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Wrestling with Thought

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By Gabe Roberts

            In my Home Economics class, we've been watching a documentary about whole-foods, plant-based diets called Forks over Knives. It's been a fascinating watch for many reasons, and it's had a profound effect on me. I've started adding more and more vegetables to my tray during lunch and have also recently cut out the cereal and milk I've been fond of for basically my entire life. I was quite taken in by it and started to wonder why. Why was this idea so appealing to me? Was it true? Should I trust the people saying it? The movie got me thinking about how we take in ideas and evaluate them.
           
Objectively, you are exposed to more ideas than ever before. Advancements in broadcast communication, the internet, and virtually every other form of technology on the planet have resulted in a sea of ideas. Some good, some bad, and some dangerous. There are so many dubious or "well, that could be true" ideas that there's actually a word for it now. Dictionary.com now defines truthiness as

"the quality of seeming to be true according to one's intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like."

If it's true or not doesn't matter, just if it sounds like it could be true. What I think this represents is a cultural laziness. We've become deadened to a flood of ideas, of propositions and advancements that overwhelm our sensibilities. There are just too many ideas out there, and we've surrendered, giving up intellectual integrity for ease of mind. It doesn't matter who you are, either. I did the exact same thing in Media Literacy class last year after Mr. Steinkamp proposed that milk wasn't nutritional for you. I couldn't accept it and refused to research it because it wasn't worth my time, or so I thought. Milk being good for you sounded plausible. Truthy. Reflecting on that experience now, I was both scared and lazy. I was afraid of what I might find, that what I might find would require a change in my life based on the information that I discovered. I didn't want to change and was okay with being ignorant on the matter and continuing to drink my beloved milk. My six-year-old brother, when asked why we should drink milk, confidently replied, "Calcium!" when I asked him.

Ideas, though a difficult opponent and one that you will face your whole life, are worth wrestling with. Trying to come up with a formula or an easy step-by-step way to decide if an idea is good or worth subscribing to defeats the purpose of the experience. There are, however, two questions you can ask yourself to create a good starting point. When presented with an idea, ask, "Why?" and "Who said so?" These basic inquiries will guide you to important information you will need when deciding the hard facts surrounding the idea, and if any hidden agenda or conflict of interest is at work. Ideas are powerful, and worth every second you give them. Benjamin Franklin once said, "Give me 26 lead soldiers and I will conquer the world," Referring to the 26 letters of the alphabet and the power of an idea. So the next time you see something that sounds like it could be true or has a massive impact on the world, or even effects something as small as your eating habits, wrestle with the thought. It's worth the fight.


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