While preparing my last bloggy bit which had something to do with perspective, I found this quote attributed to Aristotle: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Anyone familiar with this blog could probably guess how much this quotation resonated with me.
I do believe enough of us are not seriously entertaining enough thoughts, especially those that cause us discomfort. For most of us, we simply reject these thoughts and notions immediately, abruptly, and sometimes, with great emotional intensity. I have written in this blog also about the polarization that has plagued and paralyzed this great country of ours. In my view, this paralyzing polarization is caused by everyone NOT entertaining thoughts that are not already in line with what they believe. This is due to what is Confirmation Bias. I also wrote about this in other blogs as well. Here are a few:
· 4th of July Thoughts: Polarization Revisited… Again
Everyone should entertain all positions on a topic. We should attempt to understand both sides of every issue. Like a high school debate team, we should be able to argue both sides no matter what the initial take on the issue is. Only then can we really understand an issue and take an informed stance.
Most large issues aren’t as black and white as the average person thinks they are. However, I believe, the average person truly wants these issues to be black and white. We want to know what is right and what is wrong. We want to know what the good choice is versus the bad choice. We want to someone to simplify the situation.
This, of course, leads to groups on various sides of the issue to provide “simplifications” to make it easier for people to choose their side. As we have seen, various groups have gotten very good at using social media to spread information and misinformation to sway folks to a specific conclusion. The misinformation is as well-crafted and of the same high production value as the mainstream news media. The misinformation also plays on peoples’ fear of a deep right or left state or an intricate conspiracy again on the right or the left or Russia or… fill in the blank.
It is easy to accept a dogma. It requires less effort, less thinking, and less doubt. The Aristotle quote reminded me of another similar quote from the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats. In his famous poem The Second Coming, he wrote “The best lack all convictions, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” These days the worst do seem to be full of passionate intensities. The best? Are the best lacking all convictions? It is easy to jump to that conclusion. I even contemplated that it is because the best are lost in analysis paralysis while the worst are acting on their convictions. I no longer believe that. I believe solutions that can be found. We should fight for discussion and compromise. We should fight against propaganda, misinformation, and conspiracy theories even given that we may never know the full truth.
All we can do is to look at all the evidence, all the news, and draw the best conclusions we can. Of course, this is what everyone says they do.
While I agree with much of what you wrote, sometimes the positions of some political leaders are so bizarre and dangerous, that a reasonable person cannot accept their views. Period.
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