| good thinking |
chosen belonging in relation to choosing to belong |
| easily casual, easily alien
gary e. davis |
December 5, 2024 |
| To persons averse to aliens, let me share how being oriented
by leading minds is adventurous. |
| I’m good at being casual, yet… |  |
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I’m making my life as best I can relative to my abiliies, my resources, and time. Doesn’t every- |
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| Also, few persons (casually living and aspiring) probably think of being relative to stan- dard aspects (different than employing values for preferring). Indeed, many casual lives don’t think much at all, relative to a rich sense of thinking. OK: They have default dispos- itions, but likely finding rubrics like "default disposition“ alien. Talk of modes and aspects is likely alien. So, a person who’s interested in kinds, aspects, etc. may be likely regarded by casual life as unapproachable, even "elitist.“ Persons lacking higher education may feel embarrassed by their difficulty understanding, which is partly the fault of more-articulate persons who don’t give time to mutuality (ensuring reciprocal engagement), or lack ability to prevent intimidation (unlike experienced educators). I admire persons who are usually curious, devoted to inquiry and questioning, and who want to do their best. They deserve to enjoy that. Wanting to be—being—aspiring, ventursome, tenacious, diligent, and realistic is valuable. Being mindful, conscientious, reliable, deliberative, well-informed, truly intuitive, careful, genuine, empathic, generous, gracious, considerate is valuable. Who would disagree! Good reason prefers highly engaged and caring life over casual life. Articulateness is better than inarticulateness. While all persons deserve to have their entitlement to dignity recognized and their belief in their integrity respected, some lives are better than others, obviously. Being oriented by authentic aspirations and feasible ideals is better than not being so oriented. Persons living better lives are better persons, while the diversity of lives deserves to be understood fairly. |
| Folks in a casual world aren’t always good, reasonable persons | |||
Being one of the folks is fine. Casual life can be wonderful. And folks don’t need aliens judging their lives as “fine.” Indeed, ordinary folk don’t consider themselves as “ordinary,” except episodically (or- dinary days), because they’re the persons they live to be, needing self-esteem for staying with their obligations, needing belief in their dignity and integrity, especially inasmuch as they depend on acceptable recognition of their dignity and integrity. Inasmuch as folks may be clueless about their lives (to we aliens), that can be believed without condescension. Others’ showing dim comprehension of their days and their time is nonetheless showing that they’re surviving, maybe thriving within their province. That deserves due appreciation. But to folks, my discussion of “proximality and everydayness” is probably the work of an alien. Orindary life likely has little time for complexities, let alone conceptual ven- tures, reflective depths, or large-scale narrative landscapes. Venturing to understand highly individuated persons is likely unappealing. OK. But finding the venture appealing isn’t elitist, just as fidelity to making the best of one’s life may be exemplary without being overbearing—belonging highly, deeply, and widely to a venture without being exclusive. That may be extra-ordinary in the standard sense of exemplarity, while without seeking to be recognized as “influencer.” On the other hand, the world has more than enough pretentious life. Such persons must believe that they’re “good, reasonable persons” (GRP), validated by similar others (socio- centrism), even though that very often doesn’t go well. But GRP belief isn’t valid just by being believed. Authentic life can easily show itself graciously and validly. Inauthentic life cannot. Pretentious life easily becomes impatient and deflective. For me (this alien), understanding the value—the Value—of validity is good. Being graciously flexible is good. |
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| pursuing extraordinary mind | |||
A mind exemplifies a singularity of individuation, maybe being merely idiosyncratic; yet, maybe being uniquely individual (a scientist, artist, scholar). Actually, that’s basically a mere condition of being extra-ordinary: being “1a: more than ordinary : not of the ordinary order or pattern” (M-W Unabridged). Many persons don’t show mature autonomy, which is beyond ordinary life: “2a: of, re- lating to, or having the degree of care, caution, or diligence typical of that exercised by an extremely prudent person.” (Don’t you love lexicologists?) Partial autonomy is common, of course: a person as no longer a “minor,” being “in majority,” says the law. So, being extra-ordinary is a matter of degrees (a keynote of ethical development modeling in educational psychology). But mature autonomy—which is common for persons whose lives authentically deserve admiration, showing virtue in the normal sense—aren’t yet protean sensibilities, which are not as such leading minds yet, but may be extraordinary in the usual sense: “2b(1): exceptional to a very marked extent : most unusual : far from common.” (I model “postconventional” sensibility beyond autonomous “moral”/ethical relevance as potentially protean, then virtuously influential.) Ideally, educational leadership seeks to cultivate sensibilities to a highly capable degree of self-directed learning and flourishing of selformativity. A philosophy of education which ventures beyond values of mature autonomy is better than one which is less venturesome. There are leading minds, of course. Venturing to understand a protean mind is valuable for better understanding what may belong to a leading mind. |
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