oxymoron

[RacecaR123]

If tool always states "think for yourself question authority"...shouldn''t we question this if they are "the authority" telling us to do so. Following this statement isn't thinking for yourself or being yourself...it's being what they suggest. So maybe we should question it. It's kind of an oxymoron I must say...yet I enjoy the ironic , yet very true, humour in it.

[Conan_McMurtrie]

Well, by saying that, you are 'thinking for yourself' by questioning what they are telling you! Sucker, what were you thinking? Think for yourself godamnit!

Look, I think we all get about silly about all this shit. Let it go, Tool are just musicians in your eye, they aren't telling you what to do and would have no say to, which is, actually, what they're saying in the first place.

[Quetzocoatl]

of course tool wants you to question them... ever been to their web site?

[Vile1011]

No oxymoron there at all. They said "question authority", not "totally disregard authority". They want you to question their suggestion to think for yourself. If you just do it because they said so then it kinda defeats the purpose. Think for a moment: WHY should you think for yourself? Come up with your own reasons, and if you can't find any then maybe this isn't the best advice for you to follow.

[YURAKAPTIV]

Did anybody follow along to Maynards "Republican Detector" on the last tour.Its basically the same thing your talking about,he said something like "repeat after me",and everybody followed every word like the sheep they were,he was saying things likeI will sand up to authority,i will think for myself,I will not follow anyone elses lead,generally making everyone a hypocrit(hmmmm...Republicans?),of course i didn't say a damn thing cause I think for my self and follow no one elses path but my own,or at least thats what I want to think.YURAKAPTIV

[LeeDawg456]

arent all of the thoughts in our heads just a result of previous thoughts that we have heard? synthesis and analysis, we arent very original, or at least that is my opinion. we take in the world through our senses and spit it out in words that are standard.

so what do you guys think, do we really think for ourselves, or do we just follow others thoughts?

plus, timothy leary was not brainwashing, it was propoganda, its just effective rhetorical devices that catch our attention.

[TimothyLeary]

Nothing is original, no one thinks for themselves; not anymore. Seriously, like everything in the world has been done; everystyle of music, every trend. if you are exposed to the media, you cannot completely think for yourself.

[dawn]

If we could think entirely for ourselves, we would not fall victim to the limitations of the spoken/written word...we would not rely on technology as we currently do...calculators, books, anything that supports media would be obsolete...

...At any rate...we are all the pieces of the whole...each dependant on the other to properly function as a unit of energy...this alone contradicts any concept of entirely independant thought...or being for tht matter.

[CloudEleven]

I think this whole paradox/oxymoron thing was the intended idea. I've thought of this many times before, and found the best thing to do, is try to get as accurate information as possible, strip all the media bullshit away as best you can and decide how YOU feel about things. Judging from your own convictions. What else can you do??? Believe in yourself.

[XiPHiaS]

They're not saying: don't do anything any authority says. They're just saying you have to think about it, and then decide whether you will do it or not.

[Wataru]

This thread makes me think of a question I asked my mom when I was really little.

Me: "Mom, why do we believe in God?"
Mom: "Becuase He's God, dear."
Me: **puzzled look**
Mom: "You'll understand when you're older."

Ok, so 10 years later I must not be any older. Because all I hear is "You should believe in God because if you don't, you'll go to hell, but if you do, you'll go to heaven."

Now, before I get flamed by any devout Christians that there might be reading this, let me elaborate... I am NOT against Christ, I am NOT an atheist/satanist. I AM looking for a reason to be one or the other.

Let's just make a hypothetical scenario in which Mormonism is true. Does that make it right to just decide to stop being an atheist or whatever you are and be a Mormon? NO! It's like cheating off someone's test, you might get the right awnser, but the point is to LEARN, to UNDERSTAND, and if you just accept what someone said, you haven't LEARNED anything.

The anchient Greek philosopher, Socrates. Who developed the Dialectic Method, a way by which to prove things false, is based on the idea that truth is TRUE, and because it is true, it can NOT be proven false. So, Socrates spent all his time questioning other people's beliefs. Perhaps the only thing he did more than that was urge others to question his ideas. I think this is what Tool is saying when they tell us to "question authority": "Hey, there's alot of people out there, and a few of them have ideas that they're going to try to tell you are true (authority), but most of all that's bullshit, so you need to figure out for yourself what to believe."

As for independence of thought. I think humans are capable of astounding levels of thought. In the past 10,000 years, humanity has learned ALOT. We've harnessed electricity, gone into space, and handful of people even passed Calculus III at the Harvard. Thinking for yourself is easy. But humanity has been here for 10,000 years already, thinking, since way before you got here. So it's getting harder and harder to think a thought you can call your own.