The problem with smart people is that they are able to justify their wrong actions with better arguments. This gives them a troublingly unfair advantage over the rest. With that above average ability they attempt to persuade us with explosive fireworks of reasoning that deafen our hearing with their loudness, and daze our sight with their brilliant flashes.
Some amongst us would be easily convinced, while some others, even though we do not whole-heartedly agree, couldn’t find in our minds a path of well laid-out reasons why we shouldn’t just succumb. In this way, those in power have always employed the smarter ones to be marketers of their ideas so that they could increase their already large influence even further.
What then is the defence of ordinary people who have not read Plato nor know Newton’s Laws? Are we defenceless from our lack of scholarship and charming wit?
No, we are not.
In everyone, despite our differences in background and education, I believe there is a sense of what is right and what is wrong, possessing the ability to identify what is unfair, unjust or outright unconscionable. An intuition fully ingrained that does not require a brilliant mind to justify a particular rationality, but rather a compassionate heart to recognise.
Perhaps this is the way that nature balances out those with superior intelligence but no heart, by installing the intuitive wisdom of the ages deep inside those with not as equally brilliant a mind but plenty of heart.
Caveat: I don’t propose a purely irrational, emotional-dependent view either. Instead, a healthy balance of both reason and wisdom-led compassion.
EightAteEight 