A Pro-Thought Manifesto

[simont]

(I've had this lurking around in my file of half-written rants for some time. It came up in conversation today and someone expressed interest in reading it, so I thought perhaps it was time to polish it up and post it. I'm probably mostly preaching to the choir here, but I wanted to get it down in writing anyway.)

I am, as any but my newest readers will not need to be told, a thoroughgoing computer geek. Some people loudly and vocally express dislike of computer geeks; being one myself, I naturally notice this when it happens around me, and occasionally try to fathom what it is they dislike.

Some people, for example, seem to dislike computer geeks because they dislike computers in particular. That's fair enough; I don't have to like it, of course, but I can understand it. I dislike some other kinds of people on a similar basis: for example, aggressive sales pitches and ubiquitous advertising annoy me, and hence I'd be likely to feel a certain antipathy towards someone if I found out that those things were what they did for a living, or (even worse) for fun.

But there's another reason for disliking geeks which I find a lot harder to forgive: as closely as I can tell, some people dislike geeks (of all stripes) not because of any specific attitude to their field, but essentially because they dislike the fact that geeks think about things for fun. You hear words like ‘sad’ bandied about with great abandon; you hear a veiled, and sometimes not so veiled, disapproval of anyone spending time sitting at a computer – or whatever – which they ‘ought’ to be spending drinking beer and watching TV.

And it really makes me cross when people do this, or when they demonise the use of thought and reasoning in any other context. We have more than enough trouble in the world already due to people not thinking, so encouraging further failure or refusal to think seems to me to be at least misguided, and at worst culpable.

I'm not saying that you have a moral duty to use your brain all the time (although I might well be persuadable that you have a duty to use it some of the time). I have nothing against leisure pursuits that don't involve thinking, or even that involve killing some of your brain cells; I indulge in them myself regularly. What I hate is people saying it's a bad thing that sometimes I do think for fun, or think about things I might otherwise do on autopilot; when people try to make it morally wrong, or legally wrong, or (most perniciously) socially unacceptable to use my brain.

Another example: some people are terribly quick to throw around words like ‘over-analysing’. Now there is such a thing as over-analysing something: it's the point at which you're going round and round in circles trying to squeeze juice out where there is none, the point where you should have given up and admitted you don't know what something means and are not achieving anything by trying to figure it out. Deciding you're over-analysing is a last resort when you genuinely aren't getting anywhere; but some people seem to be keen to use the phrase pre-emptively as a means of encouraging people to deal with issues by means that don't involve thinking in the first place.

So here is my personal Pro-Thought Manifesto, which I think to myself whenever I encounter this attitude:

Every human being's birthright, the thing that sets us apart from other mammals, is a brain capable of thought and reasoning.

The use of the brain for this purpose, in general, should be encouraged.

Thinking is not a moral imperative, at least all the time. There is nothing wrong with choosing leisure activities that don't involve thought; you can't blame people for being too tired, too ill, too distracted or simply too stupid to think at any particular moment; it's not even easy to blame people for not wanting to think about particular things because they find it uncomfortable. The use of the brain should be seen as admirable and praiseworthy, but not in general an absolute duty.

But if anyone discourages or disparages the use of the brain, this is a bad thing and should be vigorously argued against; and if anyone attempts to forcibly prevent people from using their brains, this is not to be tolerated.

I have a brain. I like to use it for fun; I habitually use it in my day-to-day life; and I instinctively turn to it for help when I'm in difficult situations. That is the way I am; I feel strongly that it is a good way to be; and I will not be made to feel like a second-class citizen for it.

OK, more of a rant than a manifesto, but it's the best I can do.

Comments

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Hear hear.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Hear hear.

I used to have a "pro-thought" filter on my LJ, but then I thought, why would only some people want to think? Why in particular would people who aren't on my friends list not want to think? So I just put the things I would have put on that filter on public view instead.

[simont]

Indeed, I think it was you who I picked up the phrase "pro-thought" from. I had most of the rant already written at the time, but as soon as I saw you use that phrase I suddenly realised I had previously been lacking a title.

[uisgebeatha.livejournal.com]

*agrees, mostly*

The flipside, of course, is that there are some 'geeky' people who disparage non-geeky brains for not 'getting' things or for not engaging their brains as much. I use my brain on full power for my (geeky) job, and when I'm not working it does not like to still be under lots of pressure. So it's all well and good to say it's OK not to use it, but it's still not OK for geek-brains to treat others like second-class citizens...

[simont]

Sure. (Although I have a feeling that one person's "treating me like a second-class citizen" can easily be another's "just wanting to spend time with people with the same leisure interests" and that it's inconveniently easy to read the former into behaviour intended as the latter, or to communicate the former by mistake for the latter.)

