The Danger of Irrationality

I’ve previously written about the value of irrationality as with the value of rationality, so I find it time to apply this.

Love is irrational as they say, and I believe it is true. Love is not something one chooses or decides to feel, it is not a thought or conclusion you can reach. No amount of logic, no matter how powerful or watertight it is, can give the slightest sway to it. Love does not play by the rules. It just is(even if you can’t tell).*

It is one example, probably the most glaring, of the beauty of irrationality. It is an example of humanity in that it does not make sense.

Yet, no matter how strongly, or just how, it manages to exist, the irrational feeling does not change the truth. There is a world outside of ourselves. There are actual consequences. If nothing else there is a lion which bites you, and blood, and pain, and death. Whether or not you choose the rational decision, the rational outcome will occur. Love cannot make bread from dirt. Love cannot cure HIV. Love can make you happy, but that’s close to all it can do.**

It is not always easy to choose between your feelings and your thoughts. You can very well cognitively know what is right while simultaneously knowing the opposite on some level. Love may be(or may always be) so deep that it defines truth. The truth is your love, and your logical thoughts and conclusions are just perceptions from the world around. Love, however, is perceived not as a perception of the external world, but it is the external world. Love is. Love it what is out there beyond all our senses, and when our senses deny what we feel/know to be true it is irrational to choose them. It becomes irrational to choose the rational option.

It is a hard decision to make. It is harder still because people are not a switch which can be turned on or off. They must be pushed away, they must be hidden from sight so as to hide the truth, the love, that may forever remain within. However, to do what “has to be done” this must be done.

Though it is never easy, the decision is sometimes clear. For example when someone cheats, one often knows, they must break up with them. It is a plain test, if A then B. Yet sadly, this is not always the case. Sometimes A + F + G + E also equals B, even though no individual cause in enough.

Here is is immeasurably harder to do the wrong thing… the thing you cognitively know you must. Letters do not add. An A plus an E is nothing other than an A plus an E.

It is not an enviable position to see these letters before you. They all point in the same direction, but only you can decide what they add up to. And when they add up to B, there are only two options. Do B, or get rid of some letters.

Either you must go against the love you know in your heart to be true, you remove the letters, or you walk knowingly into the fire you’ve concluded awaits you.

*Of course it can be in different magnitudes. Maybe it’s dimensional.

** And happiness can in turn increase the odds of you staying with your partner, and increase your children’s survival rate, which can in turn increase the likelihood of the population’s irrational attraction to other individuals.

Life Through Wide-Angle Glasses

In class we talked about an experiment where participants were given cameras to take pictures of a set of locations, and since the pictures are still different though of the same place, there is other information which the picture taker recalls as opposed to those which they didn’t take. This leads to a bigger reaction for the picture t hey did take verses the one they did not.

Well, in thinking tonight I realized how very true this really is. Of one occurrence or object there are many vantage points. There are numerous views and each person can see it differently. However, even within the same exact position, there are many perspectives. From the focus, to the film-type, to the exposure, blur, zoom.

The internal settings, the things which have happened to the camera prior to the shutter-button being pressed can make two pictures more dis-similar than those from greatly different locations.

This is of course, an analogy for the human mind. We see things differently, and our impressions are not only determined by where we are when it occurs and what we see, but by how we see it. As we over or underexpose our recordings we miss details, we wash away the the bad or fail to see the good.

But as HDR photography demonstrates, these otherwise “poorly” exposed photos can show what’s hidden within irrationally bright, and creeping dark corners of a bi-polar scene.

What should we do? Well, if we are creatures searching for the truth outside of ourselves the we should take all the information we have into account. We should take several shots. We should get the big picture, look into the details, investigate the dark corners, and investigate the blinding brights. No impression is the hand which caused it. We do not have direct access to the truth.

The birth of rationality

It is my recent realization that we are upon the cusp of a great shift in the views of the American people. I do not mean the views as a whole, but in the way they tend to distribute between and amongst the extremes of ideals.

To explain, I ask that you image the world views of Americans from 1865. The Civil War has ended, Lincoln shot, trains crisscross the nation and a level of humility is had by most. We are the most advanced creatures, but are just the same creatures. We ride on the backs of horses, and government is is just that. It is a word expanding upon the root to govern, and the laws of the nation are an act, established, yet in progress. The question of basic civil rights is clearly in view, no matter how individuals feel about them, or the role of their government.

