The Nature of Thinking
It is Saturday and as any regular reader of this blog will know I have, since yesterday, been listening to the podcast of the latest episode of On Being. This week Mrs. Tippett converses with the noted English historian Lyndsey Stonebridge. The title given to this conversation is “Thinking and Friendship in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt for Now.”
Hannah Arendt is commonly labeled as a political philosopher although that was not a label which she would have used for herself. I certainly thought of her as more than that, but her reputation and her writings on political and moral philosophy led to my decision to apply to The New School for Social Research to read for a doctorate in philosophy. The arrival of our son Jamie demanded a change in those plans. It was time to finish my master’s degree and look for full time work.
Ms. Arendt brought to her teaching her experience as a World War II Jewish refugee who lived for 18 years without a home or even a country. Eventually she settled in the United States. She brought the same courage and strength to her thinking and writing about social and political thought. which allowed her to survive as a refugee. If my memory serves me correctly (so difficult to know) it was the professor, philosopher and poet Walter Kaufman and Professor Charles West who introduced me to the writing of Hannah Arendt. Just as I knew both Professors West and Kaufman had something I wanted or needed to grow, so too I knew that Professor Arendt has something I wanted and needed if I was to grow. She died just 5 years after I had been accepted to study with her. Yet, there is no shortage of her writings and attempts to either expound on her thoughts or to apply the results of her thinking to the issues which present themselves to those of us who are living today. When I saw that Ms. Tippett and Dr. Stonebridge were going to be discussing “Hannah Arendt for Now” I experienced a myriad of thoughts and emotions including confusion and excitement. The confusion was related to the fact that I had not consciously thought of rereading the thoughts of Ms. Arendt to help expand my thinking about the political and social challenges of today. The excitement was that which I experience every time I have an opportunity to visit and “converse’ with a trusted friend and colleague. I was excited to revisit Dr. Arendt and hear the thoughts and possible insights of Ms. Tippett and Dr. Stonebridge. I was not disappointed. As always I encourage the reader to listen to the podcast of “On Being”. I have only listened to it twice and read the transcript one time, but I am sure I will revisit it several times and spend time rereading the works of Ms. Arendt.
Following this long introduction my primary focus today is based on the following quote of Dr. Arendt by Dr. Stonebridge on the nature of thinking:
“MS. STONEBRIDGE: Thinking, she says, is not the same as judgment, but it creates the right conditions for judgment. But also, she says, if you can’t have the inner dialogue, then you can’t speak and act with others. What she called “the banality of evil” was the inability of hear another voice, the inability to have a dialogue either with oneself or the world, the moral world.”
Once again, I have to ask myself how it was that I did not recall what Professor Arendt meant by the term “the banality of evil”. Did I not hear it or did not register in my brain when I did read or hear it? I have no idea. I am well aware that others have offered a different interpretation of this phase. Yet, what Professor Stonebridge suggests makes perfect sense in the context of what I do recall about her thoughts on the nature of thinking and the possibility of dialogue.
It seems to me that what passes for political or even moral dialogue in the United States and elsewhere falls short of what Dr. Arendt is labeling as thinking. So often what I “hear’ is one person or group stating their “truth” and another person or group stating their “truth”. Neither side seems to have the willingness or the ability to hold even the possibility of alternate truths in their brain. If one cannot entertain the possibility of another “truth” or opinion can we say that the person is engaged in thought? On more than one occasion someone has said to me when I dare to offer an opinion which is different than the one they are offering, “That is your problem. You just do not think.” Often it seems that agreement with the other person is equated with thinking.
I know it is easy to virtually point fingers at others rather than being more aware of how many often I shut down any possibility of internal dialogue because I have decided that there is only one possible “truth”.
I suggest that the lack of dialogue leads to lack of connection which leads to isolation and loneliness which can lead to depression, anger, justification, self-righteousness, dehumanizing others, and then some form of violence against the non-human “other”.
Whether on the “right” or “the left” the refusal to open to a dialogue will lead to polarization, name calling and lack of ability to work and live together. In the United States, we clearly saw that in the last election and we continue to see it in post presidential election United States. We also see it in other countries as many individuals and communities close the borders/circle up the wagons and become more entrenched in their unipolar truth! Vera Britain and others astute observers noted that in post WW I, the allies treated the Germans as the evil non-humans thus helping to create the conditions which were ripe for a leader such as Hitler who would give many of those same people a sense of importance they had not previously felt. When us humans are already feeling cut of and depressed, it becomes easy to turn off the internal dialogue and to then cut off any possibility of dialogue with anyone who is “not like us”.
Once again, my personal resolve is to be more intentional about the internal dialogue so that I may be hope open to a dialogue with others. Once again I want to challenge myself to the process of thinking as opposed to repeating my opinions as “the truth”.
