“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” ~ David Hume, Scottish philosopher, economist and historian
Somewhere along the way, “reasonable” got a good connotation and “unreasonable” got a bad connotation in modern society. Comprise, consensus, and contentment hopped aboard the reasonable train. Renegade, fringe, and non-conformity jumped to defend the ground of “unreasonable.” And we all lost in the process. At least until now.
It’s not sustainable. It’s not good for us or for our communities. Reasonable thoughts and behaviors, when left to their own devices, lead us around in circles. They put blinders on us because the preoccupation of a circular path is the center, the indecisive middle ground that stands for nothing except appeasement, which honestly no one wants. Reason needs to be checked.
Think of all the people you admire, products you love, missions of organizations that make you see the world differently, and works of art (broadly defined) that inspire you. Do they define “reasonable” to you? I highly doubt it. I bet they go against the grain.
The trouble is that it’s only when someone achieves the heights of someone like Steve Jobs, my hero of unreasonableness, that we encourage this MO. If someone is “out of line”, meaning that they do something that many others don’t, they get a sideways glance and wide berth as we circumvent their presence, as if we’re afraid of being sucked into their circle of unreasonableness. It shouldn’t be that way. The next Steve Jobs isn’t going to look, act, or sound like Steve Jobs at all. He or she is going to do things his or her own way because that’s what Steve did.
When the phrase “why can’t we all just along?” entered the American lexicon, it was not meant to be translated into “can’t we all just stand for nothing and never stray from the cookie cutter?” We should be accepting of all people to walk to their own beat. And more than that, we must encourage and reward new ways of being and thinking in schools, in communities, in our families, in business, and in our government.
I’m in David Hume’s camp. Reason, and everything that goes along with it, shouldn’t be vilified but it needs to be contained. For us to progress, reason must be tempered with passion. Not the other way around. And it’s not too late for us – we can turn this around.
Christa Avampato 