Latest news with #Dadaist
Tokyo Weekender
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tokyo Weekender
The Best Things To Do in Tokyo This Month: June 2025
Here is what's happening across Tokyo for the month of June. Check out exhibitions, festivals, events and more! List of Contents: Exhibitions and Art Shows Festivals and Outdoor Events Live Music and Night Life Events Anime and Manga Events Food and Drink Events Film and Game Events Related Posts Tokyo Exhibitions and Art Shows in June Aokabi Saya: Mille Crepe 2 Exhibition Illustrator Aokabi Saya returns with Mille Crepe 2, a solo exhibition of new works showing at Parco Museum Tokyo. Known for blending analog and digital techniques, Aokabi draws inspiration from the stylized character designs of 1990s Japanese animation, reinterpreting them with a delicate balance of precision and spontaneity. Date & Time Jun 13-30・11:00-21:00 Price Free Location Parco Museum Tokyo More Details Ando Teru Exhibition: The Sculptor of The Hachiko Statue This exhibition revisits the sculptor behind Shibuya's beloved Hachiko statue, marking 80 years since his death. Date & Time Jun 21-Aug 17・10:00-20:00 Price ¥1000 Location The Shoto Museum of Art More Info Closed on Mondays (except for July 21, and August 11, 2025), July 22(Tue.), and August 12(Tue.), 2025 More Details Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp Exhibition Celebrating the visionary duo Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp, this exhibition explores their radical art and design fusion in the Dadaist movement. Together their work redefined 20th century modernism — offering a vibrant dialogue between form, freedom, and creative synergy. Date & Time Mar 01-Jun 01・10:00-18:00・Open until 20:00 on Fridays. Closed Mondays. Price ¥2000 Location Artizon Museum More Info (¥1800 if purchased online) More Details Hokusai: Another Story in Tokyo Immersive Exhibit Hokusai's masterpiece ukiyo-e come to life in a way never experienced before. This immersive experience presents the beauty of Hokusai's art with modern technology for an interactive exhibit. Date & Time Feb 01-Jun 01・11:00-20:00・Last admission at 19:10 Price ¥4200 Location Tokyu Plaza Shibuya More Details Machine Love: Video Game, AI and Contemporary Art "Machine Love: Video Game, AI and Contemporary Art" at the Mori Art Museum spotlights contemporary artists that utilize game engines, generative AI and virtual reality technologies as tools for their visualization. Date & Time Feb 13-Jun 08・10:00-22:00・10:00-17:00 on Tuesdays, Admission until 30 minutes before closing Price ¥2000 for adults, ¥1700 for seniors, ¥1400 for university/high school students, free for children Location Mori Art Museum More Details Hilma af Klint: The Beyond Go and see the new exhibition of pineoreeing abstract artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1994) coming to the National Museum of Modern Art in March. Date & Time Mar 04-Jun 15・10:00-17:00・Closed on Mondays/Fridays and Saturdays open until 8 pm Price ¥2300 Location National Museum of Modern Art More Info ¥1,200 for University Students/¥700 for Highschool Students More Details Ukiyo-e In Play Exhibition Explore the evolution of traditional Japanese woodcut printing at the Contemporary Ukiyo-e Exhibition, featuring 85 artists reimagining the timeless art of ukiyo-e. Date & Time Apr 22-Jun 15・09:30-17:00 Price ¥1000 Location Tokyo National Museum More Details Love Fashion: In Search of Myself Exhibition A fashion exhibition from the archives of the Kyoto Costume, exploring clothing through our dreams and desires. From luxurious historical garments to iconic contemporary pieces from Alexander McQueen to Yohji Yamamoto, the show covers centuries of style to examine the deep connection that clothing has with human nature and the self. Date & Time Apr 16-Jun 22・11:00-19:00・Closed on Mondays Price ¥1600 Location Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery More Details "Japanese Gentian - Twin Lines," Daiya Yamamoto, 61 x 73 cm Daiya Yamamoto Solo Exhibition Daiya Yamamoto is an artist who skilfully merges traditional Western painting techniques with a distinctly Japanese aesthetic sensitivity to capture the essence of contemporary time. On view from May 24 to June 22, this exhibition marks Yamamoto's highly anticipated first solo show at Galerie Taménaga's Tokyo location since his acclaimed 2023 presentation at the gallery's Paris space, which captivated art enthusiasts in Europe. Featuring approximately forty new works, the exhibition spotlights Yamamoto's refined take on trompe-l'œil, a Western technique that creates the illusion of real-life presence. Date & Time May 24-Jun 22・11:00-19:00・11:00-17:00 on Sundays & Holidays Price Free Location Galerie Taménaga More Details Godzilla the Art 70th Anniversary Exhibition Godzilla is celebrating its 70th anniversary. Godzilla the Art Exhibition at Mori Arts Center Gallery showcases 29 artists and their interpretation of the giant monster. Date & Time Apr 