{"id":19960,"date":"2020-10-09T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19960"},"modified":"2020-09-28T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T21:56:00","slug":"the-examined-life-its-time-to-start-listening-to-smart-people-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/10\/09\/the-examined-life-its-time-to-start-listening-to-smart-people-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The Examined Life<\/em>: It\u2019s time to start listening to smart people again"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was told in a History class\u2014I\u2019m actually probably told this every year\u2014that the reason we study history is so we can learn from example and avoid making the same mistakes that the people who came before us did. And I just kind of assumed we had our best people on that, making sure we didn\u2019t repeat those mistakes. What I\u2019ve realized since then is that nobody is doing this job. Or that there are people doing this job, but the decision-makers are ignoring them.<\/p>\n

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The Examined Life<\/em> is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em> (photo by Ethan Badr\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What I want to talk about is a little tricky to put a finger on\u2014I guess it\u2019s the loss of respect for smart people. Maybe \u201crespect\u201d is the wrong word, but decision-makers don\u2019t listen to them as much as they once did. Take ancient Rome, for example: philosophers were well respected in society and considered to be very wise. Politicians often went to them for advice or hired them as permanent advisors. People in this day and age think of philosophers as outdated, high-minded, and broke. In my non-expert opinion, I think this is because philosophy has changed.\u00a0Before science was studied by scientists, it was studied by philosophers. And math was closely related to philosophy as well. The Pythagorean theorem was invented by a Greek philosopher of the same name. Aristotle invented the scientific method, which we still use to this day.<\/p>\n

Scientists and mathematicians are busy putting the physical world under a microscope. Historians are living in the past. Philosophers are struggling to stay relevant with logic and ethics as their only remaining expertise. And here\u2019s the important bit; they aren\u2019t talking to each other anymore. Disciplines have become so specialized that they have lost their overarching organization.<\/p>\n

What we need to do is make these fragmented disciplines start working and talking with each other again. And then have them either advise politicians or work in politics themselves. We could be a lot more focused as a species if these experts started making us look at the bigger picture. Mathematicians and scientists could drive progress. Philosophers and historians could put the brakes on that progress and steer the ship in the right direction. Maybe if we had a system like that we wouldn\u2019t have junkyards full of cars, an ocean full of plastic, and a population addicted to social media.<\/p>\n

We have the knowledge. We have the expertise. What we always seem to be lacking is organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was told in a History class\u2014I\u2019m actually probably told this every year\u2014that the reason we study history is so we can learn from example and avoid making the same mistakes that the people who came before us did. And I just kind of assumed we had our best people on that, making sure we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t