Written May 20, 2017
It is Saturday and as any regular reader of this blog will know I have, since yesterday, been listening to the podcast of the latest episode of On Being. This week Mrs. Tippett converses with the noted English historian Lyndsey Stonebridge. The title given to this conversation is “Thinking and Friendship in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt for Now.”
Hannah Arendt is commonly labeled as a political philosopher although that was not a label which she would have used for herself. I certainly thought of her as more than that, but her reputation and her writings on political and moral philosophy led to my decision to apply to The New School for Social Research to read for a doctorate in philosophy. The arrival of our son Jamie demanded a change in those plans. It was time to finish my master’s degree and look for full time work.
Ms. Arendt brought to her teaching her experience as a World War II Jewish refugee who lived for 18 years without a home or even a country. Eventually she settled in the United States. She brought the same courage and strength to her thinking and writing about social and political thought. which allowed her to survive as a refugee. If my memory serves me correctly (so difficult to know) it was the professor, philosopher and poet Walter Kaufman and Professor Charles West who introduced me to the writing of Hannah Arendt. Just as I knew both Professors West and Kaufman had something I wanted or needed to grow, so too I knew that Professor Arendt has something I wanted and needed if I was to grow. She died just 5 years after I had been accepted to study with her. Yet, there is no shortage of her writings and attempts to either expound on her thoughts or to apply the results of her thinking to the issues which present themselves to those of us who are living today. When I saw that Ms. Tippett and Dr. Stonebridge were going to be discussing “Hannah Arendt for Now” I experienced a myriad of thoughts and emotions including confusion and excitement. The confusion was related to the fact that I had not consciously thought of rereading the thoughts of Ms. Arendt to help expand my thinking about the political and social challenges of today. The excitement was that which I experience every time I have an opportunity to visit and “converse’ with a trusted friend and colleague. I was excited to revisit Dr. Arendt and hear the thoughts and possible insights of Ms. Tippett and Dr. Stonebridge. I was not disappointed. As always I encourage the reader to listen to the podcast of “On Being”. I have only listened to it twice and read the transcript one time, but I am sure I will revisit it several times and spend time rereading the works of Ms. Arendt.
Following this long introduction my primary focus today is based on the following quote of Dr. Arendt by Dr. Stonebridge on the nature of thinking:
“MS. STONEBRIDGE: Thinking, she says, is not the same as judgment, but it creates the right conditions for judgment. But also, she says, if you can’t have the inner dialogue, then you can’t speak and act with others. What she called “the banality of evil” was the inability of hear another voice, the inability to have a dialogue either with oneself or the world, the moral world.”
Once again, I have to ask myself how it was that I did not recall what Professor Arendt meant by the term “the banality of evil”. Did I not hear it or did not register in my brain when I did read or hear it? I have no idea. I am well aware that others have offered a different interpretation of this phase. Yet, what Professor Stonebridge suggests makes perfect sense in the context of what I do recall about her thoughts on the nature of thinking and the possibility of dialogue.
It seems to me that what passes for political or even moral dialogue in the United States and elsewhere falls short of what Dr. Arendt is labeling as thinking. So often what I “hear’ is one person or group stating their “truth” and another person or group stating their “truth”. Neither side seems to have the willingness or the ability to hold even the possibility of alternate truths in their brain. If one cannot entertain the possibility of another “truth” or opinion can we say that the person is engaged in thought? On more than one occasion someone has said to me when I dare to offer an opinion which is different than the one they are offering, “That is your problem. You just do not think.” Often it seems that agreement with the other person is equated with thinking.
I know it is easy to virtually point fingers at others rather than being more aware of how many often I shut down any possibility of internal dialogue because I have decided that there is only one possible “truth”.
I suggest that the lack of dialogue leads to lack of connection which leads to isolation and loneliness which can lead to depression, anger, justification, self-righteousness, dehumanizing others, and then some form of violence against the non-human “other”.
Whether on the “right” or “the left” the refusal to open to a dialogue will lead to polarization, name calling and lack of ability to work and live together. In the United States, we clearly saw that in the last election and we continue to see it in post presidential election United States. We also see it in other countries as many individuals and communities close the borders/circle up the wagons and become more entrenched in their unipolar truth! Vera Britain and others astute observers noted that in post WW I, the allies treated the Germans as the evil non-humans thus helping to create the conditions which were ripe for a leader such as Hitler who would give many of those same people a sense of importance they had not previously felt. When us humans are already feeling cut of and depressed, it becomes easy to turn off the internal dialogue and to then cut off any possibility of dialogue with anyone who is “not like us”.
Once again, my personal resolve is to be more intentional about the internal dialogue so that I may be hope open to a dialogue with others. Once again I want to challenge myself to the process of thinking as opposed to repeating my opinions as “the truth”.
Written May 20, 2017
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