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think the kickback of geek discrimination against non-geek is growing.

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

God. I can't believe you took the time to write this when you could have been watching I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of X-Factor Idol.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

the thing that sets us apart from other mammals

That's something I'm not terribly sure about, actually, and I've been arguing with people about it already today. Yes, the plural of anecdote is not data, but I've known animals that were definitely capable of thought and reasoning. Not calculus, maybe, but that's not the same thing as not being able to reason...

Or is that just me completely missing the point in an uninteresting fashion? :p

[simont]

It may not be completely missing the point, but I think it is at most pointing out a minor wording niggle rather than contradicting my essential thesis. There seems to me to be no question but that humans can do something with their brains which other mammals cannot, and it is that which I was intending to talk about. If I've described it by the wrong words, I'm happy to take suggestions for better ones. Abstract thought and reasoning, perhaps?

(I suppose there remains the question of whether there is anyone who would criticise a human for excessive thought because they performed a feat of reasoning of which some other mammal was also capable. If so, those people should be complained about particularly loudly.)

[megamole.livejournal.com]

Amen, brother.

Not to say I'm half as geeky as you... :-P

It is a moral imperative

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't start using computers until I was 30 and didn't have a computer job until I was about 38. Yet I was called a geek by people I worked with. I found it ever so odd. But I'd been a thinker my whole life even though I had dropped out of college to live on a kibbutz in Israel. And there I found Atlas Shrugged. I didn't become John Galt or rich or much of anything else that critics might expect; I did not even become a libertarian. But in that book I found sense which I had not found in my christian upbringing. Ayn Rand says, and I believe it is the core of what she says, that it is a moral imperative for human beings to use their brains.

You are right on the money. I find that most people find their brain a source of despair.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Um, who are these people who criticise you for thinking? I don't think I've met anyone like that since school.

[simont]

Many of them were at school, certainly. But you might be surprised to find that you can encounter people of this stripe within a computer company! Mostly not on the engineering side, but even among the engineers one can find a few people who not only hang it all on the hook when they go home (which is fine, of course) but see themselves as morally superior to the likes of me for doing so.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Ever tried reading an obviously maths book in a pub? I read a ot of mths books, and I spend a lot of time in pubs. I like to combine the two. And I reckon I get adverse comments - from strangers - about 70% of the time. Hell, I've even had adverse comments for simply reading a book in a pub. Less in Cambridge than elsewhere, though. There's a definite seam of anti-intellectualism in the British psyche - hence the well-know phrase "too clever by half".

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Excellent stuff.

[lionsphil.livejournal.com]

I approve of this rant.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with the basic premise; that we have a brain and should use it. How different we are from animals/primates/crows/ravens is a matter for people who understand these things rather better than I do.

However, I'm mildly interested in what you say about over-analysis. As one of the people who thinks about things occasionally, there's a definite difference in my head between analysis and over-analysis. Analysis produces answers or a knowledge of a state of things; when I over-analyse, I get no answers and no extra knowledge. It makes me unhappy.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

I think overanalysis is when you start using predicate logic tools on matters of taste, preference, or emotion. It's like a category error.

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

I was trying to see if there could be an explanation based on an impression of solitary activity, or based on jealousy. However, people who run as a hobby don't get widely mocked for it, despite their hobby being a solitary activity doing an extreme version something many people can do anyway.

I suspect it is a streak of anti-intellectualism; probably historically based on jealousy and perceived privilege, but now just ingrained as a societal trope.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

You are actually currently on the receiving end of anti-geek attitudes? I have been finding the opposite: the geek positive self definition seems so strong among many people I talk to, I think aspects of it may be becoming damaging.

Of course I agree that thinking is a good thing and no geek attributes should be discriminated against. However, a lot of geek community sentiment smacks of looking down on people who spend time with their TV sets and apparently do less thinking than 'us'. (I do not do much with computers myself except interwebs and Microsoft Office, so perhaps this impression is really me feeling excluded or something along those lines.)

I may write a post about this - would you mind me linking to this entry if I did?

[simont]

"Currently" might be a bit strong; I had certainly encountered a surprising number of anti-geek attitudes at my company a few years ago when I was moved to write this rant, but it so happens that I can't remember encountering any recently. As I say at the top of the post, I published this now mostly because it came up in conversation with someone else this morning who had encountered related attitudes. So no, I'm not currently on the receiving end of this sort of thing to any noticeable extent, but I have no reason to think it's stopped existing in general.

You're welcome to link to this post, yes :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Firstly, it probably goes without saying that I agree with you, and think you expressed it interestingly. (I normally mean that, but sometimes I forget to say it :)) I've oft been annoyed by such attitudes, and it feels good for someone to stand up and say "No, they really are saying that, and I really do think they're wrong." In many contexts it really is pernicious.

