A road map for intellectual studies?

[dms1972]

For quite a while I have been interested in the matter of cognitive dissonance in intellectual studies. It can be rather unpleasant, and I wonder if something can be done to suggest direction from one writter to another for people searching after truth, because sometimes one can mix ones philosophers (and other in other fields of study) rather poorly, like a bad cocktail or something, by going from one to another rather haphazardly.

Maybe this would be the same as a guide for the perplexed.

Say for instance someone has studied fairly well one writter, are there any examples that would hold for most people of read this after you've read that, but avoid something else?

Anyone know what I am talking about?

 

[Davian]

I would recommend the podcast found here:

The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Episode #99 prompted me to recommend it to you.

 

[True Scotsman]

For quite a while I have been interested in the matter of cognitive dissonance in intellectual studies. It can be rather unpleasant, and I wonder if something can be done to suggest direction from one writter to another for people searching after truth, because sometimes one can mix ones philosophers (and other in other fields of study) rather poorly, like a bad cocktail or something, by going from one to another rather haphazardly.

Maybe this would be the same as a guide for the perplexed.

Say for instance someone has studied fairly well one writter, are there any examples that would hold for most people of read this after you've read that, but avoid something else?

Anyone know what I am talking about?

I think the secret is to have a firm foundation in the fundamentals and having gone through the process of validating them for yourself and integrating them, you should be able to read any book and judge for yourself whether it is trash or treasure.

 

[StarTemple]

Yes, I think I know what you mean. But this applies to nationalism versus globalism as forms of government in my own research experience of the last 20 years.

When I began this quest I was lucky enough to come across "The Great Reckoning" by Lord Rees Moog and James Davidson. I do not think they used the words globalism or globalization, but by reading that book (like 1993 or so) I clearly understood there are two tiers of world power, and the nation-state is not the final tier, but the base tier.

(Formerly I was in the general perception of the national box, like the high school history classes and even many universities even now still teach. So that book, in its own way, poked a big hole in that "box" for me.)

Though that is not the subject of the book, I got the message. Now as far as cognitive dissonance I quickly let go of nationalistic myths, as a whole and individually, I realized the nation-state is not the end of the story, and in it disappointments are coming for nation-state based power and modern political delusions. That they are pawned now by massive debt, is a hint the "master creditor" is also a very real and more united entity than people realize. (in fact it is a super-corporate multi-national super system, very focused and very powerful and very real)

(But I have run into this aversion as I proceeded, there is a "cognitive dissonance" than blinds many when analyzing the current state of the national power model. I think I know what you mean, that reaction that hampers progress.)

So, when reading people's research and opinions on the nation-state politics and finances (and in person in some cases), I found many still unaware of the future of the nation-state (by the reality of globalism), and so without that basic awareness of the globalization reality and goal, their works are just more delays at times, it depends on how backward they actually are.

So I know what you mean in general.

Yet even the ignorance of the real goal of globalization, is itself a symptom of the tunnel vision that has doomed the nation-state to subservience, rather than a leading model of world government itself in any current nation-state system, imo. So when you become comfortable with the "reality" you see, even ignorant or dissenting views aid the clarity, if you know what I mean, they help prove the point further, so to speak.

Much can still be learned, but seeing the bigger picture clearly certainly aids perception, and now many advanced researchers and some colleges are making the connection for people, it is not a "conspiracy" it is a dynamic of what financial and military globalization really is; it is not static, and it has a grander purpose.

I found Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" very insightful on the economic dimensions of growing and maintaining world power.

Interestingly by the time I read Christopher Lasch "Culture of Narcissism" and "Revolt of the Elites" I knew the greater globalism context actually fueling those symptoms of a great change actually in progress.

So I would say finding the great new "paradigm" truly does aid future research, some times you see a force even another researcher may be attributing to something else, and his own evidence aids your perception in spite of the fact he is not seeing the "bigger picture".

As far as understanding the basic globalism certainty, I found those books, for that time, very insightful. (I think Alvin Toffler Third Wave and Power Shift also attempt to prove this greater globalism dynamic, even if he does not use that word)

Of course now all those books are older, but at the time I needed them, they broadened my global perception, and I'm sure there are others doing the same in modern form, as now it is so solid as to specialize in the components of globalization in great detail.

Believe me, in 1990, this kind of research was not as easy to find, and as voluminous and advanced as it is today, at least not form me.

Regards

 

[dms1972]

I suppose what I am thinking of is how to avoid those knots that one can get into philosophically more than in economic or political thought but those would also be vastly important areas were cognitive dissonance could be problematic so thanks for mentioning your journey and studies.

And thanks for the podcast / website - I have been listening to that and its a great podcast and what they say about the need of intellectual discourse I agree with completely.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Study, and more study, and then time. Youll develop your own ideas eventially.