26-Jun 29・10:00-19:00・Until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, last admission 30 minutes before closing Price General and university students: ¥2500, high school students: ¥1600, elementary school and under: ¥600 Location Mori Arts Center Gallery More Info Weekday tickets are discounted More Details Living Modernity: 1920s–1970s Architecture Exhibition "Living Modernity" explores the home as an innovative space of beauty, and the 20th century ideals that shaped how we live today. Showcasing projects from Japan, Europe, America and Brazil, the exhibition includes an impressive name-call of iconic architects, and shares how Japan responded to modernism with a focus on natural materials. With display objects spanning graphic art, models and immersive experiences, this exhibition is sure to delight fans of interior and architectural design, alongside anyone who has ever taken pleasure in a Zillow scrolling session. Date & Time Mar 19-Jun 30・10:00-18:00・Closed on Tuesdays Price ¥1800 Location The National Art Center, Roppongi More Details Joan Miró Exhibition From March 1 to July 6, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum will host a retrospective dedicated to Joan Miró, one of the 20th century's most celebrated artists. Date & Time Mar 01-Jul 06・09:30-17:30・Fridays open until 8:00 p.m. / Last entry 30 minutes before closing / Closed: Mondays (except April 28 and May 5) and May 7 Price ¥2,300 / ¥1,300 for University Students / ¥1,600 for people over 65 years old Location Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum More Details Kenjiro Okazaki Exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Kenjiro Okazaki's first major Tokyo retrospective highlights groundbreaking works, exploring the transformative power of form across media. Date & Time Apr 29-Jul 21・10:00-18:00 Price Location Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 1F/3F More Details Exhibition: World Fair in Japan 1970-2005 Architecture fans will delight in this deep dive into Japan's Expo designs, from Osaka in the '70's to Aichi 2005's eco-conscious pavilions. Date & Time Mar 08-Aug 31・10:00-16:30 Price Free Location National Archives of Modern Architecture More Info Closed on Mondays, except public holidays (closed the following day instead) More Details Tokyo Festivals and Outdoor Events in June The 44th Yokohama Open Port Festival This year marks the 44th Yokohama Port Opening Festival, a popular event for Yokohamaites to celebrate the opening of the port of Yokohama in 1859 and honor the history of their hometown. Approximately 2,500 fireworks will be shot off at Rinko Park in the grand finale of the three-day festival. The fireworks and drone shows will illuminate the night sky of the Minato Mirai area. Date & Time May 31-Jun 02・19:20~ Price Free Location Rinko Park More Details Keisei Rose Garden 'The Queen of Heart's Tree Castle' Experience the Keisei Rose Garden's spring festival, "The Queen of Heart's Tree Castle," where the garden turns into a rose-filled theme park. Throughout the festival period, guests can enjoy tea in the small castle inside the garden, and ride a merry-go-round or the self-driving car to explore the garden premises. Date & Time Apr 19-Jun 15・09:00-18:00 Price ¥1,800 Location Keisei Rose Garden More Details My Melody & Kuromi Anniversary Party at Sanrio Puroland and Harmonyland To celebrate My Melody's 50th anniversary and Kuromi's 20th anniversary, Sanrio Puroland and Harmonyland theme parks will have new attractions, entertainment, photo spots, merchandise and food. Date & Time Jan 17-Dec 31・・Specific event and attraction dates may vary Price Location Sanrio Puroland More Details Tokyo Live Music and Night Life Events in June Bruno Pernadas Duo and The Hatch Live Show Double Bill Lisbon-based musician Bruno Pernadas returns to Japan in a rare duo performance with saxophonist José Soares, supported by The Hatch. Date & Time Jun 18, 2025・19:00-21:30・Doors open at 18:30 Price ADV ¥4,800＋1D, SAME-DAY ¥5,300＋1D, UNDER 29 ¥3,800 Location WALL & WALL More Details Candlelight : A Tribute to Joe Hisaishi at Christ Shinagawa Church Enjoy the enchanting music of Joe Hisaishi at Christ Shinagawa Church, with a candlelit performance of iconic Studio Ghibli scores by the Fleurs Quartet. Date & Time Jun 27-Jul 04・16:45-17:50 Price ¥3,800 - ¥7,200 Location Christ Shinagawa Church More Details Candlelight: Piano Classics Experience the magic of Piano Classics by candlelight at Christ Shinagawa Church, featuring timeless works by Chopin, Debussy, Mozart and more. Date & Time Jun 27, 2025・19:00-20:05 Price ¥5,050 - ¥7,550 Location Christ Shinagawa Church More Details chanmina Chanmina Area of Diamond 3 Tour Tokyo 2025 This June, Chamina, the body-positive rapper and singer, will perform at two dates in Tokyo. She'll be drawing from a bag of hits. Date & Time Jun 28-29・18:00~・OPEN 17:00 | June 29 OPEN 16:00 / START 17:00 Price ¥9,500 Location Yoyogi 1st National Gymnasium More Details Hibiya Music Festival 2025 A 'free and borderless' music event, the Hibiya Music Festival returns this May, bringing live performances by top artists to Hibiya Park. Date & Time May 31-Jun 01・10:30-20:30 Price Free Location Hibiya Park More Info Some venues may require entry fee. See website for details More Details Candlelight : A Tribute to Joe Hisaishi Experience the music of Joe Hisaishi like never before at a candlelit tribute concert in Tokyo's Kanze Noh Theater, featuring iconic Studio Ghibli scores performed live by Ensemble Themis. Date & Time May 24-Jul 21・ Price ¥4000 - ¥8200 Location Kanze Noh Theatre Ginza More Details Tokyo Community and Family Events in June Nerd Nite Tokyo #69: Trains of Future Past Science, history and craft beer come together at the latest edition of Nerd Nite Tokyo, where experts and enthusiasts gather for an evening of lively talks and good conversation. Held monthly, this laid-back lecture series combines curious minds with a casual setting, offering a fun and approachable take on big ideas. This month's theme explores transportation across time, from the industrial age to the quantum future. Date & Time Jun 20, 2025・20:00~・Doors open at 19:00 Price ¥1,000 Location Ryozan Park Lounge More Details Tokyo Anime and Manga Events in June Bleach: The Locus of the Brave II From June 11 to July 13, dive into the world of Bleach with this special Tokyo exhibition! Explore exclusive production materials, behind-the-scenes footage, immersive experiences, and stylish photo spots. Also, don't miss the mysterious "Kurosaki" corner and tons of exclusive Bleach goods. Date & Time Jun 13-Jul 13・11:00-20:00 Price TBA Location Sunshine 60 Observatory Tenbou-Park More Details Leiji Matsumoto Manga Exhibition The "Leiji Matsumoto Exhibition: A Journey of Creation" exhibit at Tokyo City View showcases more than 300 original drawings, including Matsumoto's early works and never-before-seen content from "Galaxy Express 999" and "Space Pirate Captain Harlock." Date & Time Jun 20-Sep 07・10:00-20:00 Price Location Tokyo City View More Details My Hero Academia Original Art Exhibition The globally acclaimed manga series My Hero Academia is being honored with a special exhibition in Tokyo, celebrating creator Kohei Horikoshi's artistic journey and the series' conclusion after a remarkable 10-year run. This exhibition offers fans a rare opportunity to experience the evolution of one of Japan's most successful modern manga series up close. Date & Time Jun 21-Aug 31・10:00-20:00 Price ¥2200 Location CREATIVE MUSEUM TOKYO More Info Discounts for students More Details © Sotsu, Sunrise Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- Exhibition A special exhibition of the latest work in the Gundam series, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuuX (Siege Ax) -Beginning-, is currently being held. Date & Time May 24-Aug 11・11:00-19:00 Price Free Location Anime Tokyo Station More Details Ghibli 3D Sculpture Exhibition In 2003, Tokyo was blessed with the Ghilbli 3D sculpture exhibition. Now, 22 years later, it is back and bigger than ever. Dive into the worlds of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Pom Poko with full-scale sculptures from the films. You can even see the Savoia S-21 flying boat from Porco Rosso. Date & Time May 27-Sep 23・09:30-20:00・Last Entry at 19:00 Price ¥1,900 Location Warehouse TERRADA B&C HALL More Details Tokyo Food and Drink Events in June Pierre Hermé Paris Afternoon Tea at Nineteen Eighty Lounge & Bar Nineteen Eighty Lounge & Bar is providing a "classic" afternoon tea service in collaboration with Pierre Hermé from June 1, 2025. Date & Time Jun 01-Jul 31・ Price ¥7,500 Location Nineteen Eighty Lounge & Bar More Info ¥11,000 includes a macaron gift More Details Il Lupino Prime Tokyo's Fresh Green Afternoon Tea Il Lupino Prime Tokyo, a German-owned Italian restaurant established in Hawaii, is offering a Green Afternoon Tea course. Date & Time May 16-Jun 30・11:30-23:30 Price ¥7,800-¥8,800 Location Il Lupino Prime Tokyo More Info For the Cocktail Set: ¥8,800-¥9,800 More Details Tokyo DisneySea Food & Wine Festival The Food & Wine Festival returns for a second year at Tokyo DisneySea. Guests can sample a variety of dishes and exclusive seasonal beverages. Date & Time Apr 08-Jun 30・・Specific menu and merchandise sale dates may vary Price Location Tokyo DisneySea More Details Le Petit Chef ANA InterContinental Tokyo recently announced the opening of Le Petit Chef, a cinema dining restaurant with projection mapping. Date & Time Feb 07-Jul 31・12:00-22:00・Three Seatings Price ¥14,000-¥21,000 Location ANA InerContinental Tokyo More Details Sapporo Beer The Perfect Black Label Wagon Event Sapporo's Perfect Black Label Wagon is touring at 13 stops celebrating their flagship draft beer around the country. Guests can enjoy Sapporo beer and other exclusive goods at the event. Date & Time Apr 09-Aug 24・・Please check event details for each venue Price Experience passes: ¥1200 (Tokyo), ¥1000 (other locations) Location