ClayBarham
08-26-2007, 08:23 PM
Whoopie Goldberg, in an interview with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, said she “feels” about things, and accused O’Reilly of “thinking” about them. The premise was obvious. Liberals feel and conservatives think. In the world run by liberals, thinking is dangerous and feelings are good. A liberal is felt to be correct and conservative thought to be wrong. Thinking has long been the curse of the curious. Thinking, generally prohibited in Old World nations, led to challenging accepted and established ways rulers ordered, mandated and carried on life in society. Thinking was disruptive. Thinking, however, was a hallmark of the American pioneer, because survival in a hostile world would never permit reliance on just feelings, superstitions and prejudices. Thinking is one of the single most important causes of America’s rise to economic freedom, prominence and prosperity. Its future will depend upon it.
Feelings are expressions of a subjective, unconscious and emotional level of mind. It is how children, before maturity, see and react to the world and people around them. It is the reason children are most likely to feel compassion and care for people and animals less fortunate than they. Feeling is the only way animals use their brains. Children tend to be socialists, seeing the interests of community as superior to the interests of individuals. There are some children, mostly boys, whose feelings tend to express a more self-centered view of the world. They grab and take with little concern for those they are depriving, to satisfy their own self-centered desires. However, feelings generally express compassion for those with little, and the conduct going along with those feelings is to condemn those who have more of what the felt-for lack.
Maturity, for anyone, implies ability to think and do the right and proper things in relation to people and things around them. Immaturity, on the other hand, implies being unable to function reasonably and be subject to all the irrational, emotional forces in the environment. The one who thrives on his or her own temper tantrums is a case in point, because the emotions rise out of feelings, which are immature. The feeling of love for another, controlled by reason and thought, may grow to something lasting and beautiful. Without the advantage of reason, however, love may turn into destructive lust. We, as humans, have both capacities of mind and brain, to feel and imagine, as well as think and calculate. Any scientific pursuit that sets out to justify the product of feeling will search only for those elements useful in proving the feeling, rejecting anything unsupportive. For example, the feeling that man’s activities are all of the sudden, negatively affecting the earth and causing climate change, global warming to be specific, becomes a search for proof only in data that supports the feeling.
Was Whoopie Goldberg correct? Should we, as human beings, limit ourselves to how we perceive the world around us by our feelings? Should we move into the future carried only by our imaginations, our prejudices and superstitions? On the other hand, should we stick with O’Reilly’s side of the mind and move into the future with reason, thought and maturity? Using only mature behavior, are we just ripe and ready to fall off the tree? Are we simply restricting ourselves to being adult, when our youth cry out for support of a life of carelessness and brain-poisons, like drugs, alcohol and off-the-wall cults?
Intelligence is the best expression of maturity. Intelligence has to be the proper balance of both functions of mind, thought and feeling. The greatest strides in human history were products of intelligence, with imagination, reasonably thought out and fashioned to fit reality without fear of retribution, anger toward those getting in the way, or superstition. This was how America, the New World, grew. America’s great prosperity rose out of individual freedom to pursue both feelings and thought, neither limited by the other. Now is not the time to give up, succumb to the emotional appeals of the liberals and give away the mature mind. Faced with challenges from Wahhab Muslim feelings of the supremacy of their way, and the accompanying threat of terrorism to bring about their way, we must keep our reason and maturity intact.
When you vote, think and resist the temptation to feel. Think about the way things were in America during her greatest periods of growth. Think about the ruin feelings gave to the earlier world, and the world other than America. Think about thinking.
Feelings are expressions of a subjective, unconscious and emotional level of mind. It is how children, before maturity, see and react to the world and people around them. It is the reason children are most likely to feel compassion and care for people and animals less fortunate than they. Feeling is the only way animals use their brains. Children tend to be socialists, seeing the interests of community as superior to the interests of individuals. There are some children, mostly boys, whose feelings tend to express a more self-centered view of the world. They grab and take with little concern for those they are depriving, to satisfy their own self-centered desires. However, feelings generally express compassion for those with little, and the conduct going along with those feelings is to condemn those who have more of what the felt-for lack.
Maturity, for anyone, implies ability to think and do the right and proper things in relation to people and things around them. Immaturity, on the other hand, implies being unable to function reasonably and be subject to all the irrational, emotional forces in the environment. The one who thrives on his or her own temper tantrums is a case in point, because the emotions rise out of feelings, which are immature. The feeling of love for another, controlled by reason and thought, may grow to something lasting and beautiful. Without the advantage of reason, however, love may turn into destructive lust. We, as humans, have both capacities of mind and brain, to feel and imagine, as well as think and calculate. Any scientific pursuit that sets out to justify the product of feeling will search only for those elements useful in proving the feeling, rejecting anything unsupportive. For example, the feeling that man’s activities are all of the sudden, negatively affecting the earth and causing climate change, global warming to be specific, becomes a search for proof only in data that supports the feeling.
Was Whoopie Goldberg correct? Should we, as human beings, limit ourselves to how we perceive the world around us by our feelings? Should we move into the future carried only by our imaginations, our prejudices and superstitions? On the other hand, should we stick with O’Reilly’s side of the mind and move into the future with reason, thought and maturity? Using only mature behavior, are we just ripe and ready to fall off the tree? Are we simply restricting ourselves to being adult, when our youth cry out for support of a life of carelessness and brain-poisons, like drugs, alcohol and off-the-wall cults?
Intelligence is the best expression of maturity. Intelligence has to be the proper balance of both functions of mind, thought and feeling. The greatest strides in human history were products of intelligence, with imagination, reasonably thought out and fashioned to fit reality without fear of retribution, anger toward those getting in the way, or superstition. This was how America, the New World, grew. America’s great prosperity rose out of individual freedom to pursue both feelings and thought, neither limited by the other. Now is not the time to give up, succumb to the emotional appeals of the liberals and give away the mature mind. Faced with challenges from Wahhab Muslim feelings of the supremacy of their way, and the accompanying threat of terrorism to bring about their way, we must keep our reason and maturity intact.
When you vote, think and resist the temptation to feel. Think about the way things were in America during her greatest periods of growth. Think about the ruin feelings gave to the earlier world, and the world other than America. Think about thinking.