The Village Idiot Studio
You, dear visitor, are part of a very rare species to even come to a website that celebrates
Higher Order Thinking (HOT).
Most people DON’T WANT TO THINK, because:
Call it CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING. Call it HIGHER ORDER THINKING. If you’re feeling particularly extravagant, even call it WISDOM.
Thinking is what humans uniquely do, and the human mind is an extraordinary instrument.
In fact, we who call ourselves HOMO SAPIENS (Wise Humans) should be as affronted by bad thinking as we are by ugliness or cruelty. At the Village Idiot Studio, we celebrate logic, reason, wit, and the exquisite exertions of the human mind.
Embracing nuance as well as complexity, we emphatically resist reactivity, tribalism, emotional obfuscation and intellectual lethargy.
We will not mock the stupid for, the poor things, they know not what they do. But we reserve the right to ruthlessly mock stupidity itself- wherever we find it. Because allowing it to co-exist with good sense in the public space debases what little intelligence and wisdom there is. Calling out and deriding bad ideas is an existential, and hence moral, imperative. On occasion powerful public figures will be called out too because their stupidity, unlike that of an idiot on social media, has far wider implications for society.
Intelligence and humor have retreated from the public space, and it is no longer safe to crack jokes, let alone state simple facts, because fragile sensitivities might be offended. When humor becomes unsafe, we are no longer a free and open society. Instead, we live in the land of the stupid where all the ‘cool’ people behave like smug little despots- full of passionate intensity and as fixated on ‘morality’ as the Taliban or the ISIS. With dumb certainty trending, the Village Idiot Studio will be the space for the Skeptically Uncool.
So, if you are that almost extinct species, the kind who still uses your neocortex (the largest and most evolved part of the human brain), I’d like to offer you a path out of hysterical self-righteousness and groupthink. Here you will find radically non-partisan perspectives about culture, society, technology, pluralism, and democracy.
If you are perplexed about where the world is going, I invite you to join my courses and enjoy my videos, essays and posters. These have been designed to provoke, deepen and celebrate intellectual liberation from the dead-weight of a corrupted intellectualism and timid, progressive groupthink. I hope you will find some meaning and guidance here and, perhaps together we can even strive for some measure of wisdom.
SAVING THE HUMAN MIND- ONE THOUGHT AT A TIME:
Most folks don’t want to think. Many think strong feelings and opinions are a sign of thinking. Others believe we can outsource our thinking to machines.
If you have read this, you must be at least mildly curious about the act of thinking and improving how you use your mind.
So how do I teach people how to think better- and for themselves?
Slowly, deliberately, and very, very quietly.
A lifetime of resolving conflicts, strengthening grassroots democracies,
and teaching people HOW TO THINK has taught me these
Most of what we call ‘thinking’ tends to be worrying, recycling old thoughts, recollection, and low-grade problem solving- what to cook or how to respond to an email.
Most beliefs and opinions have been adopted from the media, peers, loved ones, and our own social conditioning.
Those who are defensive about their opinions are ere is usually a direct correlation between poor thinking and strong emotions.
The easiest way to avoid thinking is to take a moral position (good/evil).
While we are ashamed of flabby bodies or physical blemishes, we tend to disregard our own shallow or sloppy thinking!
Wise people don’t shop around for answers, they craft their own.