Roppongi Hills Arena More Details Asian Spice Afternoon Tea – A Fragrant Feast of Spices and Dim Sum ANA InterContinental Tokyo is offering Asian Spice Afternoon Tea – A Fragrant Feast of Spices and Dim Sum at Karin Chinese Restaurant. Date & Time May 01-Aug 31・11:30~・Three Sittings, 2-hour limit: 11:30 - 14:-00 - 17:30 Price ¥8,855 Location Karin Chinese Restaurant More Info Enjoy an optional free-flow drink plan for an extra ¥3,000 per person More Details Mori no Beer Garden's 40th Edition Mori no Beer Garden is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Enjoy an all-you-can-eat barbecue and an all-you-can-eat drinks menu. Date & Time Apr 15-Sep 23・16:30-22:00・Weekends and Holidays: 12:00-22:00. From July 19 to August 31: 14:00-22:30, Weekends and Holidays: 12:00-22:30 Price ¥6,000-¥7,000 for adults Location Niko Niko Park, Meiji Jingu Gaien More Details (c)Kristin Perers Bills Spring-Summer 2025 Menu The all-day dining restaurant Bills (stylized as bills) starts its spring-summer 2025 menu at all eight locations in Japan from April 22. Date & Time Apr 22-Oct 15・ Price Breakfast-Brunch ¥3,000-¥3,999 Location bills Ginza More Info Dinner ¥5,000-¥5,999 More Details Tokyo Film and Game Events in June Kaminari Japan Film Festival 2025 On June 9, 2025, the Kaminari Japan Film Festival returns to Theatre Guild Daikanyama in Tokyo, celebrating outstanding independent films from around the world. Starting at 3:30 PM, the festival will screen a diverse selection of films across multiple categories, including Music Video, Horror, Documentary, and Narrative. Date & Time Jun 9, 2025・15:30-21:00 Price ¥2,200 Location Theatre Guild Daikanyama More Details Rainbow Reel Tokyo 2025: Rainbow Reel Tokyo 2025: Japan's LGBTQ+ Film Festival Returns This Summer Date & Time Jun 21-22・・Event on July 12 and 13 take place at Tokyo Women's Plaza Price Free Location Euro Live 1F KINOHAUS More Details Related Posts Unmissable Fireworks Festivals in Japan for Summer 2025 Everything You Need To Know About Tokyo Pride 2025 The Ultimate Guide to Nakameguro: Tokyo's Stylish Canal-Side Gem
The Age
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Prepare to be discombobulated by this bonkers crime caper
CRIME The Empress Murders Toby Schmitz Allen and Unwin, $32.99 Brilliant, bonkers and bloody - The Empress Murders is what you get when you let a mischievous thespian schooled in Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and Agatha Christie loose on the crime genre. This is a tragicomic, ambitiously wordy, and wild excursion into the territory of the traditional locked-room mystery, set on a ship with a serial killer on the loose. It begins with a Shakespearian prologue, although it's not called that, spoken by the ship herself who affectionately recalls her origins as a leaf in a puddle, through her many subsequent incarnations as a sea-faring vessel, and culminating in her current manifestation as The Empress of Australia, a luxury ocean liner and 'a cast-iron idea'. She's now 'churning the Atlantic run' in 1925 on the way to New York with a full manifest of passengers and one corpse. The scene is set. It comes as no surprise to learn that this outlandish excursion into the crime genre started out as a play 20 years ago and has been a long time in gestation. There are numerous quasi-theatrical moments as we encounter the diverse passengers and crew, although there are also interior reflections and backstories that could only exist in this kind of capacious, meandering crime novel. It begins on C Deck with the handsome, somewhat threadbare, Mr Frey from Australia. He's survived the Second World War after his mother signed him up the day he finished school, spent time in Weimar Berlin and now fancies himself as a Dadaist poet, slipping words around 'like mahjong tiles'. And he's just been invited into the first-class lounge for dinner, so up we go. While Agatha Christie usually assembled her suspects in the library for the big reveal at the end, Schmitz summons his ensemble at the start, under the watchful eye of Chief Steward Rowling who is not feeling well and will undoubtably feel worse. An announcement is about to be made by the ship's dismal detective, Inspector Daniels, that a young Bengali deckhand has been murdered in the night, his body mutilated. Be prepared - like all the best Jacobean tragedies, there's going to be a lot of gore. Indeed, there are moments when the elaborate crime-drama edifice morphs into slasher horror. Like all the best shockers, these moments are laugh-out-loud, discombobulating in their bloody excess. But don't worry, the Empress reassures the reader, while we might be in for a rough crossing, 'I've got you'. And so she has, along with all the onboard intrigues that range from a memorable mobster in full white tie and tails, 'his lubricious curls tamed as best he can', who travelled to London with one suitcase and is headed back to the US with 'considerably more freight'. Chief Steward Rowling has his number.
