Chapter 8 Question Popular Thinking “I’m not an answering machine, I’m a questioning machine. If we have all the answers, how come we’re in such a mess?” —DOUGLAS CARDINAL Economist John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas profoundly influenced economic theory and practices in the twentieth century, asserted, “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones.” Going against popular thinking can be difficult, whether you’re a businessperson bucking company tradition, a pastor introducing new types of music to his church, a new mother rejecting old wives’ tales handed down from her parents, or a teenager ignoring currently popular styles. Many of the ideas in this book go against popular thinking. If you value popularity over good thinking, then you will severely limit your potential to learn the types of thinking encouraged by this book. Popular thinking is… Too Average to Understand the Value of Good Thinking...