Intellectual Perseverance: Refuse to Give Up Easily;

Work Your Way through Complexities and

Frustration

Let us now consider intellectual perseverance.

Intellectual perseverance is the disposition to work one$$s way through intellectual complexities

despite frustrations inherent in the task. Some problems are complicated and cannot be solved

easily. One has intellectual perseverance when one does not give up in the face of complexity

or frustration. The intellectually perseverant person understands that carefully and methodically

reasoning through complex issues and problems takes precedence over coming to conclusions

quickly. Intellectual perseverance involves adhering to rational principles firmly despite the natural tendency to go with first impressions and simplistic answers. It also entails a realistic sense

of the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended time to achieve

understanding or insight.

The opposite of intellectual perseverance is intellectual laziness, demonstrated

in the tendency to give up quickly when faced with an intellectually challenging

task. The intellectually indolent, or lazy, person has a low tolerance for intellectual

pain or frustration.

Intellectual perseverance is essential to almost all areas of higher$-$level thinking because virtually all higher$-$level thinking involves some intellectual challenges.

Without intellectual perseverance, those challenges cannot be overcome. Intellectual perseverance is required for high$-$quality reasoning in math, chemistry, physics, literature, art$$and indeed any domain. Many students give up during early

stages of learning a subject. Lacking intellectual perseverance, they cut themselves

off from the many insights available to them only when they are willing to think

through a subject. They avoid intellectual frustration, no doubt, but they end up

with the everyday frustrations of not being able to solve the complex problems

they face.

Students often lack intellectual perseverance for at least two important reasons.

$1.$ The mind is naturally averse to intellectual difficulties. It much prefers things

to be easy, and it will take the simplest route to an answer when it can. This

is the natural egocentric state of the mind.

$2.$ Intellectual perseverance is rarely fostered in school. Instead, students are

often encouraged to complete tasks quickly. Those who finish first are seen

as the smartest and brightest. Slowly and carefully working through tasks is

not usually valued. Consequently, students conclude that quickness is what

matters most in learning. Those who are not able to finish tasks quickly come

to view themselves as inadequate, stupid, inferior. Yet the most important

questions we will reason through in our lives most likely will be complex

and, therefore, will require not speed but diligence and intellectual discipline.

The thoroughness and attentiveness we bring to the process will determine

whether, and to what extent, we can answer the questions.

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Intellectually quick students are often the same students who give up when the

intellectual task becomes difficult. They see themselves as capable of getting the

$$right$$ answer quickly and without intellectual pain. When the $$right$$ answer does

not come immediately and painlessly, they frequently blame the teacher for giving a

$$dumb assignment.$$ Indeed, these students often fail to recognize that every question

doesn$$t have a $$right$$ answer; some instead have only better and worse answers, and

there is no effective way to work through these complex questions simply and easily.

How does a lack of intellectual perseverance impede fairmindedness? Understanding the views of others requires intellectual work. It requires intellectual

perseverance$$insofar as those views differ from ours or are complex in nature. If

we are unable or unwilling to work through the views of others, to consider the

information they use and how they interpret that information, to look closely at

their beliefs and analyze those beliefs for ourselves, to understand what they are

trying to accomplish and how they see the world, we will not be able to think fairly

within their viewpoint.

For example, suppose we are Christians wanting to be fair to the views of

atheists. Unless we read and understand the reasoning of intelligent and insightful

atheists, we cannot be fair to those views. Some intelligent and insightful atheists

have written books to explain how and why they think as they do$.$ Some of their

reasoning is complicated or deals with complex issues. It follows that only those

Christians who have the intellectual perseverance to read and understand atheists

can be fair to atheist views. Of course, a parallel case could be made for atheists$$

understanding the views of intelligent and insightful Christians.