I know what you're thinking: this post already reeks of the potential to put you to sleep faster than intravenous melatonin. I fully understand and empathize, since I'm actually falling asleep as I type the bloody thing; however, I'd really appreciate it if you put in the effort to slog through it. As well as offering my typically humble outlook on the world around us, I think this entry will give you a basis to more fully understand me as a writer, friend, and creepy-guy-who-hangs-around-at-your-house-all-the-time-for-no-apparent-reason (you know who you are).
You see, while I've always loved hearing other people's ideas, I've always struggled with how to handle them in my mind. There's just so damn many of them out there! Whether consciously or subconsciously, in the past I've usually felt the need to gather them, label them as good or bad, and stuff them into some cognitive filing cabinet. I'm sure that a big part of this desire can be attributed to the materialistic "quest for knowledge" that I seem to constantly be embarking on, hoping to eventually reach a destination of bliss, a paradise island of intellectual superiority in the middle of a vast sea of ambiguity. As I've mentioned before in my blogs, I constantly seem to foolishly convince myself that fulfillment can be found in academic proficiency, or the mastery of the scope of ideas.
However, I think that's only part of it. For although I may derive a certain amount of satisfaction from garnering as many different theories and concepts as I can (gathering quantity), I'm also interested in scrutinizing them (analyzing quality). I know I'm not the only one that has this obsession with categorizing ideas; indeed, whether you step into a university political science lecture, sit down in a busy coffee shop, or turn on "The View", you'll hear people identifying them as leftist or rightist, shallow or deep, stupid or profound. The inevitably different opinions people possess often embody themselves in arguments or debate, themselves types of interactions that have been around since time immemorial.
Why are we so intent of categorizing ideas as right or wrong? As I think about my own tendency to do so, I think it has to do with the security that comes with forming - and reaffirming - a certain worldview. The modernist philosophical tradition, which emerged out of the Enlightenment epoch that started in the 17th century, states that scientific proofs must be used to determine what is true and what isn't. In this time period - also sometimes referred to as the Age of Reason - it was increasingly thought that if something couldn't be proven as undoubtedly true, then it didn't constitute acceptable knowledge: that is, it would be considered a "bunk idea". This ultimately translates into an "all-or-nothing" mindset when it comes to "bases of knowledge", which could also be referred to as "collections of ideas". Only those ideas that can be rationally proven in a very explicit sense (from an individual's perspective) deserve admission into a base of knowledge. Worldviews - which are essentially consolidations of knowledge, or convictions - that are based on this staunchly empirical class of idea are probably attractive to people because they're very easy to define and identify with, and thus derive identity from. Unfortunately, they also hold alot of potential for conflict, and don't tend to leave any room for ideas that are controversial, or shrouded in ambiguity.
For the record: I think it is immensely important for individuals to form strong convictions (read: have explicitly categorized ideas) on certain issues. Although the idea of "objective truth" is indeed elusive, I think it does exist somewhere in the universe, with important bits of it periodically being revealed to us. Certain types of moral conduct is one aspect of it that I think we need to get a good handle on; for example, it's important that it's universally accepted that murdering someone is a very bad idea. However, if we accept too many of are ideas as being "absolutely certain", we risk immersing ourselves in stubbornness, which makes it very hard to relate to others around us. More importantly, when it becomes increasingly clear that certain ideas that we've historically clung to are clearly wrong - e.g. racial discrimination - it can be very hard to disconnect ourselves from them.
With these thoughts in mind, I've started to reconsider how I process different ideas. Whereas I may have been previously content to use a standard set of qualifiers to determine their legitimacy - whether it be empirical reason, feeling, or the Ten Commandments - I think I'm starting to learn that it's immature to judge them based on their face value, or their most salient characteristics. What if we trained our minds to realize that there's something good to be found in just about every idea (although in some cases very little - fascism comes to mind), instead of immediately throwing them onto our standardized "truth template" to make sure that all of the dots connect?
I have a proposition. All of you staunch atheists out there: what if, instead of writing off evangelical Christians as shallow wackos, you took the time to read the book of Matthew? And all of you evangelical Christians: instead of writing off postmodernism as "morally relativist" or "pluralist", why don't you actually dig into the culture a little - after all, it surrounds us! And instead of avoiding existentialism like a 19th century hymnal, why not try to swallow a bit of Kierkegaard? Instead of being totally put off, you might actually find yourself constructively challenged about your current mindset - who knows?
Honestly, I really have no idea if what I've said here makes any sense at all. Specifically, the paragraph in which I outline the historical emergence of modernism may be way off wack - it was closing in on 2AM when I finished it. Hopefully, despite the inevitable inconsistencies in this posting, I've provided some food for thought and meaningful discussion regarding how we treat those troublemaking little things we call ideas. As usual, commentary/scrutiny is welcome.
Cheers,
Tom
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