Discuss Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Starry Messenger
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On August 29, 2026, our group of six pondered the reasons why rationality matters to Steven Pinker. The cost of being irrational ranges from letting children die from vaccine-preventable diseases to being a mark easily swindled by psychics. There is also a cost for not practicing mindfulness, what Pinker would call being a schlemiel, that ranges from spilling soup on their expensive suits to locking keys in cars. In Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 4, Scene 4, even Shakespeare ponders the worth of being human if we spend our time only sleeping and eating, when we are endowed with reason and not using it.
Using rationality, humans have extended life spans from the lowly average of 30 (by reducing infant mortality) to 83 years in fortunate countries that have discarded miasmas as a cause of disease by improving water purification and sanitation. Even dying from wars has decreased from 21.9 battle deaths per 100,000 in 1950 to 0.7 in 2019, although it is rising again when we choose to kill our opponents instead of artfully dealing with them. After the devastation of WW2, Kant’s dream of perpetual peace was becoming a reality with the rise of democracy and international trade and investments. In 2012, the European Union received the Nobel Peace Prize after these nations put aside their differences to form closer trade arrangements, creating wealth for those nations without extracting wealth by imperial means. Are those who eschew handwashing positive role models? Do we have to relearn the lessons from the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 that deepened the Great Depression and contributed to the geopolitical instability that led to WW2?
The gains in safety and material well-being rise concomitantly with equality, benevolence, and recognition of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Many cruel and unjust practices have declined, including human sacrifice, slavery, persecution of heretics, and despotism. Yet there are still people who would roll up and throw away safety nets so that the “undeserving” cannot benefit, even when the loss of safety nets becomes a form of self-harm.
Combining passion with reason renders progress incremental. Desiderius Erasmus, in 1517, argued that war that does all possible injury to an enemy will also bring injury upon their home country. In 1553, Sebastian Castellio protested the extermination of an entire population for a religious war promulgated by John Calvin. In 1764, Cesare Beccaria passionately pleaded for the abolition of cruel and unusual punishments. Mary Wollstonecraft vindicated the rights of women in 1792, and Frederick Douglass made a moral argument against slavery in 1852. Some steps toward progress happened without violence, but others went through a gauntlet of armed conflicts for change to take place.
When David Hume wrote that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions," he meant that logic and intellect alone can never motivate human action or create moral choices. Passions set the goals, and reason finds the path. This idea sparked a revolution in ethics by arguing that making laws is not just an exercise of reason but also uses compassion.
Passion selects the targets of inquiry. Although reason is a tool capable of analyzing anything, from the trajectory of a rocket to the number of grains of sand on a beach, passion puts a spotlight on a subject, focusing cognitive energy on problems and rendering them meaningful or urgent. Without passion, there is no motivation to think—yet passion is also what stops us from falling into infinite loops of listing pros and cons, leading to paralysis by overanalysis. Passion powers cognitive endurance because analytical thinking is exhausting and mentally taxing—whether it is conducting an inquiry to satisfy one’s curiosity or summoning one’s courage to confront an injustice—fueling the resilience needed to keep working on a single problem over time.
Which Shakespearean character would you choose to be? Is Hamlet pure reason, but prone to overthinking and procrastinating? Is Polonius too bureaucratic and blind to human emotion? Is Laertes too impulsive, blind to manipulation, and acting before thinking? Is Horatio too poised, observant, and reasonable? Can we balance passion with rationality?
Join us for our next meeting as we explore Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization, call number CB478.T96 2022, and explore ways to depolarize divisive arguments into informative dialogues on September 19, 2026, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM CDT.