Sydney Morning Herald
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Prepare to be discombobulated by this bonkers crime caper
CRIME The Empress Murders Toby Schmitz Allen and Unwin, $32.99 Brilliant, bonkers and bloody - The Empress Murders is what you get when you let a mischievous thespian schooled in Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and Agatha Christie loose on the crime genre. This is a tragicomic, ambitiously wordy, and wild excursion into the territory of the traditional locked-room mystery, set on a ship with a serial killer on the loose. It begins with a Shakespearian prologue, although it's not called that, spoken by the ship herself who affectionately recalls her origins as a leaf in a puddle, through her many subsequent incarnations as a sea-faring vessel, and culminating in her current manifestation as The Empress of Australia, a luxury ocean liner and 'a cast-iron idea'. She's now 'churning the Atlantic run' in 1925 on the way to New York with a full manifest of passengers and one corpse. The scene is set. It comes as no surprise to learn that this outlandish excursion into the crime genre started out as a play 20 years ago and has been a long time in gestation. There are numerous quasi-theatrical moments as we encounter the diverse passengers and crew, although there are also interior reflections and backstories that could only exist in this kind of capacious, meandering crime novel. It begins on C Deck with the handsome, somewhat threadbare, Mr Frey from Australia. He's survived the Second World War after his mother signed him up the day he finished school, spent time in Weimar Berlin and now fancies himself as a Dadaist poet, slipping words around 'like mahjong tiles'. And he's just been invited into the first-class lounge for dinner, so up we go. While Agatha Christie usually assembled her suspects in the library for the big reveal at the end, Schmitz summons his ensemble at the start, under the watchful eye of Chief Steward Rowling who is not feeling well and will undoubtably feel worse. An announcement is about to be made by the ship's dismal detective, Inspector Daniels, that a young Bengali deckhand has been murdered in the night, his body mutilated. Be prepared - like all the best Jacobean tragedies, there's going to be a lot of gore. Indeed, there are moments when the elaborate crime-drama edifice morphs into slasher horror. Like all the best shockers, these moments are laugh-out-loud, discombobulating in their bloody excess. But don't worry, the Empress reassures the reader, while we might be in for a rough crossing, 'I've got you'. And so she has, along with all the onboard intrigues that range from a memorable mobster in full white tie and tails, 'his lubricious curls tamed as best he can', who travelled to London with one suitcase and is headed back to the US with 'considerably more freight'. Chief Steward Rowling has his number.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why It's Hard to Change Your Mind
Julian Barnes opens Changing My Mind, his brisk new book about our unruly intellects, with a quote famously attributed to the economist John Maynard Keynes: 'When the facts change, I change my mind.' It's a fitting start for an essay on our obliviousness to truth, because Keynes didn't say that—or not exactly that. The economist Paul Samuelson almost said it in 1970 (replacing 'facts' with 'events') and in 1978 almost said it again (this time, 'information'), attributing it to Keynes. His suggestion stuck, flattering our sense of plausibility—it's the sort of thing Keynes would have said—and now finds itself repeated in a work of nonfiction. Our fallibility is very much on display. Not that Barnes would deny that he makes mistakes. The wry premise of his book is that he's changed his mind about how we change our minds, evolving from a Keynesian faith in fact and reason to a framing inspired by the Dadaist Francis Picabia's aphorism 'Our heads are round so that our thoughts can change direction.' (In this case, the citation is accurate.) Barnes concludes that our beliefs are changed less by argument or evidence than by emotion: 'I think, on the whole, I have become a Picabian rather than a Keynesian.' Barnes is an esteemed British novelist, not a social scientist—one of the things he hasn't changed his mind about is 'the belief that literature is the best system we have of understanding the world'—but his shift in perspective resonates with a host of troubling results in social psychology. Research in recent decades shows that we are prone to 'confirmation bias,' systematically interpreting new information in ways that favor our existing views and cherry-picking reasons to uphold them. We engage in 'motivated reasoning,' believing what we wish were true despite the evidence. And we are subject to 'polarization': As we divide into like-minded groups, we become more homogeneous and more extreme in our beliefs. If a functioning democracy is one in which people share a common pool of information and disagree in moderate, conciliatory ways, there are grounds for pessimism about its prospects. For Barnes, this is not news: 'When I look back at the innumerable conversations I've had with friends and colleagues about political matters over the decades,' he laments, 'I can't remember a single, clear instance, when a single, clear argument has made me change my mind—or when I have changed someone else's mind.' Where Barnes has changed his mind—about the nature of memory, or policing others' language, or the novelists Georges Simenon and E. M. Forster—he attributes the shift to quirks of experience or feeling, not rational thought. Both Barnes and the social scientists pose urgent, practical questions. What should we do about the seeming inefficacy of argument in politics? How can people persuade