I heard someone complain about politicians again today.  They were very frustrated, unable to understand why politicians do the things they do.

I’ve met a few, and received many letters from them. It was difficult to confront, but I finally had to admit the fact that they are a different breed.  They are not normal people.

Politicians, as a group, are extremely lacking in awareness.  They repeat mantras without thinking.  Normal people don’t talk like that.

A normal person is honest, so they just assume everyone else is too.  That may be why the dishonest people have so much power in this world, even though they represent a tiny fraction of the population.  When a dishonest person uses the authority argument, all the honest people reflexively assume they must be telling the truth.  Why would they lie?  No one else does.   So the honest people assume they lack the knowledge or wisdom to understand, and they decide to trust the authority figure.

Remember, the truth is simple and resonates in the mind.  Nothing is too complicated for the average person to understand, if it is explained by an honest person.  If someone truly understands a subject then they will make the effort to explain it so they can share their knowledge with others.  The authority figures simply repeat their mantras without explanation.

The good news is that most people are honest.  If we would stop believing those who use the authority argument, and start listening to those who explain things so their listeners can judge with their own minds, then we would quickly abandon all the false data, start using the simple truth, and solve all the world’s problems.

We saw in the previous post how Socrates demonstrated that we are all connected, and have access to all knowledge.  It is possible for everyone to know, or remember, a truth.  The truth is simple and resonates in the mind.  Confusion only occurs because of a lack of knowledge or too much false information, not because something is too complicated.

When someone knows something, they want to share that knowledge with others, so they explain it so that the other person can realize it for themselves.  It seems we instinctively know that understanding occurs inside the mind, it is not something we can give to someone from the outside in.

But when someone does not want others to know the truth, but only to manipulate people, they will tell them what to believe without explanation.  This is sometimes called the “authority argument”.  Some obvious authority arguments are, “because I said so”, “I have a degree/experience/etc.”, or the popular “everybody knows”.  A much more deceptive authority argument is to simply state something without any reason at all, pretending it must be believed merely because it was stated.

We are all guilty of the authority argument at times, it’s not necessarily bad or manipulative.  If a child asked Einstein what one plus one equaled, rather than explain arithmetic, or ask the child what they thought, he might simply answer, “two”, and see if that satisfied the child’s curiosity for the time.

But on issues of importance, like politics or war, be very careful of those who are unable or unwilling to explain their “solutions” in terms that allow people to understand the issue themselves.  It indicates they either don’t know the truth, or they don’t want us to know.  Honest people want to share their insights with others, and trust that others, when they understand, will agree with the insight.

I think that is one way to sift through the haystack of confusion to find the simple needles of truth.  What do you think?

The Greek philosopher Socrates, as quoted by his student Plato, claimed that learning did not involve absorbing new information, but was in fact remembering.  He believed that everyone is connected to the universe and already instinctively knows the truth, but we are not aware of this vast inherent knowledge until a specific datum of knowledge is triggered, remembered.  Education then, is the process of becoming aware of what we already know.

After making this strange claim to his students, he then demonstrated it.

A man walked by and Socrates called him over and asked if he knew any geometry.  The man said “no”.  Socrates then drew a square on the ground and asked the man how he would double its area.  His first guess was to double the length of the sides, but as he extended the sides of the drawn square on the ground, he realized it was much too big.  Socrates never told the man anything, he simply asked a series of questions, and as the man thought, and drew figures in response to Socrates’ questions, he eventually realized that the length of the diagonal of the square would form the sides of a square of double area.

Socrates’ students were astounded.  Socrates never gave the man any information, not even a hint, he merely asked questions and this man with no knowledge of geometry discovered for himself that in order to double the area of a square, simply take the diagonal of the square to be doubled, and use that length to form the sides of a new square.

We already know, at some hidden level, the solution to any problem we encounter, and I wish for you a powerful memory.

P.S.  I’m writing this quick blog without reference to Plato.  I recommend checking the Plato volume of “Great Books of the Western World” at a library.  Plato tells the story much better than I have repeated here.