Sometimes I feel like I am becoming
cynical in my dotage. Fortunately there are still enough pleasant
surprises to foil my falling into a cynicism laced miasma. Recently
I was chewing the fat (which is maybe my best skill) with a Mennonite
gentleman for whom I had done some work. When you do work for a
Mennonite you can rest assured that he has already done everything he
knows to do and only the hard stuff is left. Anyway, our
conversation turned to matters more esoteric and I said to him that I
had decided my true calling was to be a philosopher. He looked at me
seriously and asked why I thought that and I told him that I thought
about things a lot and that it didn't require a degree as far as I
knew. He asked me what kind of things I thought about and I told him
that my philosophical musings took me far and wide. He nodded sagely
and said, “me, too.”
Many of you know that my musings often
take a political tack. I don't think of them as overtly political
but more of a social consciousness nature. Being of a certain
philosophical mindset those dissonant thoughts often coalesce into a
form that is misunderstood by many and ridiculed by quite a few too.
My entire life I have believed that
humans are innately capable of being rational people and if one's
arguments are cogent and persuasive enough that one's mind could be
changed. I have begun to call that premise into question. I have
encountered quite a number of people who refuse to accept rationality
and instead cling to a notion and seem incapable of being swayed.
When I present a premise or argument it is as if I have said nothing
and when pressed for facts to support their premise they seem to be
able to offer either nothing or something easily refuted. The
percentage of minds I have been able to change is so small as to be
infinitesimal. Now I know that you may say that I always think I am
right and that is absolutely true. But I also believe that I am
capable of changing my mind when faced with irrefutable facts that
demand a different position.
There has been a lot written about the
human mind and how our minds reach conclusions that are strongly
held. Much of it is attributed to an ancient inclination to
tribalism which was at one time an evolutionary survival trait. We
banded together to increase our safety and to repel others who would
endanger us. We are unaware of it usually but we still retain many
of those traits it being that we simply have not had enough time to
begin to lose those traits. The evolution of inherent traits can
often take much longer than we have had time to change. Given that
argument, and it seems reasonable, our notion of free will and our
ability to make rational choices in self governance can be called
into question. I suspect that in time our inclination to tribalism
will wane and we will become evolutionarily more equipped to tasks
that involve making decisions beyond those that affect us directly
and which may require us to view benefits of a society as a whole.
I am faced with this dilemma in our
current political discourse. To me one position is logical and
supported by facts and the competing argument is ruled by emotion.
It is never as simple as that but it seems that many are unable to
bring cognition to bear and will reject any attempt to query them
about their references. Often only by asserting the falsity of
the other. My lifelong assumption of innate rationality seems to be
in error and if it is then what are we to make of our lauded ability
to decide our own paths? Is it simply evidence of an evolutionary
path that will eventually lead us either to a better existence or
return us to a prior state? An evolutionary dead end so to speak.
Often I speculate on the FOUNDERS. I
place that word in all caps to emphasize the reverence in which we
hold them. They were mighty thinkers, products of the relatively new
period of enlightenment but it should be remembered that much of
their discourse took place in taverns over copious quantities of ale
and that is fertile soil for grandiose thoughts. However, they led
us to revolution which we celebrate as the throwing off the yoke of
King George but which was in many cases just rattling over
philosophy. It is estimated that at the beginning of the
Revolutionary War only about a third of the people really wanted to
separate from Great Britain. Most thought things were pretty good if
the Brits would just let us ply our trade as we wished and have a
little self governance. We all know how that turned out and the
grand experiment in self governance began. No matter how we gussy it
up it still comes down to opinions strongly held whether valid or
not. We have made decent choices as often as not and I suspect it is
the moribund state of bureaucracy that keeps the wheels from flying
off. Self governance seems to be guided by the law of averages that
allows us to be right as often as not. How I wish there existed a
means of debating these great questions in order to winnow out the
chaff and bring revelation to light but we have yet to develop the
political will to do it.
My Take is that it takes great
perseverance to pursue the path of vision and not succumb to the
comfort of tribalism. What are your thoughts on this matter?
