Easier Than Thinking

I once had a professor who asked me whether I was an optimist or a pessimist. When I answered “both”, he laughed and said that, sooner or later, I would end up becoming one or the other. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said that it was easier for people to take sides in how they viewed the world.

That single phrase—that, sooner or later, we all become one or the other—disturbed me in its simplicity. If I'm too critical, could I really appreciate life? If I'm too optimistic, could I really live life realistically?

Then I asked, why did my professor think that way? Why say with so much certainty that people become one or the other? His explanation gave me the answer: it was easier for people to take sides in how they viewed the world. Easier than what? Thinking?

And that was when it hit me.

Today, there are too many people who tell us what to or how to think. Not only that, but modern culture operates too fast for us to question what these people say. The result is that we literally have no time to think—so we let others do it for us. Not sure who to vote for in an obscure election? Look at how other people are voting in an opinion poll. Don't know what you're hungry for? Wait for the first fast-food commercial.

We may not delegate the production of all our thoughts to others. We may even spend time on thinking through who or what we should trust with our worldviews, such as religions or political ideologies, and then letting them take the wheel. But isn't it ominous when your life is so busy that you have to delegate your thinking to someone or something other than yourself?

It's also a comfort zone issue. In the movie Hotel Rwanda, a cameraman finishes filming a road filled with hundreds of dead bodies during the Rwandan genocide. When a Rwandan tells him he is glad the American people will finally see the truth, the cameraman grimaces, remarking that the most they'll do is shake their head, say “That's terrible”, and then go on with their dinners.

Whether or not it is distance or modernity, as the cameraman alludes to, doesn't affect the point: that those who are better off than others like staying on their hills, because descending those hills means immersing themselves in the more difficult truths of reality. This bottom line leads into what I call a Culture of Absolutism—the resulting way of thinking in which complex issues are simplified for the sake of expediency and easier comprehension. Not only does this degrade the issues themselves, but the willingness on behalf of society to understand these issues for as they are—whether or not they are easy or unpleasant to swallow.

How do we fight this culture of absolutism? Doubt your faith. Rethink your ideology. Descend from your hill and see the world as it is, instead of listening to someone else describe it. Think of how much stronger Thomas was when he doubted Jesus' resurrection. Think of how Galileo transformed the way we see the world when he doubted that the sun revolved around the earth. It is only when we doubt, rethink, and explore the unexplored terrain that we find stronger faith in what we believe and more conviction in our ideas. 


LMU is at an interesting crossroads, in that, while its mission—as both an educational institution and a Jesuit university—implies that on its grounds every issue is open to critical thinking, dialogue, and debate. But we are not immune to the Culture of Absolutism. There are several issues on this campus that have been deemed untouchable or unable to be criticized or debated. The Loyolan, Passion Magazine, and countless students have done an admirable job in the past of addressing these issues, but seeing as they are still prevalent, the entire student body must make an effort to insure that critical thinking is the number one value on a college campus.

If we want to see our world change for the better, we must first start with how we see ourselves and the world. If we are either-or, we are confined to one narrow perspective. If we think critically, and without fear of losing our innermost convictions, we have the powerful opportunity to walk thousands of miles in other people's shoes—and see more of the world's truth and beauty.