Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
It's a Difficult Thing, Thinking for Oneself, That Is
I think, therefore I am. But what am I? Sometimes I wonder if anything I do is solely because I chose it without regard to the ideas, behaviors and traditions put before me. For example I choose to support health care reform. As a Roman-Catholic Democrat by birth who believes there is nothing greater than service to others, I'm a proponent of a single-payer health care system. What would I think if I was raised a Roman-Catholic Republican? To answer, I would need to think a bit more. What do you think?
But here's the rub. What kind of thinker are you? Do you do your own thinking or do you outsource that work? Do you get your thoughts strictly from headlines and soundbites? Or do you prefer to digest whole articles and television news reports?
Let me ask you some more questions so that I may figure out where you belong in my card catalog so to speak.
What part of the country are you from? Are you male or female? (Or perhaps you're like Caster Semenya, the runner, who is a bit of both.) Do you believe in a God? Do you think we evolved from early primates? Are you wealthy or do you live pay-check to pay-check? Are you a risk taker? Do you smoke weed or pop multi-vitamins and supplements? Do you prefer Scotch or Budweiser? Do you think Michael Jackson was a pedophile? Do you remember the day John Kennedy was shot? Were you a kid when Sponge Bob, Big Bird or Howdy Doody was popular?
My point is, humans innately categorize and label. My questions are an attempt to categorize you so that I can decide whether to embrace you, dismiss you or investigate you further. We all look for ways to broadly group each other in order to better manage our social connections and environment.
Organizing, categorizing and labeling make it easier to manage a society as well. Yet, could it be that our need for organization actually damages our ability to function as a Great Society in the long-term? Perhaps it's like breathing. We need air to live but at the same time the act of breathing contributes to our ultimate demise. As great civilizations grow in size the citizens become more separated and segmented for various reasons . Over time, the ability to think in terms of what's best for the whole society becomes difficult. Possibly civilizations fall because the need to categorize and segment overtakes the strengh in unity.
The United States may have reached a point of no return. We've largely become fat, lazy and thanks to 24/7 media we've developed ADD and seek instant gratification. We can easily label, segregate and divide our fellow citizens into groups we like or dislike based on soundbites and headlines. We, the citizens, more often than not, leave the heavy lifting - the real thinking - to others; the ones we choose to listen to, the ones that seem most like ourselves in our own little category. The ones that sound like the people we are most connected to throughout our lives.
I think, therefore I am. What am I?
Today I'm a "lazy thinker" bigot. And as such, I'm beginning to believe that only true self-thinkers should be allowed to vote or run for political office. Perhaps then we could get to a meaningful debate on the future of health care in our society instead of being side-tracked by the fear-inducing rhetoric that is lapped up by the all-too-common lazy thinker.
Fear the Lazy Thinker. Try the difficult, think for yourself.
But here's the rub. What kind of thinker are you? Do you do your own thinking or do you outsource that work? Do you get your thoughts strictly from headlines and soundbites? Or do you prefer to digest whole articles and television news reports?
Let me ask you some more questions so that I may figure out where you belong in my card catalog so to speak.
What part of the country are you from? Are you male or female? (Or perhaps you're like Caster Semenya, the runner, who is a bit of both.) Do you believe in a God? Do you think we evolved from early primates? Are you wealthy or do you live pay-check to pay-check? Are you a risk taker? Do you smoke weed or pop multi-vitamins and supplements? Do you prefer Scotch or Budweiser? Do you think Michael Jackson was a pedophile? Do you remember the day John Kennedy was shot? Were you a kid when Sponge Bob, Big Bird or Howdy Doody was popular?
My point is, humans innately categorize and label. My questions are an attempt to categorize you so that I can decide whether to embrace you, dismiss you or investigate you further. We all look for ways to broadly group each other in order to better manage our social connections and environment.
Organizing, categorizing and labeling make it easier to manage a society as well. Yet, could it be that our need for organization actually damages our ability to function as a Great Society in the long-term? Perhaps it's like breathing. We need air to live but at the same time the act of breathing contributes to our ultimate demise. As great civilizations grow in size the citizens become more separated and segmented for various reasons . Over time, the ability to think in terms of what's best for the whole society becomes difficult. Possibly civilizations fall because the need to categorize and segment overtakes the strengh in unity.
The United States may have reached a point of no return. We've largely become fat, lazy and thanks to 24/7 media we've developed ADD and seek instant gratification. We can easily label, segregate and divide our fellow citizens into groups we like or dislike based on soundbites and headlines. We, the citizens, more often than not, leave the heavy lifting - the real thinking - to others; the ones we choose to listen to, the ones that seem most like ourselves in our own little category. The ones that sound like the people we are most connected to throughout our lives.
I think, therefore I am. What am I?
Today I'm a "lazy thinker" bigot. And as such, I'm beginning to believe that only true self-thinkers should be allowed to vote or run for political office. Perhaps then we could get to a meaningful debate on the future of health care in our society instead of being side-tracked by the fear-inducing rhetoric that is lapped up by the all-too-common lazy thinker.
Fear the Lazy Thinker. Try the difficult, think for yourself.
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