Think the problem through with the best data at hand, reach a tentative conclusion, but keep your mind open to allow for new evidence. Know the weak points of your argument and attempt to break your own position. Be prepared to change your mind. Intellectual honesty is a difficult but worthwhile endeavor.
I've long thought that beliefs were dangerous creatures; rigid shortcut solutions to difficult problems, devoid of necessary questioning. Ideas were the superior species; adaptable, unsentimental, based on the best information at hand, logic, and maybe a little instinct.
Having turned 25 just 10 minutes ago, I find myself in the unaccustomed position of wondering if there are things I'd be unable to change my mind about, regardless of the evidence in front of me.
Most of our ideas have inertia, regardless of intellectual discipline. Postions that change with the breeze haven't been thought through -- a considered idea needs a certain force of contradictory evidence to be slowed, stopped, reversed.
I grew up on Long Island and lived in NYC for most of my life, and as such, have had a fairly indoctrinated set of ideas regarding gun control. My knee-jerk reaction to the question was to think that anyone who actually wanted to purchase a gun was a little off-kilter, and not to be trusted. It didn't help that my cousin was shot in the head in a domestic gun accident (child playing with father's gun, goes off, hits my cousin in the next room). Thankfully (and amazingly), my cousin recovered fully, but the incident seemed to crystallize the idea that the general public could not be trusted with guns.
After reading The Conspiracy of V and The Big Man for the past year or so, I can feel my personal inertia on this issue lessening considerably. I actually have plans to go to a local gun range just to see what all the fuss is about.
To be perfectly honest, having a long-held idea slowly erode makes me nervous. If they make me a Republican, I'm going to be pissed.
I can only imagine the level of nervousness involved in having the inertia of a belief slow down and eventually stop.
Steady on.
I've long thought that beliefs were dangerous creatures; rigid shortcut solutions to difficult problems, devoid of necessary questioning. Ideas were the superior species; adaptable, unsentimental, based on the best information at hand, logic, and maybe a little instinct.
Having turned 25 just 10 minutes ago, I find myself in the unaccustomed position of wondering if there are things I'd be unable to change my mind about, regardless of the evidence in front of me.
Most of our ideas have inertia, regardless of intellectual discipline. Postions that change with the breeze haven't been thought through -- a considered idea needs a certain force of contradictory evidence to be slowed, stopped, reversed.
I grew up on Long Island and lived in NYC for most of my life, and as such, have had a fairly indoctrinated set of ideas regarding gun control. My knee-jerk reaction to the question was to think that anyone who actually wanted to purchase a gun was a little off-kilter, and not to be trusted. It didn't help that my cousin was shot in the head in a domestic gun accident (child playing with father's gun, goes off, hits my cousin in the next room). Thankfully (and amazingly), my cousin recovered fully, but the incident seemed to crystallize the idea that the general public could not be trusted with guns.
After reading The Conspiracy of V and The Big Man for the past year or so, I can feel my personal inertia on this issue lessening considerably. I actually have plans to go to a local gun range just to see what all the fuss is about.
To be perfectly honest, having a long-held idea slowly erode makes me nervous. If they make me a Republican, I'm going to be pissed.
I can only imagine the level of nervousness involved in having the inertia of a belief slow down and eventually stop.
Steady on.
posted by MK2 at
1:03 AM
