A Humble Mind

A little while ago, I was fortunate enough to get my one of my mentors, Angelo Codevila, on the phone for a social call. Professor Codevilla was and continues to be a major influence on me. I learned a great many things from him but most importantly, I learned how to think. I don't agree with him on everything. (He is far more conservative than I am) Still, I've met no one who thinks more clearly and critically than he does. He showed me that good men of conscience can honestly disagree and arrive at very different places despite working with the same materials. At the same time, he showed me how to avoid all the many errors of thought that trap most people when they attempt to reason. I recommend all his work. Even if you do not find favor with his arguments, I'm sure you will marvel at the lucidity of his thinking.

I met Professor Codevilla when I was in my early teens. At the time, I thought he was crazy. I couldn't see how he could see the world as he did. As I look back, I'm deeply embarrassed by some of the conversations we had. But I picked up one of his books after a few years in the field and everything changed. Bolstered by actual experience, his ways of looking at a problem made sense. When I went to him for counsel, he again pushed me towards Thuycidides, Machiavelli, Plato and Aritotle-- all of whom have become very close friends. Simply put Dr. Codevilla taught me a framework with which I could make sense of the world. More importantly, he gave me the courage to honestly assess new ideas.

Saotome Sensei was asked once what was the difference between his American students and his Japanese students. He answered that if he told his Japanese students to do something, they would do it a thousand times without question. If he told his American students to do something, they would do it 25 times, say they knew and and ask for the next lesson. There are certain lesson that can only be learned through time just as there are certain truths in poetry than can only be divined after you have memorized the poem. For the uninitiated, this makes no sense. Rote learning is not the answer to everything but it does teach lessons that can be learned through no other methodology.

I say all this to indirectly comment on a phenomenon that I find distressing. I'm constantly dealing with thought errors on a daily basis. By thought errors, I don't mean people who think the wrong thing. I mean people who arrive at a conclusion through faulty methodology. I think it has a lot to do with emotion. When I first started teaching my latest group of students, they were highly resistant. They simply couldn't believe what I was saying. They were used to understanding thing before they engaged in an action. The idea that they would have to do the action and achieve proficiency before they understood was anathema to them. To them, understanding was the prerequisite, not the reward. But I come from a different tradition. Perhaps it's because of my martial arts training but I'm totally comfortable with not understanding something. I just have to trust the person asking me to do it. To me, understanding was always the reward. Achieving it was my raison d'etre.

I'm going to write more about thought errors in upcoming blogs. I'll take them apart one by one-- at least the ones I have to deal with but let me end this installment with something to think about. It about "doing." It's about actually being able to move through the world. The man who does something will always have a deeper understanding than the man who just thinks about it because reality is the standard that thoughts must be judged against. There are limitations in language-- major ones for me, less so for a Christopher Hitchens but those limitations exist nonetheless. Epistemology limits our ability to truly communicate with each other accurately. There's a whole lot of truth in Bob Marley's words: He who feels it knows it more.

Be that as it may, language is what we have and we must be precise about it because sloppy language breeds sloppy thinking. Though my friend TheAikidoist doesn't agree with me, our thoughts are shaped and contained by our language. Thinking exists in language. But I digress. We're talking about something basic-- determining validity. To do this properly, you have to rid yourself of thought errors. Unfortunately, this isn't really taught in school anymore where education has become more indoctrination.

Dominican Priest Father Xavier said to me once that one of the keys to understanding was wonder. You had to be able to think about things you didn't understand. You had to allow for ideas that were foreign to you. That's the first thought error that I'd like to talk about-- a lack of wonder. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's not true. I think that requires a bit of humility and sadly, that's lacking in academia and humanity in general. In our primal need to feel safe, we default to untested certainty. We accept answers where they may be none. We generate explanations to explain what the human brain may not be suited to understand. So that's what I'll leave you with. Be open to not knowing. Be open to the possibility of not understanding. Be open to something that might simply be beyond you. It is only with that forma mentis can you truly approach the really interesting questions of your life.