opponents on issues such as immigration, abortion, or trans rights in cases where their interpretation of evidence seems biased? Like the Russian trolls who spread divisive rhetoric on social media, these questions threaten one's faith in what the political analyst Anand Giridharadas has called 'the basic activity of democratic life—the changing of minds.' The situation isn't hopeless; in his recent book, The Persuaders, Giridharadas portrays activists and educators who have defied the odds. But there is a risk of self-fulfilling prophecy: If democratic discourse comes to seem futile, it will atrophy. [Read: The cognitive biases tricking your brain] Urgent as it may be, this fear is not what animates Barnes in Changing My Mind. His subject is not moving other minds, but rather changing our own. It's easy and convenient to forget that confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and group polarization are not problems unique to those who disagree with us. We all interpret evidence with prejudice, engage in self-deception, and lapse into groupthink. And though political persuasion is a topic for social scientists, the puzzle of what I should do when I'm afraid that I'm being irrational or unreliable is a philosophical question I must inevitably ask, and answer, for myself. That's why it feels right for Barnes to approach his topic through autobiography, in the first person. This genre goes back to Descartes' Meditations: epistemology as memoir. And like Descartes before him, Barnes confronts the specter of self-doubt. 'If Maynard Keynes changed his mind when the facts changed,' he admits, 'I find that facts and events tend to confirm me in what I already believe.' You might think that this confession of confirmation bias would shake his confidence, but that's not what happens to Barnes, or to many of us. Learning about our biases doesn't necessarily make them go away. In a chapter on his political convictions, Barnes is cheerfully dogmatic. 'When asked my view on some public matter nowadays,' he quips, 'I tend to reply, 'Well, in Barnes's Benign Republic …'' He goes on to list some of BBR's key policies: For a start … public ownership of all forms of mass transport, and all forms of power supply—gas, electric, nuclear, wind, solar … Absolute separation of Church and State … Full restoration of all arts and humanities courses at schools and universities … and, more widely, an end to a purely utilitarian view of education. This all sounds good to me, but it's announced without a hint of argument. Given Barnes's doubts about the power of persuasion, that makes sense. If no one is convinced by arguments, anyway, offering them would be a waste of time. Barnes does admit one exception: 'Occasionally, there might be an area where you admit to knowing little, and are a vessel waiting to be filled.' But, he adds, 'such moments are rare.' The discovery that reasoning is less effective than we hoped, instead of being a source of intellectual humility, may lead us to opt out of rational debate. [Yascha Mounk: The doom spiral of pernicious polarization] Barnes doesn't overtly make this case—again, why would he? But it's implicit in his book and it's not obviously wrong. When we ask what we should think in light of the social science of how we think, we run into philosophical trouble. I can't coherently believe that I am basically irrational or unreliable, because that belief would undermine itself: another conviction I can't trust. More narrowly, I can't separate what I think about, say, climate change from the apparent evidence. It's paradoxical to doubt that climate change is real while thinking that the evidence for climate change is strong, or to think, I don't believe that climate change is real, although it is. My beliefs are my perspective on the world; I cannot step outside of them to change them 'like some rider controlling a horse with their knees,' as Barnes puts it, 'or the driver of a tank guiding its progress.' So what am I to do? One consolation, of sorts, is that my plight—and yours—predates the findings of social science. Philosophers like Descartes long ago confronted the perplexities of the subject trapped within their own perspective. The limits of reasoning are evident from the moment we begin to do it. Every argument we make contains premises an opponent can dispute: They can always persist in their dissent, so long as they reject, time and again, some basic assumption we take for granted. This doesn't mean that our beliefs are unjustified. Failure to convert the skeptic—or the committed conspiracy theorist—need not undermine our current convictions. Nor does recent social science prove that we're inherently irrational. In conditions of uncertainty, it's perfectly reasonable to put more faith in evidence that fits what we take to be true than in unfamiliar arguments against it. Confirmation bias may lead to deadlock and polarization, but it is better than hopelessly starting from scratch every time we are contradicted. None of this guarantees that we'll get the facts right. In Meditations, Descartes imagines that the course of his experience is the work of an evil demon who deceives him into thinking the external world is real. Nowadays, we might think of brains in vats or virtual-reality machines from movies like The Matrix. What's striking about these thought experiments is that their imagined subjects are rational even though everything they think they know is wrong. Rationality is inherently fallible. What social science reveals is that we are more fallible than we thought. But this doesn't mean that changing our mind is a fool's errand. New information might be less likely to lead us to the truth than we would like to believe—but that doesn't mean it has no value at all. More evidence is still better than less. And we can take