Thinking for yourself

I really respect the type of knowledge that results from an intelligent person looking at the world around them, drawing from their reservoir of experiences and learning and coming to their own conclusions vs "going with the flow."

Culture comes with presuppositions, the languages we speak condition our thought. We slowly begin to be molded into a society, losing our ability to think for ourselves. We hardly know that there is anything missing. Until the electricity doesn't work, or our car breaks down, and we realize what boobs we've been for not having a flashlight, or a tire iron, cellphone, or 25 cents or whatever.

That's why I respect the hard-fought knowledge of folks like Howard Ruff. He has a new updated version of his classic from the 70s - How to Survive and Prosper in the Coming Bad Years. Folks like Ruff will prosper - because they do their own analysis. If you base your decisions off of CNBC you're screwed - you are the "Sheeple."

Same thing applies to any subject. The modern, cognitive-behavioral psychologies treat people like stimulus-response animals. Very pragmatic, but a poor excuse for a philosophy of man. Concepts like "empathy" are virtual trash to me, instead I prefer the insights of Heidegger and Medard Boss. Once again, we are not ghosts in the machine of a body. We do not need science to tell us that we communicate with others, that we use empathy.