intellectual hubris

[jgalindo]

I am realizing lately that most people, even "educated" people, do not have any sense of a coherent worldview. They have a large collection of ideas from TV, the internet, newspapers, and books, but they do not have any framework in which to orient those ideas. Some people would say education is valuable in and of itself, but what use is all that

Comments

[the_august]

Perhaps the people you have in mind also feel the same way?

If people don't accept a framework, they can merely make one up - the height of enlightened individualism is, afterall, access to all the information of today instead of just 3 TV channels, or even just one town paper. Synthesis of such a framework is the natural product of someone whom thinks themselves enlightened. "Thinking for themselves," I believe it is called. hehe

As G.K. Chesterton wrote shortly after WW I, "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything."

There's no authority above them, except the framework they themselves would create.

By the by, is there a particular incident that makes you post this?

[jgalindo]

The problem is that the framework people are making up is logically inconsistent (even though they claim it is based on logic). It also has no authority of truth. In other words, when they find something they like or don't like, they just adjust their worldview to suit that. I believe many would say this malleable worldview is enlightened, but to me it seems superficial and without weight. With no standard of truth, truth can be whatever they want it to be--ultimately leaving them in some sort of postmodern condition that is only livable as long as they never honestly consider the reasons why they act and think the way they do.