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Philosophers Are Useless

“Is it reasoning alone that makes a philosopher?”

Half heartedly pondering on esoteric things, ultimate meanings, and running in circles of analysis doesn’t make you a philosopher. Living your words makes you a philosopher. Acting in conformance to your theorems makes you a philosopher. Living without pretension makes you a philosopher. Too much nose-raised talk and not enough action in contemporary academic ‘philosophy’ – nothing is being said, hollow words and empty propositions; blathering without conviction. No concern about doing what’s right or sculpting this realm, just stagnation and elitist segregation.

As Walter Kaufmann so precisely put it in The Faith of a Heretic, philosophy is the quest for honesty: a lifelong campaign of indelible and fanatical resistance against falsity and the often unchecked designs of sophists. Philosophy means making sure your actions, decisions and judgments are honest. Today philosophy degrees seem to be handed out liberally at most colleges to drug using pseudo intellectuals who don’t actually live their words. Instead they drink themselves to a stupor six days of the week and spend the remainder recovering from their escapism. These ‘students’ are a creation of the modern times; in the past philosophy was a way of life (a high duty), not a convenient way to appease angry parents when you couldn’t quite keep that 2.0 GPA in biochemical engineering. Philosophy should be used as a practical vessel to attain wisdom, endure misfortunes, temper our desires, achieve excellence, cultivate clear judgment and conquer life, by storm, by the throat. Cultivate virtues, live them, with no speaking, only actions. Stop talking about changing the world, pour that 40 ounce of Jack Daniels you managed to smuggle into the dorm down the sink and *actually* change the world, starting with yourself.

Ask yourself: what good will this thought bring about? What good will this action bring about? What good will this judgment bring about? What good will this decision bring about?

Philosophy is the serious and dutiful pursuit of honest intentions, actions and virtues. So you want to mold a new order? Act in virtue and inspire others. Stop the meaningless flapping of gums and abstract theorizing, the lifestyle of throwaway statues and throwaway charities, throwaway friends and throwaway cheers. Philosophy is a weapon against the sophists and apologists who seek to dominate the unaware and untrained; it is the sacred waning light in the darkness of public nonthinking and so called ‘faith.’ Our love of wisdom and harmony is a higher truth than fashion and conformance. We are the the bane of liars, corrupt politicians, cheats, and the unjust. Philosophy is wielded to ‘lay bare the encrusted’ and introspect the character; to strip away the tarp that obscures a rotting social foundation. In refining our own character to become more honest we transform into gods that command the actions to whatever we will to be.

Ask yourself: am I spending the time to cultivate a critical thought process that is bound by fierce moral courage? Am I considering every aspect of my life before I assume it to be in harmony with the world? Am I thinking like a child: curious, investigative, truth seeking? Skeptical? Am I being honest?

One reply on “Philosophers Are Useless”

I agree. 🙂 I also think that many philosophers are “running scared” – in that they are not willing to go out on a limb and ponder some of the spiritual questions (cosmology, ontology, etc.) further and in different directions – and – are becoming too “politically correct” – thus virtue and ethics, unfortunately remain as “inventions of man” rather than from a higher end. The ancients had it right. 🙂

Time prevents me from doing into detail, so I hope my short blurb is clear. 🙂

Take care.

B

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