"If you do not take the trouble to know the truth, there is enough truth at hand so that you can live in peace. But if you crave it with all your heart, then it is not enough to know it." -Pascal, Pensées no. 226
the danger of inattention is being satisfied with what one already knows. Thereby, one blocks their receptivity to examining ideas, beliefs, truth. As Josef Pieper relates, "... the conditions of modern life not only favor but almost compel such inattention, which makes belief in practice rather improbable."
Thus you shut yourself off to truth, and can do so "virtually with a clear conscience," and this is sad indeed.
However, receptivity requires critical thinking. As Augustine has said (I believe), "The point of having an open mind, like an open mouth, is to shut it on something solid." (or something like that, I am being liberal with this last quotation.)
by love.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
inveterate inattentiveness
Posted by Kristi at 12:55 PM
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I have trouble personally with that inattentiveness. I get to thinking: "Oh, I may not know everything, but I know what I need to know in order to live my life well at this present time; I'm okay!" And sometimes I am okay. But this attitude inevitably bleeds into the times when I'm not okay and don't know enough, and I end up falling on my epistemic butt once again.
Receptivity does require critical thinking. One can't be satisfied with a naive receptivity of embracing every tomfool idea out there in the universe; everything cannot be true. "Question everything!" they say, and sometimes I forget to ask them, "Why?" And other times I think that for having asked, "Why?" and come out the other side, that I have completely arrived, and I fail to put into practice a genuinely critical receptivity: I reduce my "why" to a mere word.
Yesterday, my Writing For Film professor, Michele Volansky, was explaining to us that our films have got to have distinct plot points, something that they were sorely lacking. "Feel the learn!" she exclaimed. "Are you feeling the learn?" And sometimes you've gotta feel the learn.
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