Philosophers Don't Make Good Cheerleaders

It has been asked whether philosophers are good for anything at all. And not just by high-school bullies and robber barons, but sometimes even by philosophers. My answer: it definitely depends on the philosopher. Some of them are truly awful. Others are awesome geniuses who only seem useless to some of their contemporaries because they're so brilliant that it literally takes centuries before anyone can begin to figure out what they were talking about. If you ask me -- I realize no one asked me -- we should pose that question, the question of whether or not someone is good for something or not, we should pose that question more often in regard to bullies and robber barons. I mean, look who's about to get the freakin Republican nomination for President of the United States. It's not a philosopher. It's not even nearly as close to being a philosopher as the average human being. It's a walking, talking combed-over indictment of our society and how we kiss the asses of those we think are extremely rich, (I agree with those who say the most likely reason Trump doesn't want to make his tax returns public is because it would become plain that he's been lying about being a billionaire.) and underrate those who truly attempt to use their minds to the utmost. Hillary Clinton got stomped in West Virginia for telling the truth about the future of coal mining: that it doesn't have a future. A country which valued philosophy even a little bit would never have anyone like Chump or W within miles of being elected for even a small elected office. In a country with some respect for philosophy, a candidate for the leadership of that country wouldn't be set back politically for saying something which is common knowledge. A country with some respect for philosophy wouldn't be in full flight from its own knowledge so much that such a candidate would suffer a loss of popularity for such a confrontation of what everyone knows.

Stop and think more often. Who knows, it just might end up doing everybody a lot of good.

Or, if you want to be like that walking, talking orange comb-over, don't.