The Suicide of Thought

The Suicide of Thought

I like to start by saying, I cannot take the credit for the title today, it’s from a very thought evoking article I read by Gilbert K. Chesterton.  These are a couple of questions I asked myself after reading it.  Did “thought” die because we fail to think and/or because we only caught what we were taught?  Are we studying to show ourselves approved or are we just taking the word of preachers, teachers, philosophers, etc.  Chesterton said, “There’s a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary.” “That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself.  Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is not validity in any human thought.  There is a thought that stops thought and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”

As I pondered and tried to summarize bits and pieces of this article, I thought, if we find it easier to just take the word of others rather than searching the cosmos to arrange our own thought process, maybe we are assisting “thought” in committing suicide.  I’ve come to realize, my time and my mind truly are terrible things to waste.

Chesterton stated, “There is a thought that stops thought and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”  I agree, how about you?