What does it mean to be an educated person?
I suppose if you asked twenty people the question you would in all likelihood receive twenty different answers.
I think one thing we can say with certainty is that it is not the memorization of facts. An encyclopedia is not a treatise.
People who have memorized many facts make great trivial pursuit contestants, but not critical thinkers or problem solvers.
"Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten."
B. F. Skinner
Deception is almost always something to be avoided.
There is no worse deception a person can engage in than that of self-deception.
To do so almost certainly ensures that one's life will be full of trouble and disappointment.
" This above all- to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Polonius (From Hamlet)
"The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal."
R. D. Laing
As I have maintained for some time, nothing troubles me less than being out of step with the herd.
"Never associate with idiots on their own level, because, being an intelligent man, you’ll try to deal with them on their level – and on their level they’ll beat you every time." ~ Jean Cocteau
I don't suppose I'm the first person to have frustrated himself by attempting to reason with idiotic or stupid people.
It's like they say about attempting to teach a pig to dance; it never works and only irritates the pig.
I wrote a book entitled 'Why We Fail'.
You can find it here: theotherdavidallen.com
I have maintained for a very long time that people fail to achieve their goals for one of four reasons, leaving out elements beyond their control.
1. They really didn’t want it that bad after all.
2. They didn’t think they deserved it.
3. They weren’t willing to do what was required to attain it.
4. Or, they didn’t break the thing down into small bite-sized pieces.
I used a word in my previous post which I consider both important, and frequently misunderstood.
The word is disinterested; People often confuse it with uninterested.
Actually, uninterested is the opposite of its root, interested.
Disinterested instead means dispassionate, unbiased, or neutral.
This is precisely why I used it when discussing objectivity.
One of the most difficult thing for us mortals to do is to maintain objectivity regarding issues we consider important, and especially if they are likely to affect us significantly.
It would be impossible to offer anything approaching an accurate estimate of the number of people capable of maintaining their objectivity in such situations.
This poses one of the greatest challenges we face in communicating and cooperating with other people, and especially those holding differing opinions than our...
The simplest, and most productive way to view problems, is as obstacles interfering with our pursuit of something we value.
They are roadblocks along life's accomplishment highway.
I go into this at great length in my soon to be released book entitled 'How to Solve All Your Problems' subtitled 'Or at Least Come to Terms with Them'.
In the book I explain what constitutes a problem, how problems promote our growth, what all problems have in common, and then I offer a blueprint with general...
"The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."
Eric Hoffer
Picture this. A new CEO is now at the helm of a major company and sends an email to all company employees requesting that they describe precisely their function at the company, what they are most proud of having accomplished there, and any suggestions they have for improving the company. And then, the employees not only refuse to comply, but instead, backed by their union, attempt to portray the request as some sort of...
It has been said that all success is based upon experience and that experience is based upon failure.
I believe we only learn from our mistakes when we understand why they were mistakes.
It is important for individuals as well as societies to comprehend the limitations of their capabilities if they are to avoid engaging in behavior which results in unintentional but completely predictable negative outcomes.
The Socialist FDR in a famous speech claimed that we Americans have four freedoms.
Rights are of essentially two types. Positive and negative.
Positive right claims are that we are entitled to something specific. Things like access to healthcare, a decent wage, affordable housing, respect etc.
Negative rights on the other hand, are our rights to be left alone and unharmed in our pursuits.
Negative rights can be rationally and morally supported while positive rights cannot.
Many things which may indeed be desirable are not rights. They are simply desirables.
Many of our...
The fact that most people are woefully ignorant of how political systems actually work is completely unremarkable in this day and age. A perfect example is the absolutely misguided belief that democracy can protect a people from tyranny.
Hello? Have you been living under a rock or on drugs?
Frankly, I cannot think of any other justification for such blatant blindness regarding what has been going on for a very long time in this country.
I know the boiling frog bit is a myth but the myth is...
It has become apparent in the west that important decisions are no longer left to the people at large or their elected officials.
Instead, unelected judges inclined to support the party that appointed them are increasingly flexing their judicial muscles to thwart the will of the people.
This is a very serious solution, and one for which I have no foolproof solution.
What is needed is a serious debate on the topic with the goal being to find a workable, if not perfect solution to minimize the...
The latest addition to the left's censorship arsenal is the term 'hate speech'. It is the twin sister of the term 'hate crime'.
Both terms are not only useless and unnecessary but provide an opportunity for one group to target members of an opposing group selectively.
The reason this is the case is because there is no objective and universally accepted definition for the term 'hate', let alone 'hate speech' or 'hate crime'.
As in so many such cases the whole thing turns on who gets to determine...
Some terms simply defy definition and thus can be twisted like a wax nose to mean whatever the twister so desires.
No concept probably illustrates this better than that of the 'General Welfare'. What in the world can such a concept mean? I don't think I can construe a more vacuous term than that.
There can be no such thing as a 'General Welfare' since only tradeoffs are available to men, and what is in the welfare of one will in all likelihood not be in the welfare of another.
There has been a good deal of discussion regarding the proposed Universal Basic Income (UBI). Much of these discussions have revolved around the moral and ethical reasoning in support of a UBI. Personally I don't think any moral or ethical argument for the right to a Universal Basic Income can hold water anymore than moral or ethical arguments for the right to health care do.
This leaves us with only the pragmatic or utilitarian arguments.
Several questions strike me as needing answers in...
The primary tenant of 'Classical liberalism' as opposed to the Continental (US) version which has turned the original on its head, is that under a universal rule of law intended to protect the private recognizable property of individuals, a spontaneous societal order would emerge which could not have been produced by planning and planners.
Order can come about in one of two ways. It can either be a planned or an unplanned order.
An example of a planned order might be the laying out of a street system in a new development.
An example of an unplanned or spontaneous order might be language.
The more complex the order, the more it is likely to be the result of an unplanned spontaneity. Other examples being money, markets and law.