Narrow-mindedness instead of Wisdom – The Philosopher’s PI

"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What the hell is water?'"

— David Foster Wallace

Why Richard David Precht grows more stubborn with age, not wiser

Richard David Precht laments the scissors in the head. He warns against narrowed opinion corridors. He demands open discourse.

Yet he embodies the very structure he criticizes. He just doesn't see it.

This isn't personal weakness. It's structural. PI in pure form.

Structure 1: The Blind Observer

Precht analyzes how dominant narratives narrow discourse. Ukraine war, Gaza, Corona—everywhere he sees mainstream coercion.

His solution? A counter-perspective. That of his left-alternative upbringing. "Emotional equidistance to the USA," as he calls it.

What he doesn't see: This isn't a neutral standpoint. It's another bias. His parental home—DKP-adjacent, anti-imperialist, GDR-romantic—shapes him to this day. He just calls it "orientation in a changed world order."

The PI: Those who speak loudest about blind spots overlook their own. The sharper the criticism of the system, the more invisible one's own position within it.

Structure 2: Criticism That Reproduces What It Criticizes

Precht complains about "scissors in the head" regarding the Gaza war. He's cautious because any sentence could be taken out of context.

Simultaneously, he romanticizes the GDR ("Yes, this Germany I mean"), relativizes Russian aggression ("also a consequence of NATO expansion"), warns against AfD demonization.

He demands freedom of opinion—but only for his opinion. Those who question him critically (like the NZZ journalist) get evasions: "You'll have to discuss that with him."

The PI: The demanded openness applies only to one's own position. The fight against narrowing narrows—just in the other direction.

Structure 3: Success as Gatekeeping

Precht made it. Millions of audience. Bestsellers. Talk shows.

And uses this position to stage himself as a suppressed outsider. "You get excluded if you deviate from the narrative." Says he. On the talk show. Before millions.

Michael Lüders, his example for cancel culture, remains present in media. Just not everywhere anymore. Precht reinterprets this: as proof of suppression.

The structure behind it: Those who successfully criticize become part of the system. To maintain the outsider position, they must claim exclusion—even when it no longer occurs.

The PI: Success destroys the position that enabled success. So suppression must be constructed to justify the role.

Why It Gets Worse With Age

Young intellectuals are open because they're still searching. Old intellectuals are narrow-minded because they've found.

Precht has found: His worldview. Shaped in the 1970s. Confirmed through decades of selective perception.

Every new crisis gets interpreted through this lens: USA bad, Russia misunderstood, West hypocritical, mainstream blind.

This isn't thinking anymore. It's pattern recognition. The structure reproduces itself.

The PI: The more life experience, the more confirmation of one's own view, the less openness to contradiction. Wisdom becomes impossible because every new information only reinforces old convictions.

What This Shows

Precht isn't stupid. Not evil. Not deliberately blind.

He's trapped. In a structure he cannot see because he thinks within it.

That's the nature of PI: Intelligent people produce collective irrationality. Not despite, but because of their rationality.

Precht acts rationally—within his worldview. The problem is the worldview itself. And he cannot see it because he sees through it.