July 9, 2005
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Emulation.
Most people live lives of emulation. Role models. Following rules.
Accepting social norms. This is how people survive and lead
normal healthy productive lives. It is natural.And even if it weren’t some would argue that a life of emulation is the
‘correct’ life. You should, as a human being, accept that you are not,
almost certainly perfectly wise. You won’t always be able to figure out
or know the right thing to do or say or the right way to act in tough
situations. Since your mind is limited in ultimate potential, some
argue that the best way to lead your life is to find the best person
you can find and emulate them. Try to be as good as they and in so
doing your reason will improve and you’ll more often do better acts
than you would otherwise have done absent of that influence.
Eventually doing the good that the wiser person can conceive of will in
fact make you wiser and have more potential to know the right things
than you otherwise would. You may never even come close to reaching the
wisdom of your role model but even so you’ll still be the best being
that you are capable of being and that in turn will lead to you being
as happy as you can possible be. Or so the argument goes.In the absence of such a role model, such thinkers will argue your next
best bet is to follow the prevailing wisdom of society, rules of law,
and tradition. For example, say you can’t figure out why you’ve
been told all your life to do something some way. You don’t see it as a
bad thing but you also don’t see anything particularly better or worse
about doing something else. Yet say everyone you meet always does this
thing without question. If you confront them on the matter they speak
arguments about why that action is better. Arguments that have been
past down from generation to generation. Even if they speak them by
rote and you realize there is no real understanding beneathe the words,
these thinkers will argue that you should still do this thing. You
should trust that society is organized for the most part on principles
of reason and logic. You should presume that people have made choices
with their best interests at heart. You should presume that, in all
cases where you do not perceive of a reason why something that is
expected and normal is wrong, that it is in fact probably not wrong and
probably a wise behavior that will inevitably benefit you. At the very
least you will benefit from the advantage of fitting in and not
standing out….Don’t get me wrong. There is much that I like about this way of
thinking. It certainly makes a great many things easier. What’s more
it’s so intuitive and feels so natural for most people that it
never occurs to them that they could do otherwise. You do what your
parents taught you, you follow the laws, and if you find someone you
respect and honor, why not do as they do? Why not thrive to be as good
as they? If there are role models, people of obvious honor and
integrity and basic moral goodness, how could you wrong by doing as
they do?What’s more how could anyone not appreciate a philosophy so firmly
grounded in confidence in your fellow human beings? At the heart of
this logic is the simple idea that most people, most of the time,
strive for the good and succeed in realizing it more often than not.
The idea that over the course of human history the combined wisdom of
all the inhabitants of soicety has forged for the most part principles
of morality and respect that are worthy of emulation. Sure there will
be missteps. Sure sometimes laws and social principles will be wrong.
Sometimes you’ll find a role model not quite so worthy of emulation as
you had originally perceived. But if you keep your mind open you
can find a decent path through the maze of uncertainty and contribute
to the greater body of knowledge of the right. You contribute to the
whole like a tiny piece of a larger puzzle and it is good. Satisfying.
It’s enough to know that you’ve done a little for something
greater than you. Why would you need aything else?But there’s another philosophy too. Another way to lead your life that
goes against all of the above. It requires a lot more arrogance and
it’s a lot harder but I for one could not imagine living
otherwise. The idea is simple. At the heart of it is the single
principle that your own reason is paramount. This doesn’t mean you
don’t accept other reason. It doesn’t mean you don’t respect the wisdom
built up through the centuries of the build up of human societies. No.
It simply means that you don’t accept any knowledge that is not YOUR
knowledge. Anything worth knowing you should be able to know. Your goal
is to act only in accordance with true knowledge and true
understanding. You simply refuse to ever act as an automoton. If
someone else is wiser than you then let them teach you and make you
wise enough to see the good in their choices. IF they cannot because
they are incapable of teaching or you are incapable of learning then
you will simply strive to find a better teacher and improve your
ability to learn. Emulation, however, is never your resort over reason.
And all things, no matter how grounded in tradition and expectations
and law and custom are subject to absolute skepticism. You only accept
actions that you know to be right. All other things are uncertain no
matter what anyone tells you.The goal of this philosophy is to forever improve your reasoning
ability. That is the ends of life, not to contribute to any greater
knowledge or good or to be a piece of a bigger picture. Your only goal
is to do better by BEING better and you believe that there are no
limits to how much you can become. It isn’t faith in humanity
that grounds this theory but faith in yourself first and
foremost.Neither way of thinking is wrong. There is wisdom in both. And which
way should you lead your life? That perhaps is something only the
wisest amongst us can know. Will you be one of them?
