Doubt everything at least once, even the proposition that two times two equals four.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)
Are you serious, Georg? [pronounced Gay - org] Doubt that two times two equals four?
Yes, he was serious.
If we don't doubt everything at least once, it means nothing to us. To have meaning for us, something must have crossed our consciousness in a way that causes us to think about it at more than simply a surface level.
When we don't question things, even things that seem obvious (but could be well-reasoned lies) we must take someone else's word for them. We know how often we have taken the words of politicians for things, especially before elections, then been disappointed, if not absolutely betrayed by them later.
The same can happen with anyone. Our boss could tell us to do something that doesn't make any sense and that costs the company unnecessary time and money, only because that's the way it has always been done. When we stop to question the boss, we may get nowhere. But later the boss might question it himself, then the procedure will change.
We need to confirm for ourselves that what we "know" and what we believe are true. We all know people who have been duped and who have duped themselves into believing things that bear no resemblance to the truth.
There is no point in arguing with someone unless we have worked our way through the subject of the argument ourselves. All the way through.
There are many things about life that we must extrapolate from a minimum of available facts. Let's not do it this way when we can figure it out for ourselves.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get everyone to think it through.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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Comments: 13
I believe in questioning life and not just taking what is as a definite, until I have examined it for myself.
But yes, we must always question and seek answers or we become stagnant, but it's so easy to just follow the crowd.
Jami, there's more to it than being able to think as adults when we stretch those "brain muscles" in school. As we get into our 60s and 70s, those brains that are not accustomed to getting a good workout every day will be more subject to senility and Alzheimer's. Senility is totally avoidable and results from lack of use of a brain for heavy thinking over a long period of time. Recent research suggests that a brain that works hard every day (such as by writing) may be able to ward off Alzheimer's because it doesn't give the disease a place to let those lesions grow.
Debra, two plus two to the nth degree would be allegory, wouldn't it? There is more to life than the surface level in which we live and play most of the time. For example, we may life a completely different existence when we listen to music we love, a life that has nothing to do with our daily lives. So too with writing--I have no sense of time passing when I am writing, I'm part of the great force of unity in the universe.
While you may disagree with the choices that your fellow citizens made in 2000 and 2004, they had a choice. They did not have to choose the lackey of Big Oil, any more than they had to choose his father in 1988. The same money that bought the presidency in 1988 bought it again in 2000 and 2004.
No one should point a finger at "the system" and say it's wrong if the people chose with their votes.
It's not a lie that the US is a democracy. It's a different kind of democracy than you might like though. It's not necessarily bad just because too many people disagree with what you want from a president.
Thanks for your comment. It came straight from the heart.
definition of rebublic: political system with elected representatives: a political system or form of government in which people elect representatives to exercise power for them
2. state with elected representatives: a country or other political unit whose government or political system is that of a republic
3. unit within larger country: a constituent political and territorial unit of a national federation or union
4. group with collective interests: a group of people who are considered to be equals and who have a collective interest, objective, or vocation ( formal )
the republic of letters
Debra, I tell my students (now all adults, but formerly as young as 7 years) to doubt everything, even what I tell them. It's an amazing empowerment device.
As to paying professionals to lie, we pay lawyers to lie FOR us.
Your final sentence is too much to tackle here.