The Role Of The Thinker

Some people have been claiming that it is selfish of me to be preoccupied with ideas.

My response is that everything that we have started as somebody’s idea and that without such supposedly selfish people we would not have much of anything at all.

A lawyer once told me, “Well, these are just your thoughts.” Well yes,  that they are. Thoughts are also at the basis of your political and economic system that made it possible for you to be a lawyer. Without thoughts you would have nothing. Everything that we have started as a thought.

Well aren’t these just YOUR thoughts? That they are, but the thoughts at the basis of your system were also once somebody’s. Were John Locke and Adam Smith selfish to have made the intellectual basis for capitalism and democracy?

So why would I be selfish to propose ideas such as integrative cognition and make original philosophical arguments such as distinction between valued and non-valued dualities?

Different people make different kinds of contributions. If someone wants to be a lawyer or an engineer that is his right. But there is very much a role for a thinker as well. I do not believe that this role will ever go away. There will always be need for people to analyse and make sense of things.

The people who think that business makes possible the intellectual have it confused. It was intellectuals such as Locke, Smith and Ayn Rand that laid the intellectual foundation for capitalism. The people involved in the economy need the intellectuals, and it is time that such be respected.