Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
About Independent thought.
Michael, you said,
.
"Aristotle is the father of Western logic. Everything you write about "efficient and logical" thought, you owe to Aristotle. He is one of if not the most brilliant human being in history. He could out-think and out-logic you all day long."
.
You’re making several unwarranted assumptions. First, I’m the father of my ability to think, and I don’t owe Aristotle shit. I would think the exact same way that I do regardless to whether or not Aristotle ever set foot on Earth. Aristotle didn’t INVENT logical thought, he merely DESCRIBED it. So what you’re actually saying is, if I don’t except your definition of brilliance there’s a flaw in my thinking. In short, you're demanding that I embrace your intellectual heroes, or embrace the people who you've been indoctrinated to believe every "educated" person is required to embrace. But the fact is, I don't have intellectual heroes. The very first rule of independent thought is to become your own hero.
.
You should NEVER give anyone else's ability to think priority over your own. Yes, you should objectively assess the point of view of others, and take any specialized knowledge that they may have into account, but you should ALWAYS connect the dots for yourself. Thus, from my point of view, your position represents the very height of presumptive hubris.
.
You should NEVER give anyone else's ability to think priority over your own. Yes, you should objectively assess the point of view of others, and take any specialized knowledge that they may have into account, but you should ALWAYS connect the dots for yourself. Thus, from my point of view, your position represents the very height of presumptive hubris.
.
We should never assume that because a person is celebrated, that he’s brilliant. If you tell me a person is brilliant, and I later find out that he believes in talking snakes, I’m going to challenge your assumption. A brilliant person thinks brilliantly. That’s simple logic. So if the person is prone to make stupid assumptions - and a racist mind-set certainly falls into that category - BY DEFINITION, he's less than brilliant; I don’t care what his name is, or how celebrated he’s been throughout history.
.
And further, just because a person has a given skill in one area, that doesn’t make him brilliant; it simply means that he's skilled in a given area. But based on what seems to be your definition of brilliance, I’d have to say that my mechanic is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds of all time.
.
This is not the first time I’ve been involved in a debate regarding this issue. I’ve been in debates with people where they’d say something like, "Well, Martin Luther King said . . ." The implication is, because MLK said something that's at variance with what I’m saying, that should end the debate. But my response is, I don’t care what Martin said. I disagree with him.
.
I’ll challenge the thinking of ANYBODY if I think they’re wrong. I don’t care if it’s Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Aristotle, or Jesus Christ. While you might consider that arrogant, I consider it independent thinking - and we need a whole lot more of it in this country.
.
Thus, while I'll listen to Albert Einstein in the area of mathematics or physics, when it comes to any other area of knowledge, his opinion is no better than anyone else's, because I recognize that man is notorious for giving people more credit than they're due - especially after their dead. If you doubt that, go to any deadbeat's funeral. You won't even recognize who they're talking about.
.
Taking that into consideration, Aristotle died 300 years before the birth of Christ, and every admirer who wrote about him over these two thousand years added to the myth of what he represented. So do I question his brilliance? You damn right I do. I question everything - that’s called critical thinking.
.
Aristotle was just another celebrated writer - as was Voltaire, and/or Shakespeare. In fact, many consider Shakespeare the most "brilliant" writer in the history of English literature, but personally, I’d rather spend a day in jail than have to agonize through an entire day of his plays. At least in jail I could sleep through the day, or read Harpers or Time Magazine.
.
But of course, there are many who would be shocked by that statement, and they’d write me off as uncultured. But from my point of view, that attitude betrays the fact that such people are more indoctrinated than they are educated. They’ve been taught WHAT to think, rather than HOW to think. If I was that narrow-minded in my thinking, I’d insist that anyone who didn’t appreciate Thelonious Monk was undereducated and without culture. But since I was educated in HOW to think whether than WHAT to think, I’m not that big a fool.
.
RELATED CONTENT
.
Eric L. Wattree
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Sphere: Related Content
Posts
