One of the common human diseases is to have all sorts of foolish insights. There are many reasons for these stupid insights, such as ambition, vanity, pride, blind obedience, laziness, indoctrination, **, etc.
Stupidity has permeated human history and pervades today's society. Stupid people run into walls everywhere, and it is also a disaster for those around them. But in fact, to get rid of stupidity, you don't need superhuman genius. The English philosopher Russell summed up five simple ways to avoid stupidity, which do not guarantee that we will never make mistakes.
See for yourself
Russell, in The Wisdom of the West, said with a little humor: Ancient writers always talked about the unicorn and the fiery serpent, but none of them felt that since they had never seen any unicorn and fiery serpent, they should avoid arbitrariness.
Even a great thinker like Aristotle mistakenly believed that "women have fewer teeth than men". He could have avoided this mistake, and the solution was simple—he just asked his wife to open her mouth and count them herself. But he didn't, and his self-righteousness made him make a joke.
"We think we know but we don't" is a fatal mistake that we all make easily. If a problem can be solved by observation alone, then observe it for yourself.
Check the evidence
Everyone can fall into a bias, and many things are not easily tested empirically. Therefore, one of the best ways to avoid bias is to check whether your beliefs are supported by sufficient evidence.
Russell says that if you get angry at the first hearing an opinion that is contrary to yours, that in itself is a sign that you have subconsciously sensed that your opinion is not fully supported. If someone insists on saying that 2 plus 2 equals 5, or that Iceland is located at the equator, you will only feel pity, not anger. Unless you yourself are so ignorant of mathematics and geography that his opinion shakes your opinion.
The most heated arguments are those in which both sides are stubborn but cannot provide sufficient evidence.
Listening is clear
In any era, people are more willing to listen to information that is the same or similar to their own ideas. In modern society, on the surface, everyone can obtain a large amount of information, but in fact, under the information screening mechanism and the push mechanism according to personal preferences, everyone is more likely to fall into the "information cocoon" and form arbitrary prejudices.
So Russell says that a good way to get rid of some arbitrary views is to try to understand the views of people in circles other than yours. It's good for us to weaken narrow biases.
If you can't travel, try to socialize with people who disagree with you, or read a newspaper that doesn't share your political views.
If these people and such newspapers seem crazy, perverse, or even hateful to you, then you should not forget - and so do you.
Imagine a debate
Russell said that some people are rich in mental imagination. For these people,A good way to do this is to imagine yourself debating with someone who has a different bias. This method is not limited by time and space.
Mahatma Gandhi deeply regretted the railways, the ships and the machines, and he saw the entire industrial revolution as a failure. Maybe you'll never get the chance to actually meet someone who has that opinion. Because in Western countries, most people take the benefits of modern technology for granted.
But if you do want to agree that this popular view is correct, then a good approach is to test the arguments you have come up with by imagining the arguments that Gandhi might make in order to refute the benefits of modern technology.
Sometimes I've really changed my perspective because of this kind of imaginative conversation. Even if they do not change their original views, they often become less self-righteous because they realize that hypothetical opponents may be quite reasonable.
Look up at the stars
The most important thing we should be wary of is opinions that can easily encourage hubris. There are some problems that simply cannot be solved, however, self-esteem makes it invisible to most people.
For example, people in almost every country in the world feel that their nation is superior to all other peoples. If there is evidence that other peoples are superior, then change the criteria of evaluation to make yourself appear superior.
So Russell says that the only way to overcome the most common problem of arrogance is to constantly remind yourself:In the history of life on a small planet in a small corner of the vast universe, human beings are only a short episode.
And maybe there are creatures in the universe that are as superior to us as we are to jellyfish.
The natural enemy of stupidity is wisdom. Only wisdom can restrain stupidity. In today's era of information** and chicken soup, what we lack is never truth, but the wisdom to understand everything in the world like Russell.
Albert Einstein said, "Reading Russell's works is one of the most enjoyable things of my life." ”Russell is rigorous, rational and humorous, and has a deep concern for humanity. Reading Russell's writings is not only a pleasure, but also an inspiration for wisdom.