Saturday, March 31, 2012
Aphorism #2 - Maturity
It seems to me that many people's thoughts on what is and isn't mature thinking have a lot do with how much they agree with it, whether or not they used to share the same perspective, and how jaded they've come to feel about it subsequently.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Aphorism #1 - Betrayal of Institutions
Betray an institution, no matter how large, and you have only betrayed an idea. Betray people in favor of an institution and you have betrayed your species. Nations and religions are institutions, are ideas. Treason and heresy, it would seem, are in the eye of the beholder.
Support for anything that supports some people and not others is to commit heresy against one's humanity and treason against your species. People occupy the top slot of my hierarchy of values, one need only ask themselves what occupies their own, and if it isn't people they should perhaps re-evaluate what it is they hold so dear.
Support for anything that supports some people and not others is to commit heresy against one's humanity and treason against your species. People occupy the top slot of my hierarchy of values, one need only ask themselves what occupies their own, and if it isn't people they should perhaps re-evaluate what it is they hold so dear.
There's nothing wrong with being wrong, and cultural relativism doesn't help!
I assert that one should have a good deal of respect for their fellow man no matter what, and very little for any of their ideas that aren't supported by evidence. There is a separation between a person, their value/integrity as a person, the ideas and beliefs they hold true, and the value/integrity of the ideas and beliefs they hold true. I actually find that a far greater insult than attacking a person's idea, is to treat a person as if there is no divide between them and their ideas, because how then could a person ever admit they were wrong about anything, right? In that scenario, to lose an idea because it was wrong would be the equivalent of ripping out a part of yourself and then replacing that part with something else, how painful!
Being wrong, I say, is something most people make into a needlessly painful experience full of shame and guilt and misery by means of not separating themselves and the value they have from their ideas, as if a person's value is at all tied into their ideas. It sounds absurd, right? I mean, if this was true, we'd kill all of the neo-nazi's in America because their ideas have 0 value and thus they would have 0 value under that notion. But we don't, and this is because we still acknowledge the fact that these people have a certain inherent value as people. Some of you reading this may be thinking to yourselves, "Duh... okay, when are you going to say something I didn't already know?" Well, you ought to actually give yourself a good deal more credit than you actually are, because there are people out there, even now, even in your city, who are what we call "cultural relativists" that see no difference between people and their ideas and who would attack you like a feral dog if you tried to assert that something someone else believed was wrong at all. They believe themselves to be defending people from mean ol' rationalists like myself, but in fact they're hurting them. What is the end result of all of this relativity and extreme tolerance? See for yourself: http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2011/12/03/wrong-culture-right-teacher%E2%80%99s-surprising-discovery/
I know, it's horrifying. And yet, haha, AND YET there are people who raise their children like this and who get glorified by their friends as the King or Queen of tolerance. There is a difference between intolerance for people and intolerance for their ideas, and it's about bloody time we made this divide well known and understood so we can really put to rest a lot of the myth's, superstitions, and generally bad or dangerous ideas without all of this "you're not respecting me" mess. Whenever someone says this to me I like to respond with, "Quite the contrary, it's because I respect you that I bother disagreeing with you at all."
Being wrong, I say, is something most people make into a needlessly painful experience full of shame and guilt and misery by means of not separating themselves and the value they have from their ideas, as if a person's value is at all tied into their ideas. It sounds absurd, right? I mean, if this was true, we'd kill all of the neo-nazi's in America because their ideas have 0 value and thus they would have 0 value under that notion. But we don't, and this is because we still acknowledge the fact that these people have a certain inherent value as people. Some of you reading this may be thinking to yourselves, "Duh... okay, when are you going to say something I didn't already know?" Well, you ought to actually give yourself a good deal more credit than you actually are, because there are people out there, even now, even in your city, who are what we call "cultural relativists" that see no difference between people and their ideas and who would attack you like a feral dog if you tried to assert that something someone else believed was wrong at all. They believe themselves to be defending people from mean ol' rationalists like myself, but in fact they're hurting them. What is the end result of all of this relativity and extreme tolerance? See for yourself: http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2011/12/03/wrong-culture-right-teacher%E2%80%99s-surprising-discovery/
I know, it's horrifying. And yet, haha, AND YET there are people who raise their children like this and who get glorified by their friends as the King or Queen of tolerance. There is a difference between intolerance for people and intolerance for their ideas, and it's about bloody time we made this divide well known and understood so we can really put to rest a lot of the myth's, superstitions, and generally bad or dangerous ideas without all of this "you're not respecting me" mess. Whenever someone says this to me I like to respond with, "Quite the contrary, it's because I respect you that I bother disagreeing with you at all."
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