 

[StarTemple]

I suppose what I am thinking of is how to avoid those knots that one can get into philosophically more than in economic or political thought but those would also be vastly important areas were cognitive dissonance could be problematic so thanks for mentioning your journey and studies.

And thanks for the podcast / website - I have been listening to that and its a great podcast and what they say about the need of intellectual discourse I agree with completely.

On "knots": keep an open mind, and put the time into seeing a number of viewpoints. At the same time DOUBT everyone, do not get captured too early into an idea. And not doubt as in disregard or think as invalid immediately, but to take it all in as an opinion, like mine was.

It took me past my 20s to really start to question the lies my teachers told me, or should I say, falsehoods, because they were not purposely deceptive, they just taught what they had learned and accepted too soon.

Thus TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE INTERNET. Ultra-conservative views in sciences, politics and philosophies, etc, etc, are reinforced because the blase' is literally more profitable than things with real truths. And mainstream media promotes the profitable, hence the blase'.

So look into media that is not so conservative and mainstream and APPRECIATE what the Web is now really offering and its potential to review huges amounts of information without the old school need to live in a library.

In the old days, researching one thing could take weeks of trips to the library, hunting up the books, reading them, taking them home, looking for better books, stickies as bookmarks, paper diagrams, etc, etc.

Many younger people do not realize just how conveniently deep research is now facilitated by the internet. People literally had to hunt, dig and laboriously look for new information in the "old days". Now that it is at your finger tips, take advantage of it, look around, because digging there can do what was a weeks worth of work, in one evening.

Imagine the possibilities!

Keep the ability to suspend disbelief or belief long enough to take in as much info on a subject as long as possible. The big picture is sometimes the hardest thing to arrive upon. Plenty of puzzle pieces, but how does it all fit together; because it does all relate in a larger way.

You may find in research, as it happened to me all the time, THE BEST STUFF COMES OUT AT THE END OF YOUR RESEARCH.

I do not know what it is, but the best books I always found late in my research, and thus the best points took time to finally come across in a way that made the "bigger picture" much easier to see. And I mean projects that took a few months or a year compiling research, not multi-year things that apply in another way, somehow the best stuff comes out the deeper you dig, and the more you dig the more that comes out over a year or years.

Unfortunately gettign paid well to then stagnate, also occurs for some.

I found that principle true as well in internet research. Mix key words and trigger words in innovative ways and interesting stuff pops up, and keep looking and looking for more and more.

As an example I took the target subject "investment markets", "bicycles", "education", "geo-politics", "medicine", etc, etc, and paired all those targets with the term "globalization", and for some reason the returns always seemed to contain more relevant information because they ended up in articles or discussion with some sort of globalization theme, which often held more emergent insight, than is present in the conventional information.

Just as much changed with the Web quickly, make no mistake much has also changed in the world in also "invisible" but hugely significant ways. It is not the same world it used to be, it looks the same, but it is not the same in the unseen frameworks of global administrative change that progresses with "globalization".

Globalization is not just a word, it is a process with a goal: world government. Capitalism crystallizes into globalization sub-monopolies, that equate to the core corporate complex authorities as globalization produces, naturally,world government. It is not "globalizing" randomly, it is by design, and the entities guiding it are supra-national beneficiaries of the whole process.

But I diverged. The point would be find the avante garde in what your looking for, maybe the thing offending the establishment, and go from there. The settled silt has no gold in it, one now has to dig for it, and things that offended people 15 years ago, like geo-political rationale, is now the way it is.

Sometimes the thing the establishment resists, is the thing to look at more closely. Ron Paul's 2015 forecast really shocked me, as used to this stuff as I am. What shocked me was not the information, but its source Ron Paul. When I see fairly respectable mainstream politicians and former Whitehouse officials like Paul Craig Roberts and Catherine Austin-Fitts pretty much describe the "dead-man-walking" US nation-state sovereign wealth and Constitutional system, I do find that rather chilling.

One can no longer flush this stuff as "conspiracy theory", it is becoming reality theory. Very strange, and strange to me how many people DO NOT SEE IT!! The point being it has been formulating for a while, was and is resisted, but has real global system truths in it. And other things now fall under the same resistance pattern to emergent insights and innovations that have deeper truths in them.

Look into those things.

And you will not find that chill or emergent awareness in the mainstream media, because people change the channel, and do not buy the Doritos and tampons that pay the mainstream media bills.

Just fearlessly dig in, and don't stop. And do not lose sight of the fact it is equating to an eventual conflict with the King of kings. I do not feel that is "my opinion", it is Biblically based truth, apparent in the fact the human system is attempting to build its own "Kingdom of God". Do not be fooled, world government is not the "Kingdom of God" and Christ is not coming to join world government or the UN, or whatever it is they brand it as for its final presentation. THAT is the "biggest picture".

Regards