When beliefs become identities, truth seeking becomes hard

Today, we cover a section of Julia Galef s book The Scout Mindset. She warns against treating your beliefs as part of your identity because they will interfere with truthseeking: you will seek to protect your beliefs and engage in wars of ideas, adopting what she calls a soldier mindset rather than choosing to keep or discard your beliefs based on the facts you encounter (the scout mindset ). She identifies two ways in which beliefs become identities: feeling embattled and feeling proud. Finally, she suggests holding your identity lightly and adopting a truthseeker identity.