In Praise Of Fellow Rationalists

One of the greatest joys for me as a rationalist, after the direct personal experiences that came with actual certainty, originality, and confidence, has been interacting and becoming friends with the small number of fellow rationalists I have had the luck of meeting.  Reason grounds knowledge and thus social consensus is a red herring to this, and the universal accessibility of reason means other people are not ultimately necessary for one to discover purely logical truths, but there are still social pleasures to be found in rationalism.  A thorough embrace of rationalism gives two people with this in common much to talk about, even if the only new information will be stories of how the other party developed as a rationalist or dealt with the stupidity of non-rationalists.

It is stories of how others have developed as rationalists that I wish to focus on.  While such people are rare finds, treasures among the superficiality, apathy, and hypocrisy so much more easily found in others, I have several in my life whom I cherish as sisters and brothers I can relate to on a fuller level than would otherwise be the case.  Whether I have only met them online or have been with them person, each and every one of them is worthy of praise for their depth, intelligence, and love of truth in a world where so many prefer comforting assumptions or outright inconsistencies.  I would like to highlight two of them in particular here for specific ways that they have navigated life as rationalists--and rationalistic Christians at that, even if the accomplishments in question have more to do with their broad rationalism than their commitment to Christianity.

One of the two people I wish to laud has spent her life under the shadow of multiple mental health difficulties that go far beyond the more common kind of experiences with true mental illness.  I am honored to be her significant other and hear these stories about years past.  She has described intense panic attacks and periodic emotional-sensory issues that can make it incredibly difficult to remain rational, yet she clings to the laws of logic and the light they bring even in these traumatic circumstances.  Even most people who never claim to have any sort of regular, debilitating mental health issues do not even try very hard to understand reality in a rationalistic manner--literally anyone who tried hard enough could at least grasp the inherent truth and self-affirming nature of some logical axioms like the fact that truth exists.  If they had sincerely tried, no one would ever go years without grasping such utterly foundational yet thoroughly abstract truths about reality.

The second person I want to highlight once had a conversation with me where he said that he does not think he came to any philosophical belief purely on his own.  I am not sure if he meant that he had a lot of help from the small number of fairly rational people he knew when he was growing up or if he literally meant that there is perhaps no logical fact that he specifically came to without conversational prompting from others (or something similar), but, in either case, to so openly declare such a thing serves as immense evidence of deep humility.  It could be easy for certain people to make it seem as if they have discovered various logical truths, of either a more foundational or more hyper-specific kind, on their own when they did sometimes intentionally look to select others to prompt ideas and then only perhaps autonomously think about those ideas afterward.  Irrational people tend to talk as if they cannot fathom coming up with philosophical truths on their own, only to act cornered when someone points out their lack of intellectual initiative and autonomy.  This is not true of my friend in question!

These are just two of the fellow rationalists that have enriched my life with their mere presence, but there are others, like my best friend Gabi I have repeatedly mentioned since the start of my blog, who could be deservedly praised at length for their rationality and authenticity.  They are blatant examples I could point to of other people who are holistically characterized by concern for truth, venturing wherever reason leads them.  My rationalism, as theirs was in some cases, was a completely self-discovered worldview, but even for rationalists with this experience, bonding with others who understand and cling to rationalism is one of the most fulfilling parts of life.  The view of peak rationality and deep social intimacy as opposed to each other is just another fallacious error that those who have not conformed their worldviews to rationalism are often too stupid to fully reject.