Schneiter 1

Blake Schneiter
Professor Granillo
English 101
5 December 2018
Reading Log #1
External Distractions- Someone is talking very loudly in the TLC

Internal Distractions- Worried about all my responsibilities and failing

Summary- In the chapter “The ‘Other Side’ Is Not Dumb”, Sean Blanda, is saying that many of

us perceive that people have the same ideas as us based on silly reasons. This idea is called

“false- consensus bias” where we think everyone agrees with our ideas because we were in a

social environment with others who also believed the same. Giving the assumption that everyone

must think the same. Sean also states that when someone disagrees with us we associate them as

being stupid and mock them. But he wants people to start listening and considering that their

opinion might be wrong.

Author’s Motivation- The motivation of Blanda was to help people understand the idea to not be

so opinionated. It was written to comment on the world’s current position, especially America’s,

on how we as a society undermine people who do not believe in the same things/ ideas. The

author, just like most people, see the political divide that we have and how adults cannot have a

simple discussion without tuning out or discrediting “the other side”.

Counterargument- In Sean Blanda’s argument I agree that we should listen to “the other side”

but to an extent. We still need to have and develop our own ideas and to not let people if they

have a better argument or points easily convince us or lead us astray from what we believe. Also

he could have expanded on the real world implications on why it is important to listen to others.