June 30, 2021
“Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor
are they means toward discovering them. Reason is our only way to grasp
reality. We are free to avoid the effort of thinking, to reject
thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of
the abyss we refuse to see.” ~Terry Goodkind
Everyone
talks a big game about being openminded and flexible in their thinking.
But when it comes down to it, how often do we avoid the effort of
thinking and simply rely on our faith to guide us? Probably more often
than most of us would care to admit.
Reason, thinking, taking
things into deep consideration, is a choice. Unfortunately, most of us
don’t choose reason. Most of us choose belief. This doesn’t only apply
to religion and dogma. This applies also to our blind faith in the
government, the state, in authority, and in the police. It also applies
to everyday living. Most of us believe rather than think.
The
problem with this is that it creates a society that ignorantly wants
someone else to do their thinking for them; even if they won’t, or
can’t, admit it to themselves. This inevitably leads to the abuse of
power. And because power tends to corrupt, those who we allow to do our
thinking for us will eventually abuse that power. That is, unless we are
willing to take our power back and do some thinking of our own.
Faith
at the expense of reason creates a blackhole, an abyss we refuse to
see. Willful ignorance is the refusal. The abyss is all around us. It’s
evident in government corruption and police brutality. It’s evident in
the extent religions must go to bludgeon a thinker into going along with
their irrational magical thinking.
A faith that by its very
beliefs rejects reason and embraces the irrational cannot long endure
without intimidation or force. In religion we see intimidation. In the
government we see force. In the police we see violence. The abyss we
refuse to see is the corruption caused by this intimidation and force,
which is reinforced by our own willful ignorance and cognitive
dissonance.
The primary war is inside us. Do we choose to think or
do we choose to believe? Do we choose reason or faith? Do we choose to
ask uncomfortable questions or to accept comfortable answers? The
frontline is within. And it is won or lost in proportion to how we each
deal with the clash between reason and wishful thinking.
Wishes
and whims can only muddy our reasoning if we refuse to think and instead
rely upon someone else to do our thinking for us. Whether that
“someone” is religion, the state, the government, the police, or some
other arbitrary authority.
Reason itself must be the only
sovereign lest we lose touch with reality. If we allow anything else to
rule over us, we inadvertently create an abyss where meaning itself goes
to die. And then anyone claiming authority can, and will, abuse its
power by taking advantage of our willingness to allow that authority to
do our thinking for us.
Whether it is a clash between truth and
faith or between justice and power, only the thinking, rationalizing
human individual can figure it out for themselves using logic and
reasoning. As soon as that individual gives up thinking for themselves,
they unwittingly give consent to tyranny.
Might
does not make right. It never has. That’s a myth. Might must make
right, or it becomes a tyrant. But, and here’s the trick, might will
never make right if it is not checked and balanced by rational people
who think for themselves.
When we avoid the effort of thinking,
when we reject reason for faith, we create an abyss. We create tyranny.
We create dogmatic trenches. We create brutal authority figures that
inevitably abuse their power at the expense of others. We create all of
these monstrosities, and then we refuse to see them for what they are.
We go blind. We become a slave to irrationality.
But there is
hope. We are all willing to be fierce in some cause. What makes the
cause honorable or not is its veracity and validity. Does it follow
reason? Does it follow health? Does it follow freedom? If not, then it
can neither be valid nor honorable.
Nietzsche once asked, “who
could overturn with reason what the mob has once believed without
reason?” The answer must be a rational individual fierce in some cause.
An individual who dares to use their own power of reasoning to discover a
healthy cause honorable enough to shine a light into the darkness of
the abyss that everyone refuses to see. For what the mob has once
believed without reason is the abyss we refuse to see.
So, how does the abyss we refuse to see become the abyss we can no longer ignore?
It
takes everyday people, individuals, you and me, who refuse to allow
anyone else to do our thinking for us. It takes regulating the Powers
That Be because it refuses to regulate itself. It takes questioning
authority and holding those with the power of judge, jury, and
executioner to a higher standard than those they are judging, jurying,
or executing—a standard so high that they can’t breathe. It takes having
Reason itself as our only sovereign.
Blind faith is old hat. It’s
outdated and untenable. Allowing some outside authority to do our
thinking for us is how we got into this mess in the first place: a
species that has the audacity to create and perpetuate a profoundly sick
society. A species that won’t even recognize it as a consequence of its
own unhealthy actions. It’s high time we acknowledged it. Such
acknowledgement begins with reason.
Reason despite blind faith is
the only road to truth. Reason despite authority is our only route to
justice. Reason despite wishes and whims and comfortable pie-in-the-sky
platitudes is our only path to discerning the nature of reality. Indeed.
Reason is our only salvation if we wish to be free.
The abyss we
refuse to see can only be seen when we choose to take it upon ourselves
to think and use reason despite our beliefs. Only then can we begin to
dig ourselves out of the abyss. Only then will the veil of power fall
away to reveal that the wizard was never anything more than a hack, a
fraud, or worse, a tyrant who used our ignorance for his own gain.
At
the end of the day, the choice is ours. Continue to allow our faith in
outdated institutions to destroy us, or use reason and question the
veracity and validity of those outdated institutions. Giving someone
else the power to choose for us will only perpetuate the profound
darkness of the abyss we refuse to see.
There are those who love
liberty, who strive for it, who live it, and who rise above injustice
through freedom and reason. Then there are those who are bent on
mindless stagnation and submission to a faith enforced by an arbitrary
black-and-white uniformity disguised as authority.
There are those
who long to transcend “the way things are” through their own effort and
creativity. Then there are those who want others to think for them and
are willing to live half-lived lives as the ultimate price (the abyss).
Choose to be the one who sees the abyss for what it is—a trap.
Gary Z McGee, Contributor
Waking Times
