Socrates and Common Sense

"You know what the problem is with this world?  A lot of people with book learnin' and not a lick of common sense!"  Grandmother's Words of Wisdom

It may seem paradoxical that the same woman who said these words encouraged me to do a great deal of "book learnin'".  Her lament was less about books and more about how people viewed this education as the seeming sole basis for decision making.  As if the ability to regurgitate lessons learned at Socrates' knee negated the very useful lessons of life: common sense.  The things we learn after leaving Socrates' knee.

Those who have had the luxury of "book learning" often lament the lack of education in others.  The subconscious, sometimes conscious, bigotry against the "common sense" of the masses rarely appears to shake the certainty that only they are the inheritors of Socrates' great wisdom and the best guides for the future of humanity.

At the same time, amongst the less educated and experienced masses is the great yearning to be the teacher, to use these life lessons as the basis of a more pertinent education: life.  To be, in fact, what they behold and sometimes disdain: Socrates. 

Some where in the middle then, resides those who comprehend there is a great deal to be learned from Socrates, but, at the same time, there is more to the genius of humanity than what is learned staring at the great scholar's knobbly knees.

As many have stated before me, one of the greatest levelers of this great divide in the statically higher educated and the masses is the internet.  It is, to this author's mind, the greatest free university on the planet. 

Not only can we read the thoughts of the greatest (or worst) philosophers, political thinkers, scientists and artists of history, we can communicate, discuss and digest these ideas across thousands of miles, national, linguistic and cultural barriers while sipping coffee at the local cafe or watching re-runs of "How I Met Your Mother". 

Often times, if we wish it, we can, in fact, discuss and interact with noted scholars and experts in various fields.  For all the disdain that is sometimes shown for this manner of "education", there are a great number of said scholars and experts, the inheritors of Socrates, willing to expound into this wide open, experimental university.

All of this interaction is increasing the "genius of humanity".   Do not disdain those who may be watching sit coms while surfing the net.  That very simple example of human ability to multi-task is, quintessentially, the genius of humanity.  Nor should we lament the pages upon pages of personal sites dedicated to Justin Beiber, puppies or the day to day angst of living life out loud on the internet.

When I read or hear these laments, I often imagine the first caveman who, in the fight for his life against a saber tooth tiger, picked up the first weapon at hand and discovered that a sharp edged stone had distinct advantages over his blunt and broken club.  Having discovered this effect, the caveman gathers up some of this unique material and takes it back to his cave where he sets about trying to reproduce this advantage.

I believe we can imagine the other cavemen sitting around the campfire, grunting disdainfully at this waste of precious time when he could be out clubbing something for dinner or guarding the patch of berry laden bushes.  A year later, one of the first great advances in human technology begins the great expansion and migration of humanity through the distribution and cooperative use of this tool.

I believe we can apply that scenario to enumerable moments in pre-historic advancement from bear skins to basket weaving to cave wall painting.   There were likely a number of nay saying grunters shaking their heads in disparagement over these silly and useless activities. 

If that analogy is lost on the reader, I am suggesting that, in the whole scheme of this interconnected information highway, we are but cavemen attempting to form this material to our needs.  That everywhere we look, from the the smallest act to the greatest, we are advancing the genius of humanity and it's greater "common sense".  That knowledge has gained wings and is no longer bound to Socrates' knee. 

I write this in optimistic hope that this great, democratic university, conveyor and aggregate of human knowledge, will be the tool that saves humanity from it's own self destructive tendencies and possible extinction.  More so, that it is indeed the tool that will expand humanity beyond this earth bound horizon and into the universe.

Into this tsunami of human knowledge, I drop this little blog.  If I feel free to write on various subjects both weighty and small or have discourse with the inheritors of Socrates, let me quote Descartes:  "I think, therefore I am."

Somewhere in the great loop of time, a student asks Socrates, "Why?"

Socrates replies, "Why do you ask why?"