Food for Thought

I’m not sure who needs to hear this but stop only listening/reading/talking to people you agree with. It is a lot easier to feel correct when you only seek the answers you are looking for. A one-dimensional approach is hardly ever the best option no matter how strong that dimension is. The answer usually lies in the overlapping area of the best arguments from both sides. That, or it is highlighted in the shortcomings of the best arguments. I refer back to the complexity of existence. Are you really going to place your trust on a single side? A single ideology? Does that make sense to you? Even if so, how would you know the other side is wrong without completely exploring it? Don’t confuse exploration with blind acceptance. 

Someone once said it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. If I see you reading the Communist Manifesto, I am not going to assume you are a communist just like if I see you eating a salad I am not going to assume you are a vegetarian. How would your health be if you only ate the same thing every meal? Just like eating a variety of foods is good for your health, so is reading a variety of influential ideologies and events. You need to understand the foundations of society in order to help it. So yes, read the Communist Manifesto, read the Bible, read the Quran, the Constitution, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. All things that have made us, us. We are all just the unconscious derivative of a dead prophet or philosopher. Seek to understand. Not for the sake of settling ideas, but for bettering them.