Arguing about public policy issues can be fun, but it’s also serious business. On a good day, an argument you’ve made convinces those who make the rules and inspires them to act. This is no small thing–if you’re wrong, the results of any initiatives you’ve inspired could be disastrous. So most of my reading is geared toward helping me think as best as I can through the issues I write about. For me, this has meant two things: pulling from other disciplines, like psychology, that could inform my own arguments, and engaging with the work of those who come down on the other side of the questions I’m working to answer. The practical application of work by a scholar in another discipline may not immediately be clear, but it’s always interesting. A prime example for me is Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s “A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life.” Reading something you know you’ll disagree with can be frustrating, but it can also better prepare you to engage with the other side in the marketplace of ideas. My latest such endeavor is Jeffrey Bellin’s “Mass Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became Addicted to Prisons and Jails and How It Can Recover.” In short, those in different fields as well as those you differ with both have something to offer. Read accordingly.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow and head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He is also the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal