We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
Anyone can get caught up into what's current. It takes effort to be interested in history. The currents move under their own energy and if you aren't swimming, you're being swept along with them. The current never revisits the same place twice. It has no memory. It is always running wherever it is and it never doubles back. But Chesterton reminds us that progressing in that fashion is a feat just as easily accomplished by being dead in the water.
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
— G.K. Chesterton
Only a living thing can swim upstream. The current carries along with it anything that doesn't resist it. It is easy to believe whatever is currently being believed. It is much more difficult to believe what's back upstream, to take stock in what's already been ran over. No exertion is required to end up downstream, but effort is mandatory if anyone is inclined to investigate upstream.
It takes no mental dexterity to be trendy. Just go where the currents carry you. It requires a great deal of intellectual athleticism, however, to go against a trend.
"Right is Right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.”
Only a living thing can swim upstream. The current carries along with it anything that doesn't resist it. It is easy to believe whatever is currently being believed. It is much more difficult to believe what's back upstream, to take stock in what's already been ran over. No exertion is required to end up downstream, but effort is mandatory if anyone is inclined to investigate upstream.
It takes no mental dexterity to be trendy. Just go where the currents carry you. It requires a great deal of intellectual athleticism, however, to go against a trend.
"Right is Right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.”
— G.K. Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
— G.K. Chesterton
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