Dialogues with the Dead

A lot of people don't think particularly clearly. Take as an example the well worn question "If you had all of history at your disposal, what famous people would you invite to a dinner party?" You get answers that will range from Cleopatra, Caesar, Leonardo da Vinci all the way through to Ivan the Terrible; Elvis and Einstein always draw a big crowd as well. That's going to be some dinner party; you and a bunch of dead people. Of course there are advantages to hosting a party for a group of corpses. You won't have to spend much on food and there'll be no crowding at the condiments tray. However the conversation isn't going to be very lively and with the possible exception of Einstein I don't think any of the above speak English.

This is what I mean by not thinking clearly. People are actually much better at thinking unclearly. There are certain benefits to this, brevity for example. In the question above it is assumed that if you can invite historical figures to dinner you can probably also revivify them and give them a crash course in English while the appetizers are going around. This is all taken as read by the unclear thinker. Unclear thinking also allows people in fundamental disagreement to believe that they aren't. This leads to a reduction in conflict at least up until the point when one of the parties realises they've been screwed. But the world was ever thus.

The greatest benefit unclear thinking grants is social. Since most people do not think clearly they tend to regard anyone who does as a pedantic wanker. John Howard, our previous prime minister but one, gained a rare moment of sympathy from me when, in 1999, he pointed out to a television interviewer that the twenty first century would not actually begin until the year 2001. The interviewer didn't follow it up but the expression on his face indicated that he thought our prime minister was a moron. Clear thinkers need to get used to this. What do you think is more likely, that a stupid person will say "I'm stupid so this carefully considered statement by somebody more intelligent is probably correct" or "Hey, this guy dumb"?

Clear thinkers lead a lonely ostracized life, driven out from society like a sick sheep. For such people only a career in law can bring some slight joy to their friendless existence. Unless they combine clear thinking with a penchant for creating imaginary and largely irrelevant concepts in which case they become economists. Saddest of all is the stupid clear thinker. They may not know much but the little they do know they can state with clarity and conviction. They are thus loathed as intellectuals by stupid non clear thinkers, sneered at by intelligent non clear thinkers and employed by economists to give a veneer of respectability to some of their more outrageously irresponsible antics like credit default swaps and the World Bank.

I can think clearly sometimes. Those occasions tend to turn up in inverse proportion to my need for clear thinking. For the rest of the time my thought patterns tend to resemble a Rorschach test. Always assuming Rorschach was drunk and coming down off acid when he took the test. Sometimes having a brain that wanders like an epileptic cow in a minefield is useful (for example when trying to spin a rather simple thought like "how about inviting a bunch of dead people to dinner" into an entire blog entry) on other occasions such as when signing mortgage documents its not so much fun.

Unclear thinking is definitely the dominant thought paradigm in our society. I don't even know what that last sentence means but it sounds pretty impressive so I'm going to leave it in. Since virtually nobody thinks clearly there is little point in attempting to change matters. If you give people what they need they will be ungrateful. If you give people what they want they will be ungrateful and quite possibly dead. But if you give people what they think they need they will consider you a genius.

And if you can work out what that is, quite possibly you are.