A Possible Antidote to the Current Political State of Raucousness

“Some people talk when they have something to say, my mother said, and some people don’t. How can you talk if you don’t say anything, I said. You talk without words. We are always talking without words. Well, what good are words, then? Not very good, most of the time. Most of the time they’re only good to keep back what you really want to say, or something you don’t want known.” — William Saroyan’s My Name is Aram.

And, from Heidegger two short thoughts:

“Any kind of polemics fails from the outset to assume the attitude of thinking. The opponent’s role is not the thinking role. Thinking is thinking only when it pursues whatever speaks for a subject”. The matter of thinking is always confounding.

I would like us to consider this question: Was heisst Denken? I need to consider it. I think it would be good for each of us too as well. In its trace are embedded three more subtle inquiries, viz.: What is called thinking? What calls for thinking? What does thinking demand?

Why do we need to learn how to think? That I had hoped was apparent, despite it thus revealing that we have not been thinking. We are living in “a thought-provoking time." Today, partisan paralysis grips the nation at a time when thinking must become paramount. Thinking is relevant and profoundly important to all Americans. Our nation is in decline. Our children’s future is at risk. And, we can no longer assume that our elected officials or any one group or another will work with the best interest of the many at heart.

So, what does it mean to think? When are we thinking? About what are we to think? Do we really even know how to think? Frustrated with the current situation and explaining one possible desired end-state, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has co-written a polemic that challenges each of us to wake up; to leave Laputa and come back to our real dimension of time and space, not the parallel universe in which we have allowed ourselves to be deluded, manipulated, and lied to by radio, press, TV, politicians, wordwrites, cable talk show hosts, blog writers, pundits, twitter feeds, email blasts and hacks. Friedman’s book is entitled That Used To Be Us. Sub-textually, he is challenging us to wake up from our complacency, from our own participation in this national paralysis, a paralysis that has been brought on by partisanship, fueled by “words that work," (but which in truth are more correctly words that conceal, manipulate and hide) played out across these various multiple channels, including Patch.com-ville.

Heidegger’s reaction to the subject is more direct, pellucid and more abstract than Friedman’s.

“We must note: … the most thought-provoking matter in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking….”

Thinking deeply requires silence. It requires the ability to listen authentically. It requires reflection and a willingness to come together. As Stephen Covey taught us: We must “seek first to understand, then to be understood”. And, “begin with the end in mind”.