I'd like to subscribe to the manifesto, as some people have started to do :) But whilst I like the language it uses, I feel it may need some more condensing before I'm happy propagating it, both to make it more clear, and to make it clear that (a) vilifying people for thinking is bad (b) not thinking at all is bad (c) but it's not an attack on anyone who doesn't enjoy thinking sometimes :) (The list of reasons why someone might think is accurate, and a good flame of people who watch TV all day and never think, but you don't want to make it sound like any non-thinking hobby is bad -- swimming, dancing, music all might classify.)

It's interesting to consider where the anti-thinking attitude comes from from. It might just be society. It might be life-long insecurity: I feel bad because I'm not as intelligent as some people, so I will dismiss intelligence as ever useful. It might (in theory) be a reaction to people who maybe do think too much[1]. At school, it often does seem to be there -- I don't know, might it be rebellion "We are expected to study. Therefore anyone who enjoys that is mad"?

[1] I would joke that you can't think too much. But some people do, in that they might go on analysing a question, out of a general desire for knowledge, when answering it would be more urgent. And I totally enjoy the analysing, but can see why in some circumstances someone might be annoyed, if they wanted to get on, and didn't enjoy doing that for its own sake; or even feel that the analysing was implicitly criticising them for not wanting to do so :(

Or, something I've been exploring with L, is that my natural inclination is to analyse any question, but sometimes (eg. goatse, views about marriage on a first date), while all knowledge is good, deprioritising certain knowledge may be wise for the moment. So there may be such a thing as thinking too much.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

I'd like to object to dancing as a non-thinking hobby. As someone with several left feet, dancing requires a lot of thought. It's jolly good fun, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Somebody has your back. Check out this nytimes article about a book about how America hates thought:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html?ex=1360904400&en=734456ddac4313b8&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with this, though like some of your other commenters I have difficulty believing there's anyone who'd disagree. From there, my thought process went something like this:

"Believing that thinking is bad!? That's absurd! No-one who thought it through properly could possibly... oh."

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"Believing that thinking is bad!? That's absurd! No-one who thought it through properly could possibly... oh."

ROFL! That's great.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I agree with nearly all of this - the only exception I have is to your bit on over-analysis. I disagree. Sometimes people can work themselves up over something by thinking about it too much. If it's something they can't influence, then it's not worth worrying about.

[douglas-reay.livejournal.com]

The context I've most often come across people critising time spent on thinking is when they wish to contrast it with time spent on doing, or time spent on feeling. The label 'sad' gets applied to activities like playing Magic the Gathering, collecting Star Trek trivia or working out just how often the traffic lights in Cambridge will synchronise in such a way as to form a particular rune in red lights when seen from the sky. The reason, I think, is not so much that they are seen as non-productive, as that they are seen as anti-social.

If you want to fight this viewpoint, perhaps the parallel to draw is with going to the gym to exercise your body. Thinking is exercise for the mind.

Re: more of a rant than a manifesto

[douglas-reay.livejournal.com]

I've always enjoyed writing manifestos, so I've taken the liberty of trying to recast your words into perhaps a more traditional 'manifesto' form. Martin Luther, Karl Marx or Richard Stallman it is not, but let me know what you think:


The Thoughtful Manifesto

Thought is good.

Thought is the birthright of every human being. Having a brain capable of rational thought is what distinguishes people from animals. To disparage thought is a betrayal of our achievements, our history, of our very identity.

It is the duty of every society, of every parent, of every thoughtful person to encourage thinking - to praise it, to practice it, to improve it, whatever the context. Because the more you think, the easier it becomes. Take joy in thinking, make a habit of it, turn it into a strong tool that you can trust and rely on. Cherish it.

Because thought is the highest freedom. Because without freedom of thought there is no meaning to freedoms of speach, belief or travel. The person who tries to stop you being able to use your brain to its fullest or who tries to disuade you from practicing rational though is as much your enemy as the person who tries to lock you in prison. Shun them. Do not tolerate it, not for an instant.

Take pride in thought. Stand up for it, defend the practice of thinking where 'ere it may be attacked. Thought is your friend and ally, but it is under siege. "Conform" the non-thinkers say, "Don't stand out, don't do what I don't do". Fear, envy and laziness are the enemies of thought. Thought is the enemy of the abusive, the mediocre and the thoughless.

Considerate people are thoughful of others. Creative people are thoughtful of new ideas. Great leaders are thoughtful of what must be done. Whatever you do or strive for, thinking helps. Thought is the blessing of society, the hope of the future, the essence of life.

Think!