A Tool of the Warrior: ‘How Did You Arrive at That Conclusion?’
My fellow warrior. You may be afraid. You may be uncertain. You may not know where to begin.
If that describes you, I’ve written at length about where to begin: never wear the face mask again.
Demand more from your life.
Set a higher standard.
If you do not set that high standard, you will have a low standard and the inevitable outcome of such standards.
If you do not set standards for you and your own, you will not achieve your dreams, but will instead achieve someone else’s.
How To End The Lockdown In Your Own Life
Articles like these here can help you set that standard.
Books like this one can help you get there, starting with never wearing a mask again.
It all comes down to making a high standards decision and making that decision a necessity that you refuse to live without.
If you can figure out how to never wear a face mask again, you can figure out how to say no to the vaccine, how to reopen your business, how to end the lockdowns in your own life, and lots of other bold and awe-inspiring behavior.
That’s Not Enough
But that’s not enough. A lot of territory has been lost in 2020 and needs to be regained and far exceeded.
We need to push into the breach and win greater victories for freedom.
If you are at a loss for the next step from there, take one phrase out into the world with you: “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
It’s a phrase for learning from others who know what they are talking about. And it’s also a useful phrase for encouraging, influencing, and winning, for it is so effective at identifying and overcoming mindlessness in the world around you.
If a person trying to communicate with you has thought through what they need to say and why they need to say it, that’s fantastic.
I’m A Firm Believer In The Hinlicky Rule
I’m a firm believer in the Hinlicky Rule, which says:
“You shall not criticize the position of another…until you can state that position with such accuracy, completeness and sympathy, that the opponent himself declares, ‘Yes, I could not have said it better myself!‘ Then, and only then, may you criticize. For then you are engaging a real alternative and advancing a real argument. Otherwise you shed only heat, not light.”
I love to learn from others.
Tacit Approval Is Not Okay, It’s Quite Evil. Intellectual Rigor Is Needed
Nodding and approving during that process of learning, though, isn’t acceptable unless you actually approve.
It’s both okay and good of you to be brutally honest, direct, and intellectually rigorous with a well-studied peer, inferior, or superior. Your challenging questions are needed for someone who knows what they are talking about. If they know what they are saying and are studied on the topic, they are ready to be hit over the head with the mallet of your intellectual curiosity and may have just the helmet of knowledge to protect themselves. Done right, both you and they are better off for such a conversation.
Relatively few people actually know what they are talking about. Those who don’t know could really use the benefit of your question. “How did you arrive at that conclusion?” The more worked up they are, the less likely they are to know what they are talking about and the more they could benefit from being asked that question by you. All around you could really use the benefit of your question. “How did you arrive at that conclusion?” The whole world could really use the benefit of your question. “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
And after you get a response, how useful it is to be ready with an honest follow up. If you are at a loss, a pretty useful tool at a moment where you refuse to give tacit approval is to look the other square in the eyes with an honestly, compassionately, and calmly delivered “I don’t find your argument very convincing.”
Two Generations Ago, Society Was More Edifying, Today Almost All Adults Are Derelict In This Role
Two generations ago, boys who could have been straight or could have been gay were encouraged by society to be straight and to live the life of a family man, because, among other reasons, by many measures that would provide greater happiness.
Today society refuses to provide even that. Society instead goes so far as to encourage confusion about if they are even a boy.
Do you participate in that creation of confusion?
I don’t see how that serves the interest of that child. Children need the guidance of adults who will lead the child fearlessly down an edifying path.
Ignore Whines, Assaults, and Ad Hominems, Don’t Let Them Distract Your Focus
For pointing this out, am I anti-gay? Am I a homophobe? Hardly.
But should that question even matter? Only in a frivolous a
Article from LewRockwell
