I regularly go on about the necessity of forming your own opinions and making stands upon them. But while I’m quite certain about that, there’s another side to such things. We are complicated creatures, after all.
The more we express and defend our own opinions, the more we tend to get locked into them. And that part can be a problem, because none of us – not even the best of us – knows enough to claim that his or her opinions are beyond questioning. Continue reading “The Necessity of Being a Well-Rounded Person… and How to Pull It Off”
“Call me pisher” is a Yiddish phrase from my youth, and it was used to instruct me in a very important lesson. (Though I hardly realized it at the time.) And since Yiddish speakers were often not delicate persons, I’ll have to be a bit less than delicate today. 
The people who have kept the world from a slide into darkness and pulled it forward have nearly always been heretics of one form or another.
A free, post-scarcity world will not be prevented by archaic systems scratching and clawing to retain their domination. We will evolve freely, unburdened by an unfortunate past. This will happen, and today I’m going to tell you why. 
People frequently tell children “You can do anything you want.” This causes a lot of confusion, because in the real world, they can’t. And after their first clash with the aforesaid real world, the child is left wondering all sorts of unpleasant things: 
“The mark of an educated mind,” taught Aristotle, is “to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” And that’s what I’ll be asking of you today. Because as certain as I am that I’m substantially right on this, I’m also sure that its acceptance will take time. But I do want to plant its seeds as best I can. 
“Righteousness” is a seldom heard word in modern life, but the concept is still very much with us. In fact, political arguments all through the West focus on shows of righteousness.
The Bible has been loudly and publicly criticized for centuries now. At the same time, it’s most vocal defenders have been those who demand that it be treated as a mandatory oracle. As a result, the public has been given a binary choice:
A few people remember President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, where he warned Americans about the rise of a military-industrial complex… a warning that was stunningly accurate and almost fully ignored.
Everyone who has children, or even nieces and nephews, understands that you have to warn a child before punishing them. If not, you teach the child a rash of bad lessons, like these: