People usually are quite reticent where good advice is concerned. There’s a psychological limitation created due to various social philosophies that have been erroneously considered to be the truth.
There seems to be a mental inertia when positive philosophies are discussed. A pattern of clichés form answers to such advice; usually, a lack of real intention to think about life after relinquishing the traditional views.
Life becomes embroiled with some distorted philosophy as well as eschewed psychology, as they become a part of thought process devoid of critical thinking.
~Amitav
The summary of this article, what I would want it to be, is “critical thinking.” Well done!
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I think that same reticence is found in the underlying principle of literature, that a good writer should ‘show, not tell’, and that a quick examination of this is an interesting exercise in the psychology of philosophy.
(We can use 1984 as an example, since everyone seems to like it now)
For example, George Orwell wrote hundreds of essays on dealing with politics and government, and his ideas of newspeak and double-think. But by the far his best medium for delivering these ideas were through his fiction.
Kerouac could’ve written an essay about the selfishness of 1950’s counter-culture, and Franzen could’ve written a very short dissertation about the key principle we all must keep in mind when exercising Freedom (his novel).
But no one would have listened. The essays would’ve sounded like preaching. They would’ve been telling us how to act, or how to think, and we would have resisted these ideas. Instead, these three authors wrote novels that have had profound impacts on the way many people think and behave. These authors followed the basic principle of literature, ‘show, don’t tell’, and in doing so I believe any writer or thinker abides by a very simple, basic principle of human psychology – we don’t want to be told how the world is, or how we should think; we want to be shown different views of the world, shown, so that we might freely choose to accept.
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Thank you for sharing your views on this. Whether it is advice given by anyone or self-advice, after lot of introspection and individual experiences of life (depending on many aspects of societal philosophies) I feel, they are overriden by populist and aggressively positioned theories that displace logic. Subconsciously people do want advice, but individualistic pride and the conscious mind think otherwise. I do agree that people do not want to be told ‘what’ and ‘when’ to think, but education does train the mind to conform, not necessarily out of choice, but in accordance to the prevailing philosophies of society. Thinkers and philosophers always have chosen to speak directly or as you have mentioned, in more subtle way, but desperate times in society always prompts a direct approach of essaying the concerns in form of advice. Whether society accepts them or not is always debatable, but Thinkers and writers takes the responsibility in doing so, mostly perceived as annoying or arrogant approach.
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Indeed, George Orwell’s animal farm is one of the best books that I have ever read. It provokes you emotionally so well that you feel compelled to find out the inspiration behind it. That’s one way to make use of your philosophy and thoughts about events that people won’t talk about in any other way.
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