“My personal feeling is that citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self-defence to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for more meaningful democracy.
“I’m helping people develop intellectual self-defence… I don’t mean go to school, because you’re not going to get it there… It means that you have to develop an independent mind, and work on it. That’s extremely hard to do alone…” –American philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky [source]
So how does one develop true intellectual independence? How might you cultivate a critical mind that can resist the frontal lobe-frying, soul-smashing power of the propaganda machine?
Here are 10 rules for intellectual self-defence, gleaned from two of the greatest critical thinkers of the modern era: Noam Chomsky and 20th century mathematician and social reformist Bertrand Russell (from his “A Liberal Decalogue“).
-
Be wary of certainty and revisit old assumptions. However, once you know something with absolute, inviolable certainty, it must become non-negotiable. Don’t let anyone or anything rewrite the truth.
-
Be honest to a fault, even when the truth is inconvenient. Trying to remember the intricate details of a lie is far more inconvenient.
-
Resist homogeneity and groupthink. Embrace failure. Being eccentric often means being ahead of the curve. Most of the mainstream ideas of today were the marginalized failures of 20 years ago.
-
Never discourage pondering or philosophical musing.
-
Don’t be fooled: Ignorance never was happiness, neither was wickedness.
-
“Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.” This rule from Bertrand Russell seems especially relevant in the age of branding and Big Brother.
-
Find pleasure in intelligent engagement and dissent than in passive agreement.
-
Don’t follow authority without first employing critical thought. Beware the uniform, status, title or badge.
-
Be confident. Says Chomsky: “[Intellectual self-defence] takes a lot of self-confidence — perhaps more self-confidence than one ought to have — to take a position alone because it seems to you right, in opposition to everything you see and hear.”
- Also from Chomsky: “Intellectual self-defence… [is] …no different than physics or baseball. If you want to learn something, it’ll take work. And the chances of success, or useful success, are greatly magnified by cooperative interchange and effort.”
STORY HERE