From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Wed Jul 23 2003 - 05:27:35 MDT
Paul Grant writes:
[Brett]
> >It seems a great pity that amongst the first things
> > intelligent people often seem to get good at is
> > sarcasm
>
> It is a useful ability whether u admit it or not.
I definately *do* admit that it is a useful ability. I think
I am a perhaps a bit like Harvey in that I have an emotional
predispisiton towards people playing nice. I see it as
efficient as well as pleasant. But given that people don't
always play nice I am certainly willing to fall back on
the alternatives.
Some folks, Voltaire comes to mind, perhaps Thomas
Huxley (Darwins Bulldog) can use sarcasm very effectively
in public forums. I would aspire to have such skills in
a political repertoire and hope to have to use them very
infrequently.
I'm a rationalist humanist. I like to cooperate. But I am
also a reasonable bush lawyer and former state karate
champion I don't need to learn that sometimes the
opportunity to play nice is taken off the table by others.
Then, if truth be told I probably find the honesty and
directness of a real knock down take no prisoners fight
preferable to the namby pamby half hearted exchanges
of petty spites. I don't *like* the *ambiguity* of the middle
ground of minor petttiness. I like it to be *clear* whether
cooperation or competition is the optimal mode as then
*I* can commit more fully to either and not waste my
time.
>
> >... and the great fear that stops a lesser mind from
> becoming a greater mind is the fear of looking stupid.
>
> Oh I'd agree with that statement insofar as it is a
> limiting factor for attempting new directions;
Hell, more than that its a limiting factor in learning.
Most of us live lives surrounded by sources of good
information and people who will as happily help us
and return one good turn for another as not. Once
one builds up some credibility and a stock of skills
contacts and a knowledge base to trade even the
trade gets to be informal and people with win/win
attitudes to mutual empowerment tend to seek
each other out.
> >The fear of *looking* stupid might very well
> > cost people their lives in coming decades.
> > Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing.
> > We all start ignorant.
>
> I'd like to think we all remain ignorant [given the
> sheer volume of information and possibilities]; some
> of us just manage to migrate to (slightly) lesser degrees
> of ignorance.
I see in this what I consider to be a socrates fallacy, ie,
the notion that as nothing can really be known the
person who thinks they know nothing is actually wisest.
As I said, I think its a falacy. We all come into the
world as sensing agents with a few subjective drives
that have no meaning in themselves but rather set down
the boundaries of the types of creatures we can be.
We are social to an extent, (it is not sensible or useful
or healthy for us to personally doubt this), we are
reasonable to an extent ( again let socrates or the
neo-socratics take a shot at that as a fallacy). Once
we know we are social and we are ration we know
some things that are useful to us, to our happiness
and our development. We learn that we have freedoms
but that we remain free within bounds. We cannot
violate the contingent nature of the universe.
My point, ignorance is a natural starting postion and
it is not something to be *ashamed* of, but nor is it
in itself a positive virtue. Socrates was wrong. The
wisest man is not the man who knows he knows
nothing. Imo :-) A wiser man knows that he is
rational and social and that he will find health and
satisfaction and good relations at least potentially
with other men (or women) if he proceeds on
the basis of these truths that present themselves
to him on a level even more fundamental than
scientific truths.
Regards,
Brett
things
>
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