Freethinkers Must Be Free Spirits, In My Opinion
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Are the words “free-thinker” and “free spirit” synonymous? I think they are. I came to this conclusion after 40 years of watching people come and go in my city’s free-thought community. Two people in particular came across as free-thinkers at first, but after getting to know them well I saw that they were anything but free-thinkers. This has been a valuable lesson in my life and I’d like to share it.
Sammy grew up in a Pentecostal family. As he described it, his father felt it was a religious duty to dominate the family, and he did so rather cruelly at times. Sammy had an IQ over 130 and a bookish nature, so upon reaching adulthood Sammy was “outta there” figuratively speaking. Sammy became an atheist. Sammy developed an interest in evolution and the “sociobiolgy” of Harvard’s Edward O. Wilson. Once, he flew across the USA to attend an “American Atheist” convention. Locally, he attended the meetings of our free-thought group, and hung out with us freethinkers. We enjoyed his company.
Something happened after a few years. Sammy stopped attending the meetings and stopped associating with us heretics. A time or two, I heard Sammy speak of free-thinkers with disdain. I was taken aback! I realized that while Sammy had rejected his father’s Creationism, he had NEVER rejected the value his father put on obedience. To Sammy, we were too dim to realize that organized religion had evolved for a reason, and to oppose it so much was a character flaw.
Sammy remained an atheist but he went his way. He was a Baby Boomer who never much cared for rock ‘n roll music or blue jeans. I wish I had kept in touch with him for one reason: he was an analytical thinker and was the prefect person to discuss a wide array of things with. However, Sammy was a nerd, and he’d tell you so. He didn’t have much affinity for other people. He didn’t engage in many pro-social behaviors. But, he was a sincere person. My next example was anything but sincere.
Glenn had the same bachelor’s degree that Sammy had. Both were atheists with an interest in science. But, otherwise, they were night and day. Whereas Sammy was a nerd, Glenn had the superficial charm found in “covert narcissists”. I can’t assert that Glenn met the diagnostic criteria for “narcissist” but I do believe he had quite a few narcissistic traits. Still, Glenn liked being around other people and did pro-social things such as personal favors, and volunteer work. He got up at the podium and spoke. He publicly debated a preacher on the topic of evolution.
Overall, Glenn was cock-sure of himself. Think of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk and you have Glenn’s temperament. He could brag without making it sound like bragging, and on occasion he appeared to lack a healthy level of empathy for other people. Worst of all, Glenn often resorted to manipulation. Perhaps most importantly of all, Glenn saw the world in black & white, which is an odd thing for a “freethinker” to do. At a gathering we all went to in another city, one guy remarked of Glenn’s economic beliefs, “Ideology is for idiots.”Sam Vankin is an expert on narcissism, and when I heard him describe how narcissists and psychopaths hijack social movements my mind shouted to me, “That’s a bit like Glenn!” Narcissists love those podiums that are at every meeting. They like to take a leadership role. They gain a circle of friends. It pleases their ego.
One conclusion I came to was that a person can have too much ego to be a freethinker. One needs to be okay with doubt, and ego interferes with that. One needs the ability to think introspectively, and narcissists cannot do much of that.
When Occupy Wall Street was a thing, I told Glenn of something I had read and his response was revealing. In California, some longshoremen were refusing to unload shipping containers, as a way of expressing solidarity with the Occupy movement. Immediately, Glenn remarked that if businessmen started to lose a lot of money, a hit man might be employed to put an end to those Occupy leaders responsible. Glenn did not make the remark in a matter-of-fact way. My feeling was that Glenn felt that such a murder could be justified. Does that sound like a freethinker to you?
There has to be more to being a freethinker than being an atheist and liking science.
Does a freethinker dismiss Noam Chomsky’s book “Manufacturing Consent” as criticism of business and probably not worth a read? Glenn seemed to. Glenn always told us that he was “socially liberal and fiscally conservative”, but merely advocating legal marijuana, gay marriage and abortion does not a liberal make.
When you attend gatherings of freethinkers, ask yourself which persons are also free spirits.
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This topic was modified 6 days, 8 hours ago by
loganharris.
Scientists and mathematicians are trained to follow evidence, yes. But that does not automatically make them the free-est thinkers. In fact, their training often pulls in the opposite direction. Most working scientists spend their careers inside an accepted framework, not questioning it. Richard Feynman was rare not because he was smart, but because he refused to protect ideas from criticism, especially his own. Most scientists are not Feynman. Science is the best tool we have for correcting wrong ideas but scientist are human and have biased opinions and can be tribal in their own way. Thomas Kuhn (paradigm shifts) was correct when he said “normal science is mostly puzzle-solving within dogma”.
The freest thinkers are not defined by their profession. They’re defined by their behavior. IMO there are certain traits that makest the freest. In no particular order;
A freethinker must be willing to abandon cherished ideas and any long held beliefs. They must be comfortable with uncertainty and have no problem saying ” I do not know”. Feynman (again) “I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.” That sounds poetic but it is a ruthless approach to take to all epistemic methodology. (You can’t handle the truth!) Admitting ignorance is honest and having an unanswered question means you are still keeping reality in play, rather than living in or with some ideological delusion. Wrong answers are worse than ignorance because they block correction. This way ignorance is temporary but bullshit just calcifies the mind.
There is also what I call the “Shoemaker Fallacy” where scientists will veer into other domains and claim expertise there too.
Keep examining your assumptions.
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This reply was modified 5 days, 4 hours ago by
Reg the Fronkey Farmer. Reason: fix some typos
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This topic was modified 6 days, 8 hours ago by
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