Cogito Ergo Sum ("I Think, Therefore I Am," Descartes)

What is the rationale for this blog?  The blog presents reflective and analytical articles by Old Gadfly about a world that is becoming increasingly absurd and ripe for catastrophic unintended consequences. 

We inherited libraries and artifacts of great wisdom and methods for scientific inquiry.  We enjoy the conveniences stemming from technology.  Yet, we seem to be losing a collective capacity to reason--to think clearly, to discern the finer qualities of distinction among differences. 

In his 1944 book, The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek warned against the pathologies of political correctness, we currently witness and experience, in his chapter, “The End of Truth.”  Hayek observed that in societies sliding toward, or completely overcome by, totalitarianism, it is not sufficient for citizens to acknowledge (i.e., to tolerate without affirmation or advocacy) values prescribed by the political elite; to the contrary, members of society are expected to spontaneously and emotionally react to anything that challenges or threatens those values.  Have you ever encountered a situation when another person gets angry about something you said?  It happens a lot nowadays.

I realize that many potential readers may be incapable of comprehending the reflection and analysis in these blog entries.  Most of these people are what I call Copernican drones, and some are the product of a public school educational system that spends more time prescribing what to think instead of how to think.   These Copernican drones lack the functional capacity to pollinate the world with enduring ideas based on their own creative thinking or critical analysis.  Nicolaus Copernicus only published one book in his lifetime—On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres--and it sparked a scientific revolution.  In the introduction to his book, there is a discussion about Copernicus’s reluctance to officially publish his analysis and theory of the solar system.  He knew that it would receive harsh criticism--not from the few who would take the time to digest his work first hand, but from the “drones among bees” who claim to be experts but only repeat what other drones such as themselves have written in newspapers and magazines (in other words, sound bites such as those we hear on the nightly news, or read in newspapers or magazines like the modern era’s Newsweek). 

Even our academics seem to be losing a capacity for lucidity and depth of reasoning.  Am I incorrect in assuming that academia should be that one sector in our society where knowledge is advanced through reasoning (i.e., spatial reasoning, conscious thought, and language) that takes place in the neocortex of our brains?  Yet, this “neocortex” function of academia is subordinate to a political orientation that derives from what Paul MacLean (in his book, The Triune Brain in Evolution) calls the “paleomammalian complex” portion of our brains where the functions of long-term memory, emotion, and motivation take place.  By the way, this is where political framing originates and resonates.  Frankly, today’s hubristic scholarship is devolving to mere flotsam, drifting on the surface of an immense ocean of potential knowledge.  To cite just one example, read the work of George Lakoff, whose publications represent mostly old wine in new bottles.  The wine in Lakoff’s case is normative—it prescribes a world the way he (and those who subscribe to the same politically correct values) thinks it should be.  Lakoff even claims, in his book Thinking Points:  A Guide for Progressive Framing, that it is the frame that matters—if facts fit, great; if not, then the facts do not matter.  Scholars such as this do not discover the truth; they create it.  You’ll read more about this type of emotionally-grounded thinking in future blog entries.

The blog approaches topics from a gadfly perspective.  Socrates was known by two metaphors:  a gadfly and a midwife.  As a gadfly, Socrates challenged many “truths” of the day that were based on assumptions about reality.  Many assumptions can be myth or fact—true or false.  In today’s political narratives, the frame is more important than actual fact.  This may explain why a prominent national politician can feel safe in encouraging the voting public “to pass it [Obamacare] so you can know what’s in it.” 

Socrates also saw his role as an educator to be similar to the role of a midwife--one who facilitates the birth of grand and noble ideas (that can pollinate the world).  Notice, Socrates did not teach others what to think.  He shaped their ability to think for themselves. 

The blog’s primary objective is to challenge many of today’s narratives, advanced by the political elite (mostly politicians, journalists, and artists from Hollywood who believe life should imitate art).  If, in the process of presenting the reflections and analysis, readers find alternative ways of seeing things through a less distorted lens than the prevailing narrative, then this will be a nice objective as well.  New understandings can liberate us from the chains of our illusions, described so eloquently in the cave allegory in Plato’s The Republic.  Unfortunately, too many of our citizens are complacently content to remain chained to illusions  because they may be reinforced by normative delusions of reality.  This observation includes those who are afraid to test assumptions.  We know who they are.  Some reveal this form of bondage when they say: “let’s agree to disagree.”

Most of the reflection and analysis contained in this blog are based on material in a manuscript (currently being written) entitled, Reflections on the Contest in America.  This blog was created to connect with minds that have the capacity to reason before November 2012.  We live in a perilous time.  If a majority of the self-determining citizens of America do not stem the current drift of our Nation, we will discover the real consequences of our failure as cautioned by Hayek in The Road to Serfdom and documented by Hannah Arendt in her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism.   

Most of the reflections and analysis in future entries to this blog will be presented in the form of a conversation.  Meet our conversationalists:  IM (a fictitious inquiring mind) and Old Gadfly (me).  Old Gadfly encourages your inputs to the conversation.