Why agree when you dont have to?

This is my reaction to chapter 2 in A grief Observed. I’m not trying to decipher the author’s purpose. This is merely a sub point that was unintentionally installed in my mind by Lewis after reading such statements as, “if God’s goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God: for in the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine. If it is consistent with hurting us, then he may hurt us after death as unendurably as before it.” Take into account I’m not responding to this, just reviewing the concept of ideas similar to the one above.


I seem to enjoy ideas that contradict what I know or clash with my current understanding. I’ve come to note these thoughts as having the potential to be great. A truly great thought will slash through the status quo and decimates the mundane routine of consenting. A great idea is not friendly, it will anger fools and perplex intellectuals, and it will not be painless to accept. Whether you agree with the idea or not is of no importance to the essential quality that defines it as great. Furthermore, your opinion means nothing unless you far surpass the original idea with a new one of even greater logic. But be warned, stock answers that you keep tucked away in your pants pocket for just such an occasion will have no effect, this will require a new brand of thinking.

Granted, great ideas do not always start out perfect. (i.e. Einstein’s theory of relativity.) Bases on this process of sensible disagreement, great ideas may need some revision but that’s to be expected, most thoughts come out as vomitous mass the first time anyway.

Once an idea of this stature arises it must be thought about, a thing to remember is that the greatness I described is not directly proportional to factuality. After acknowledging that an idea is great the next step is questioning its legitimacy. This brings me to a bit of an overlooked controversial question. Does the origin of an idea constitute its validity? If you are presented with a statement so flawless, so saturated in logic does it matter who presented this idea to you? Who are you to disagree with something you can’t prove wrong with any form of reason, based on who said it. This is a model of prejudice not recognized by most people. If something is right and you have no basis to prove it wrong it is right, there is no need to encumber the equation with more variables.

Sadly great ideas have a short life expectancy, when expired they do not loose importance but they are discarded and removed from the category, “groundbreaking” and filed away under everyday understanding. This is every idea’s goal and every fact’s destiny but it still distresses me how much we take for granted.

So now if you want to possess a great idea of your own the process is quite simple for something so prolific. Think, ask questions about the answers to the questions, and don’t agree, because you don’t have to.