People should not argue or criticize at a certain level. Discover as much as you can, read like a machine, imitate and write about others, and get rid of the stupid things society spoon-feeds. Only then, perhaps, you may learn that talking or writing about certain things require a background, and that you are always ready to search and learn the background of new works, concepts, events...etc. What happens when we start arguing about things we dont know a lot about, or, worse, criticize certain concepts? We rely on our spoon-fed safe anti-change social background to minimize great ideas. Most of the time, people dont read to acquire new ideas, new values...etc., they read to feel safe and validate and re-confirm their beliefs, which, in turn, belong to the status quo. So they keep looking for what is with them and what is against them. Simplistically, they refute the latter, and hug the former. After reading 50 or 100 books of literature, philosophy, poetry..etc., these people feel confident enough to defend the status quo. Since reading books makes one clever anyhow, they start arguing about the correctness of their shallow ideas in unbelievably intricate ways. When, according to those very books youve read both of you, you start stating the obvious, theyll always find ways to turn a blind eye on reality. Once, my colleagues were arguing about an idea in the classroom, and, the professor, wanting to finish it all, said: well, thats okay. After all, only the Quran is right 100%. Its not shocking to state that among the kind of people I am speaking about are academics. It is easy to judge these people as cowards, as they are not able to simply brace enlightenment. Instead of breaking with nonsensical ideas, they read great ideas to shield the nonsensical. The goal is not enlightenment, but using enlightenment to darken the already darkened status quo. If brave people strive to channel their thoughts on an every-day basis and get over them in a infinite dialectical process, these people strive to dive in darkness, 100 meters, 1000 meters, 1000 kilometers, until, one day, their mind decays (they only have one mind) in the Absence of the Sun. Instead of emerging and rising from their self-incurred immaturity,* as Kant has it, they are thirsty for more immaturity and they are eager to justify it! Kant says Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!.* Dont read Kant and tell me you are yourself letting Kant do the thinking. Kant believed in progress, and was sane enough not to think of himself or his society as the centre of the world. Footnote: An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? IMMANUEL KANT
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 14:31:12 +0000
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