My Attitude Toward Philosophy
This new journey of mine has truly been interesting. Although I recently found myself getting sucked into it by accident, I’ve always been a “philosopher,” because I have always thought about the bigger picture since I was a kid. However, I was always too lazy to study it seriously.
In fact, in all my years, I’ve only read a handful of books, with the most influential being Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism, unlike other philosophies, is akin to a self-help system, teaching mental mastery rather than making claims about the world.
Another big influence on me was listening to this audio version of the Tao Te Ching on YouTube, and consuming an enormous amount of Alan Watts content via the endless number of motivational videos made to honor him. Clearly, Eastern philosophy has been more of an influence on me than Western philosophy. Indeed, I find Western philosophy to engage in too much thinking, to the point it’s overkill.
Of the few books I’ve read, I found them to be extremely boring, always forgetting the content, save a few main points. My memory has never been great, so that doesn’t help. I fully accept I will never be an intellectual who can regurgitate detailed information on the spot, and honestly, I never cared to be.
My thoughts on philosophy have changed overtime. At first, I wanted to learn everything and be engaged in it, but then I became disgusted with it. Yes, disgusted, by the arrogance of the people engaging in it, thinking they are smarter than others based on how much jargon they know. I see it all the time, especially on these YouTube debates.
These people engage in endless hours of studying, reading the thoughts of dead men before them, and then attack each other on forums, reminding everyone how much smarter they are than everyone else. But what do they really know? What is it that they have learned? Opinions!
What disgusts me the most is the arrogance I’ve seen from these types, which does not always manifest in their behavior toward their interlocutors, but in how certain they are of their beliefs, as if their beliefs were facts; and anyone who doesn’t know their beliefs in detail, or rejects them outright, are somehow less intelligent and wrong. What these geniuses fail to realize is that philosophy isn’t going to tell them much about the world—that is up to science—philosophy can only tell them about themselves and others, categorizing people based on how they think—that’s really all it is.
However, we still need philosophy because science cannot give us a single ought nor can it explain everything about the human experience. And let’s not forget that philosophy gave birth to science, which was its greatest accomplishment. But what has it done in the last 2000 years, especially as philosophers continue to waste their time chasing ghosts, like Absolute Truth?
And who are the smartest and brightest philosophers these days? Those who know the most jargon and can regurgitate the thoughts of thinkers before them. Yet, what truths do they know? I would argue they are worse off than the most ignorant person who knows less than they do, spared from the decades of learning the useless jargon and engaging in the endless attempts to obtain the impossible, Absolute Truth, although plenty will speak as if they have it.
What do I plan to bring to philosophy, now that life has brought me here? An attitude change. Am I going to hit the books hard so I can fit in with these types? No. Quite the contrary.
Instead of trying to fit in, I will embody the very model I created with my intuition: to be the unlearned, unscholarly type who will challenge these great thinkers, showing them they don’t really know what they are talking about, because what they are talking about amounts to nothing but mental masturbation.
Sounds arrogant, but am I wrong?
Think about this: Someone spends decades learning every argument for God, yet still doesn’t know nor could know if He exists. Another spends decades memorizing every argument against God, but can never disprove His existence. In both cases, what do these people have to show? Nothing.
Imagine if they had spent those years learning something else; something useful like engineering or computer science, which they could use to create new things in this world, rather than create more problems in their heads to seek the answers for.
And what answers? Unjustified assertions; dogmas, which apparently makes them all smarter than the plumber who can actually do something other than sound intelligent to the pompous, intellectual who loves to hear himself talk.
Maybe it is the barbarian in me; the veteran who that cannot stand when weak men pretend they are strong, hiding behind words. Maybe I am just tired of the babbling that makes philosophy so boring and unattractive to the masses, which causes them to be disinterested. Maybe it’s the philosophers who are thinking too much and giving back too little. Maybe it’s time that philosophy get brought down to earth, so we can actually use it rather than be amused by it.
Socrates once said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Well, I say, a life stuck in your head isn’t living.
What I have learned in the last few days about myself is that I’m a Pragmatist. Perhaps a militant one, tired of the nonstop gibberish coming from those who do nothing but talk about their ideas, appealing to unknowns, and daring to claim they have knowledge when they don’t.