against that tide and create an Enlightenment in spite of the prevailing culture. Perhaps you will be one of those minds, helping to create the wonders of tomorrow in spite of the culture you find yourself in today.

This is an especially helpful view to take when you find yourself fixating on a particular individual’s irrationality. You have the chance to be part of change, but he is part of the same old story. 

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Ultimately, your life is your own. If you want to flourish, you must stand up for your values and advance them with integrity, dealing (as much as possible) only with the people who can help you embody and advance those values. You need only deal with irrational people when and to the extent that you must in order to build yourself a flourishing life and advance your rational values. Beyond that, they needn’t concern you.

I expand on the subject of this article in a “deeper dive” supplement—exclusively for paid subscribers—exploring the added challenges people with autism and related conditions experience in dealing with the irrationality around us.