Dear Friends,
It seems to me, I may not be able to convince a thirsty man to take a drink of water, but I can at least have water available for him… if he comes to his senses. Those who are controlled by their emotions, and we all are to a greater or lesser extent, are immune to logic and reason. We are reduced to the level of beasts. It is our reason that separates us from the animals but many would like to return Mankind to savages. Brutes are easily controlled by the whip and carrot. Draft animals can be yoked to do the bidding of someone who doesn’t have their best interests in mind. Men, self interested rightly understood, think for themselves and don’t submit so easily to the yoke. I can point this out over and over to the dehydrated, while holding out a glass of water, yet they steadfastly refuse a draft of the refreshing water of reason, for the glitter of popular opinion.
Confucius said people follow their leaders. He meant that we take our cues as to what is a good life from them. Today the elite, who display to us what our society holds to be good, are political and cultural. The political leaders write ever more intrusive laws, carving out loopholes, so they themselves are not subject to their own laws. Our cultural leaders are in the entertainment industry. They live the most self destructive and decadent lives possible. Both show the people that morality is old fashioned and egoism is hip. People follow their examples while our society slides into the abyss because of it.
It has been said our reason is the driver and our emotion is the elephant. The elephant has the power to get things done, but without the driver, it smashes instead of creates. The Elite in our society seek to eliminate the driver and subject all elephants to the yoke of the State. The individual rational driver becomes ever more superfluous while the State becomes ever more pervasive. The more uncontrolled elephants smash, the more the elite claim their onerous regulation is required, the more regulation enacted, the less need for rational drivers.
Che Guevara extolled youth’s ability to kill in the name of politics. He loved the fact that people who haven’t been civilized, can be so easily convinced, by emotion, to murder those that disagree with their leaders… like him and Fidel. Youthful people, who do not have the advantage of maturity, kill without remorse, blindly following whatever their emotion dictates. They disregard logic and blindly follow emotion. His ideology exploited youth’s ignorance and lack of maturity for his political ends.
You can always reliably tell when you are discussing something with a person who eschews logic in favor of emotion. They don’t respond to logical inquiries, they change the subject, their arguments are based in emotion, they ignore the point of an argument, in doing so loudly proclaiming their ignorance, they make ad homonym attacks, they claim the moral high ground while standing in a swamp, and in doing so, they prove their elephant has no driver… but is only following the fashion of the day. They are a boat adrift in a sea of emotion unable to think for themselves. Look at the teenager who seeks to be an individual by following the pack.
Those of us that use reason will always be at a disadvantage, when arguing against emotionally based statements, since most people today believe what they are told to believe… without burning a calorie in thought. Therefore they agree with the most preposterous ideas wholeheartedly. Absurdity piled upon absurdity forms the basis of their beliefs. That is how people can make such ludicrous claims, like gay marriage is about fairness, gun control is about safety and redistribution is about eliminating poverty, to name a few. These arguments are all illogical but have the coercive power of emotion.
Titus Livy told the Romans, unless they returned to reason and turned away from corruption, Rome would fall. He was called a fool, how could Rome fall, the republic had lasted nine hundred years. The people of Rome became more and more like beasts, and less and less like men, until the Roman empire collapsed of it’s own weight. Livy was rational and right and the people of Rome were emotional and wrong. They thirsted for water but sought the glitter of gold instead. As we all know, rationally, the thirst for gold can never be slaked but the thirst for water can be met with but a sip. So, here is a glass of water, turn away at your own peril… or do you thirst for gold instead of water?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
