The Obligations of the moderate

Life is hard if your brain happens not to be of great quality.
 

I'm glad you've finally realized your predicament.

Think about the constant fear and stress that you feel from not comprehending the situation that you are involved in.

Smart people get stressed out, too, you know.

Many of the smart ones are aware of their stress, and that is the starting point for knowing from which factors the stress has originated, as well as to which actions it has led.

In other words, without that awareness we are incapable of resolving the stress.

If you are not smart enough to know that you are under pressure, it is impossible to get rid of that pressure. 

I disagree. We are usually quite certain about our unhappiness. We can and do simply walk away from it all, and that without going into the analysis of cause and effect, or separating the unhappy aspects of life from the rest.

True. But in most cases, extracting yourself from the mess is not an option, or at least, not the most productive one. Consider a 15 year old who is failing in school. The only people who have finished school in her/his circle are the teachers. If s/he does not like the school environment and realizes that it is because s/he is not trying hard enough to learn, it may prompt her/him to study in earnest. After all, it creates the possibility of obtaining a better job and a better future. 

That's a better plan of attack than running away from home and school, you mean.

I have had some unpleasant interactions which made me wonder whether the strong, negative emotions from the other party was totally justified. It took some time before I realized that their acts were due to their fear, insecurity, etc. In order to get out of the unpleasant and/or unfamiliar situation that they faced, they would find something and someone that could take the responsibility. Since they are in fear, the choice of the responsible object/party is often unreasonable. What is quite amazing in the incidents that I have been witnessing is that the same pattern may persist. 

Thus, you have come to the conclusion that their brain is of quality that has much to be desired...

First, what they think is a conundrum is often not so. Second, they do not seem to realize that if they encounter the same situation often, it pays to give it a careful thought and devise a tactic so that they do not panic every time. 

Do you really think many people are that bad at the art of living? I am sure that we collectively knew how to live well long before all the self-help books were written, even before the oldest religion in the world was established.

Many of us do not have the capacity to analyze and devise a detailed plan, but most of us have the capacity to mimic. It is not a coincidence that the word, to ape, means to copy.

It allows people to act as if their brains were of greater quality?

Precisely. We have the powerful capability to internalize what other people do through observation. That is, without fully understanding the causes and the effects. If we focus on a particular person to emulate, we could say that s/he is a role model. If it concerns the way established by the society, we could say that it is culture. 

What distinguishes the brains of great quality from the not-so-great, then?

I would say that the high-quality brains have less limitation in terms of the breadth of issues that they can cope with ease. The better the ability to analyze is, the bigger chances s/he has to extrapolate what s/he already knows and has experienced.

Doesn't it all boil down to consciousness?

Yes. The problem with crediting consciousness is that...

We should be conscious that consciousness alone is not a panacea. 

Bravo, comrade! 

I must say that I am getting a bit too familiar with the pattern of your thoughts.

But it's true! Haven't you had the experience of being chastised by someone who you thought was not so smart?

"You think you're so smart, but you're dead wrong that..." That kind?

And they reveal what is important to the problem at hand, but you have somehow neglected.

Isn't it something that a snooty youngster experiences vis-à-vis an old hand with less formal education? ... Time to confess, comrade! 

My point here is that we shouldn't underestimate intuitions and instincts.

A snooty youngster has turned into a New Age guru?

It doesn't have to be anything spiritual, or even moral. One time, I saw a video showing the manufacturing process of macarons d'Amiens. It was important that each piece weighed the same so that the baking time will be identical; it would be inefficient to keep a watch on the cookies and take out the ones that are baked faster than others. The pâtisserie had a machine that weighed and sorted out the macarons that were either too small or too big. The owner stood by that machine and picked out the under- and over-weight ones after the machine had made the sorting.

He was filling the gaps left by the machine, then.

When they measured the macarons that he had chosen as non-qualified, indeed, they were of the weight that should have been rejected. So you see, sometimes our instincts are more robust than machines. As a related example, I can measure one cup of water without a measuring cup. It is not that I trained myself to do so, but after having done it so many times, I found out one day that I can put one cup in a bowl in one try. 

Hmmm, I know a person who consistently puts water for ten cups of coffee or more in the kettle when only two cups are to be brewed...

I did not mean to claim that our instincts are superior to our logic, but it will be a mistake to dismiss intuitions and instincts altogether. We often hear about intuitions, instincts and luck playing a big role in great discoveries and inventions. Their paths to success cannot be explained by application of logic alone. Intuitions and instincts are not formal knowledge, however, and there lies their inherent weakness. 

It is difficult to convey the information or confirm the understanding of it.

Or, even to establish its existence. 

"I feel it, right here in my guts!"

Anybody can make that kind of a claim.

In order to be convincing, I bet that you have to be a good actor.

That leads to another problem. You can be more convincing when you can make yourself believe in it. It means that the moderates, or the persons who take into account various viewpoints, will never appear as strong as the extremists. Add our penchant for sensational stories to it, and it is clear that we have a very toxic mix. 

The loonies, who have no doubt about themselves, govern the world!

Sadly, that is the state we drift into too often. Think about all the terrorist acts going on. They are what we are mainly informed of and what we react to. I know that there is more than our affinity to sensationalism that gives support to terrorism, but it is certainly part of the story.

If the extremists have such built-in strength, is there any way that we can stop them from charting the course of history?

The moderates have the obligation to condemn the extremists. It is an uphill task, because the very definition of who the moderates are could be taken as a sign of weakness. But without their expression of opposition against the very far-fetched, there is no hope for humanity.

Back to the requirement of consciousness in dealing with our life problems, can't we say that the people of higher quality brain have similar obligations, namely to show the preferred ways to cope?

I agree on the condition that they need to be cautious of arrogance.

Brainy people have the tendency to walk over the less articulate, and that even when they know that they are wrong, right? 

Obscurantism, elitism... I believe that many of the famous philosophical works could have written more simply and concisely.

That's what everybody says about anything that is beyond her/his intellectual capacity, comrade.

By the way, I know a number of religious people who are very devoted or in the profession of religion and are hypocritical.

They run greater risks, because they preach how we should behave. But they are just like the rest of us and cannot be perfect.

Some time ago, my brother helped organize a conference for professors in ethics. He told me that it was quite remarkable that they were all, well, ethical.

So the professors in ethics can do a better job than the monks and the priests?

I would like to draw a more general conclusion.

All right...

Do you agree that the professors are better than the monks and the priests at analyzing human frailty in a methodological way?

That's what they are supposed to do, while most monks and priests need only compassion.

My conclusion is that analysis is superior to intuition. We can overcome intuition by analysis, but not the other way round. Intuition can only raise red flags to faulty logic.
  

Without such warnings, analytic minds can more easily engage in manipulation and abuse. But knowledge does not guarantee that we will act accordingly. Besides, your evidence is purely anecdotal. 

True. But it's my hunch, you see...

Can't we have good doses of both, the logical and the intuitive minds? 

Most of us are better in one than the other, and naturally, we would like to think that the one that we are better at is more important. I'd say that there is a tendency among us to polarize. 

Ah, humans... But then, don't the ones who can balance the logical and the intuitive have the obligation to promote their way?