I listened to How to Think by Alan Jacobs again. If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it. If you have read it, it's worth rereading because we're still learning how to think well. At the very end, Jacobs gives the reader The Thinking Person's Checklist, which includes this: "5. If you do have to respond to what everyone else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness, or else lose your status in your community, then you should realize that it's not a community but rather an Inner Ring." The Inner Ring Jacobs is referring to is described in an address by C.S. Lewis in which he warns his hearers of the pull of the Inner Ring, the inner circle, the people in-the-know and the ones who really matter. It may not be the visible authorities, but it is the power behind the throne, as it were. The main draw is the desire to belong to this select group, and its seductive power may cause us to do unethical things to gain and ...