concrete steps to maximize its value by mitigating bias. Studies suggest, for instance, that playing devil's advocate improves our reliability. Barnes notwithstanding, novel arguments can move our mind in the right direction. [Read: Changing your mind can make you less anxious] As Descartes' demon shows, our environment determines how far being rational correlates with being right. At the evil-demon limit, not at all: We are trapped in the bubble of our own experience. Closer to home, we inhabit epistemic bubbles that impede our access to information. But our environment is something we can change. Sometimes it's good to have an open mind and to consider new perspectives. At other times, it's not: We know we're right and the risk of losing faith is not worth taking. We can't ensure that evidence points us to the truth, but we can protect ourselves from falling into error. As Barnes points out, memory is 'a key factor in changing our mind: we need to forget what we believed before, or at least forget with what passion and certainty we believed it.' When we fear that our environment will degrade, that we'll be subject to misinformation or groupthink, we can record our fundamental values and beliefs so as not to forsake them later. Seen in this light, Barnes's somewhat sheepish admission that he has never really changed his mind about politics seems, if not entirely admirable, then not all bad. Where the greater risk is that we'll come to accept the unacceptable, it's just as well to be dogmatic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Why It's Hard to Change Your Mind
Julian Barnes opens Changing My Mind, his brisk new book about our unruly intellects, with a quote famously attributed to the economist John Maynard Keynes: 'When the facts change, I change my mind.' It's a fitting start for an essay on our obliviousness to truth, because Keynes didn't say that —or not exactly that. The economist Paul Samuelson almost said it in 1970 (replacing 'facts' with 'events') and in 1978 almost said it again (this time, 'information'), attributing it to Keynes. His suggestion stuck, flattering our sense of plausibility—it's the sort of thing Keynes would have said—and now finds itself repeated in a work of nonfiction. Our fallibility is very much on display. Not that Barnes would deny that he makes mistakes. The wry premise of his book is that he's changed his mind about how we change our minds, evolving from a Keynesian faith in fact and reason to a framing inspired by the Dadaist Francis Picabia's aphorism 'Our heads are round so that our thoughts can change direction.' (In this case, the citation is accurate.) Barnes concludes that our beliefs are changed less by argument or evidence than by emotion: 'I think, on the whole, I have become a Picabian rather than a Keynesian.' Barnes is an esteemed British novelist, not a social scientist—one of the things he hasn't changed his mind about is 'the belief that literature is the best system we have of understanding the world'—but his shift in perspective resonates with a host of troubling results in social psychology. Research in recent decades shows that we are prone to ' confirmation bias,' systematically interpreting new information in ways that favor our existing views and cherry-picking reasons to uphold them. We engage in ' motivated reasoning,' believing what we wish were true despite the evidence. And we are subject to ' polarization ': As we divide into like-minded groups, we become more homogeneous and more extreme in our beliefs. If a functioning democracy is one in which people share a common pool of information and disagree in moderate, conciliatory ways, there are grounds for pessimism about its prospects. For Barnes, this is not news: 'When I look back at the innumerable conversations I've had with friends and colleagues about political matters over the decades,' he laments, 'I can't remember a single, clear instance, when a single, clear argument has made me change my mind—or when I have changed someone else's mind.' Where Barnes has changed his mind—about the nature of memory, or policing others' language, or the novelists Georges Simenon and E. M. Forster—he attributes the shift to quirks of experience or feeling, not rational thought. Both Barnes and the social scientists pose urgent, practical questions. What should we do about the seeming inefficacy of argument in politics? How can people persuade opponents on issues such as immigration, abortion, or trans rights in cases where their interpretation of evidence seems biased? Like the Russian trolls who spread divisive rhetoric on social media, these questions threaten one's faith in what the political analyst Anand Giridharadas has called 'the basic activity of democratic life—the changing of minds.' The situation isn't hopeless; in his recent book, The Persuaders, Giridharadas portrays activists and educators who have defied the odds. But there is a risk of self-fulfilling prophecy: If democratic discourse comes to seem futile, it will atrophy. Urgent as it may be, this fear is not what animates Barnes in Changing My Mind. His subject is not moving other minds, but rather changing our own. It's easy and convenient to forget that confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and group polarization are not problems unique to those who disagree with us. We all interpret evidence with prejudice, engage in self-deception, and lapse into groupthink. And though political persuasion is a topic for social scientists, the puzzle of what I should do when I'm afraid that I'm being irrational or unreliable is a philosophical question I must inevitably ask, and answer, for myself. That's why it feels right for Barnes to approach his topic through autobiography, in the first person. This genre goes back to Descartes' Meditations: epistemology as memoir. And like Descartes before him, Barnes confronts the specter of self-doubt. 'If Maynard Keynes changed his mind when the facts changed,' he admits, 'I find that facts and events tend to confirm me in what I already believe.' You might think that this confession of confirmation bias would shake his confidence, but that's not what happens to Barnes, or to many of us. Learning about our biases doesn't necessarily make them go away. In a chapter on his political convictions, Barnes is cheerfully dogmatic. 'When asked my view on some public matter nowadays,' he quips, 'I tend to reply, 'Well, in Barnes's Benign Republic …'' He goes on to list some of BBR's key policies: For a start … public ownership of all forms of mass transport, and all forms of power supply—gas, electric, nuclear, wind, solar … Absolute separation of Church and State … Full restoration of all arts and humanities courses at schools and universities … and, more widely, an end to a purely utilitarian view of education. This all sounds good to me, but it's announced without a hint of argument. Given Barnes's doubts about the power of persuasion, that makes sense. If no one is convinced by arguments, anyway, offering them would be a waste of time. Barnes does admit one exception: 'Occasionally, there might be an area where you admit to knowing little, and are a vessel waiting to be filled.' But, he adds, 'such moments are rare.' The discovery that reasoning is less effective than we hoped, instead of being a source of intellectual humility, may lead us to opt out of rational debate. Yascha Mounk: The doom spiral of pernicious polarization Barnes doesn't overtly make this case—again, why would he? But it's implicit in his book and it's not obviously wrong. When we ask what we should think in light of the social science of how we think, we run into philosophical trouble. I can't coherently believe that I am basically irrational or unreliable, because that belief would undermine itself: another conviction I can't trust. More narrowly, I can't separate what I think about, say, climate change from the apparent evidence. It's paradoxical to doubt that climate change is real while thinking that the evidence for climate change is strong, or to think, I don't believe that climate change is real, although it is. My beliefs are my perspective on the world; I cannot step outside of them to change them 'like some rider controlling a horse with their knees,' as Barnes puts it, 'or the driver of a tank guiding its progress.' So what am I to do? One consolation, of sorts, is that my plight—and yours—predates the findings of social science. Philosophers like Descartes long ago confronted the perplexities of the subject trapped within their own perspective. The limits of reasoning are evident from the moment we begin to do it. Every argument we make contains premises an opponent can dispute: They can always persist in their dissent, so long as they reject, time and again, some basic assumption we take for granted. This doesn't mean that our beliefs are unjustified. Failure to convert the skeptic—or the committed conspiracy theorist—need not undermine our current convictions. Nor does recent social science prove that we're inherently irrational. In conditions of uncertainty, it's perfectly reasonable to put more faith in evidence that fits what we take to be true than in unfamiliar arguments against it. Confirmation bias may lead to deadlock and polarization, but it is better than hopelessly starting from scratch every time we are contradicted. None of this guarantees that we'll get the facts right. In Meditations, Descartes imagines that the course of his experience is the work of an evil demon who deceives him into thinking the external world is real. Nowadays, we might think of brains in vats or virtual-reality machines from movies like The Matrix. What's striking about these thought experiments is that their imagined subjects are rational even though everything they think they know is wrong. Rationality is inherently fallible. What social science reveals is that we are more fallible than we thought. But this doesn't mean that changing our mind is a fool's errand. New information might be less likely to lead us to the truth than we would like to believe—but that doesn't mean it has no value at all. More evidence is still better than less. And we can take concrete steps to maximize its value by mitigating bias. Studies suggest, for instance, that playing devil's advocate improves our reliability. Barnes notwithstanding, novel arguments can move our mind in the right direction. As Descartes' demon shows, our environment determines how far being rational correlates with being right. At the evil-demon limit, not at all: We are trapped in the bubble of our own experience. Closer to home, we inhabit epistemic bubbles that impede our access to information. But our environment is something we can change. Sometimes it's good to have an open mind and to consider new perspectives. At other times, it's not: We know we're right and the risk of losing faith is not worth taking. We can't ensure that evidence points us to the truth, but we can protect ourselves from falling into error. As Barnes points out, memory is 'a key factor in changing our mind: we need to forget what we believed before, or at least forget with what passion and certainty we believed it.' When we fear that our environment will degrade, that we'll be subject to misinformation or groupthink, we can record our fundamental values and beliefs so as not to forsake them later. Seen in this light, Barnes's somewhat sheepish admission that he has never really changed his mind about politics seems, if not entirely admirable, then not all bad. Where the greater risk is that we'll come to accept the unacceptable, it's just as well to be dogmatic.
