widely held opinions are often irrational
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Introduction
Marcus Aurelius was a stoic philosopher and a Roman emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD, the last of the Five Good Emperors and, according to Wikipedia, “the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace, calmness, and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD.” The stoicists believed that practicing virtue in one’s life was a necessary and sufficient condition for happiness, which they called eudaimonia. The literal translation of eudaimonia is “good spiritedness.”
Meditations contains 12 books, but historians think that Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations for himself, as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement, and that the book was never intended by him to be published. Although a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius was a deep thinker and nothing like the mindless leaders and politicians of our day. He believed that it was important to develop a cosmic perspective on life, and to understand that everything we see comes from Nature.
Some pretty smart and wise people lived 2,000 years ago.
2,000 years later...
The quote above applies to our lives today because the majority opinion changes depending on what fear porn is currently being promoted by the mass media and on social media.
“The economy is collapsing!”
“We are now at the beginning of World War 3!”
“If we don’t raise the debt ceiling the government will default!”
“If we don’t lower our carbon footprint humanity will be destroyed by climate change!”
It just goes on and on and on... and there’s a new one every week. These insane narratives – all of which are lies – are promoted over and over again by a mass media whose purpose, it seems, is to spread fear porn and chaos. It is easy to go along with these narratives because not to – as the talking heads and the social media gurus tell us – makes us social outcasts. We feel stupid not to join the majority.
But the majority opinion is often the insane opinion. The majority opinion is often just a narrative – a collection of lies and half-truths designed to scare us. For example, a 4th-generation farmer in South Dakota is being threatened with an eminent domain lawsuit – the precursor to seizing his land – so that a private corporation can build a “carbon capture reduction pipeline” on his property. According to MIT’s Climate Portal,
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to a collection of technologies that can combat climate change by reducing carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions. The idea behind CCS is to capture the CO 2 generated by burning fossil fuels before it is released to the atmosphere. The question is then: What to do with the captured CO 2? Most current CCS strategies call for the injection of CO2 deep underground. This forms a “closed loop”, where the carbon is extracted from the Earth as fossil fuels and then is returned to the Earth as CO2.”
If this seems nutty to you, well, it is. There are a lot of climate change grifters out there, and they are making a ton of money on incomprehensible programs like these. Part of this majority opinion includes the idea that raising cows is environmentally dangerous because it raises the carbon footprint, and farming itself is dangerous because of polluting fertilizers and gas-guzzling farm equipment. The government of the Netherlands believes just that. The Dutch are the greatest farmers in the world, but their government wants to shut down farming to a large extent because it is (supposedly) environmentally dangerous. Type in “Netherlands farmer protest” into your search engine and read all about this craziness! What is truly dangerous are nutty opinions like this.
The Majority Opinion is that global warming is going to destroy the climate and the planet. But like many majority opinions, it is crazy. Here is a graph that shows 4 consecutive years of decreasing maxima in the past four 11-year solar cycles:
As you can see, for the past 44 years the sunspot numbers – a measure of the amount of solar radiation that hits the earth – has been decreasing. The planet warms when the amount of solar radiation increases, and cools when it decreases. The Majority Opinion doesn’t want to examine the science, because it conflicts with the fear-porn global warming/climate change narrative and the grifters who benefit from it.
Today, Marcus Aurelius’ maxim holds true more than ever.
It seems like a good idea to me to develop a more cosmic perspective on life, like Marcus Aurelius did 2,000 years ago. This involves recognizing our own spirituality and connection to the Infinite. And it would probably be a good idea to observe nature and pay attention to the vast, underlying harmony we see there. Through nature we can perceive the face of the Creative Source.