But just the same, look at America over the 1900s. Look at those who were born in 1890, those who were born in 1940, the lives of Americans from 1890 all the way through 1980. The world was a drastically different place, while change as always been present in life and death, never so has it been so extreme, so irrational. The technological developments alone are mind numbing, and not just metaphorically so.

In fact, my central argument here is that these changes, which rocked the minds of American people, ultimately disturbed their world-views.

Firstly, the American experience has always been accompanied with a healthy suspicion of government officials, actions and roles. However, as the depression came and lives were overnight thrown 50 years backward, a change happened: FDR was elected four times. What does it say for an individual to be elected four times? It demonstrates nearly unwavering trust in government? It shows a willingness of that government to utilize the public’s trust?

This trust went so far that it went full circle, instead of individuals becoming suspicion of government, the government became suspicious of the public. The public was accused of communism. Individuals forfeited their power over government.

Moreover, while common sense ruled the day and Vietnam turned the tides of unwavering trust into unwavering distrust, a new element arose; moral judgments. Accused Communists were not people who believed a system to be effective, but were traitors, they were morally corrupt, they were immoral. So too did the government become immoral when Nixon left office.

And through it all, government grew. It grew it size. It grew in cost. It grew in perceived stability to the point that by the 1990s it seemed immutable beyond the cyclical changing of hands between Republicans and Democrats.

Yet we know this is not so. While the destruction of American government would be a fool’s bet, its fundamental change should be of little doubt. These beliefs about the world which have developed from roughly 1890 to 1980 are irrational.

As life shows, irrational things occur. Things beyond our comprehension fall from the sky and alter our world. However, there are times where you must recognize an asteroid for the rarity it is and continue life without letting it alter your views on the world. It’s our short lifespan, which prevent a century’s long change from appearing in context, it prevents us from living as rational beings.

It is only in this generation where rationality will re-emerge. We know of unbelievable economic failure, we know of unbelievable economic gain. Yet more, we’ve felt moderate economic stress. We understand the irrational trust in government which prevailed for 30 years and the irrational distrust which encompassed the following 20.

But life goes on. People are born and people die. Don’t trust government but don’t distrust it. Just recognize it for what it is, people for who they are, and judge for yourself, not for or from others.

Freedom Means the Freedom to Fail.

When I was a child, I do not know how old, I recall I was playing on the beach. The situation has blurred over the years, yet still I recall it was the most terrible thing I have ever experienced, even today. I was playing with my toys and my sister, if I remember correctly, when without notice a wave swept in. The wave pushed my sister over, it knocked over my toys, spilling them everywhere and pulling them with it back into the ocean, and I reached for my toys, but it did not work. The arms of my mother swept me and my sister up. Yet, I watched them so slowly, yet slow quickly be pulled out to sea. As I cried for them, I begged my mother to let me get them. I begged her to get them herself. I begged her to at least try, even if it was impossible. I could not blame anyone for the actions of the sea. Yet, distraught with fear and the sight of my sister in the wave she would not do either of those things. She scolded me for going after the toys instead of my sister. She scolded me for making the wrong decision. This was about 17 years ago.

I still remember, though thankfully it is not so clear, how the feeling I felt was so distressing. It was the first time I had ever felt anything like it. It was a mixture of guilt, with a hint of shame, a touch of anger, and, mostly, a feeling I have never heard described. It was the first time that I realized; I had been prevented from acting. It was the first time I could not make a decision. I was completely and entirely unfree.

I knew it was the wrong decision, I realized that afterwards, but just the same, I was prevented from trying to save the toys. I was not allowed to make the wrong decisions.

The fact of the matter is, to be free; you must have the freedom to make the wrong decision.

I have argued before that Public Health Care is a bad policy. I have argued it is inefficient. I have argued it is harmful. However, the outcome of this and other debates aside, it makes no difference. Even supposing God were to speak directly which the whole of mankind and tell us what the just and moral option is, the decision is only one we can make for ourselves. It is as unjust for us to force others into the just path as it is for them to follow the unjust path.

If an individual’s decision does not harm others then it is theirs to make, regardless of whether it harms them.