This piece may as well have been called Fuck Them, Too, but I determined that it would’ve given a certain, very exuberant crowd the wrong impression (dog whistling, I think they call it). Really, I don’t want anyone to feel safe in this walled garden I’ve built, or that I’m your friend or that we are “on the same page,” about anything. We may indeed agree from time to time on some subject, big or small, simple, or not-so-simple; but you’re not safe, nothing is and nothing should be. When I say safe, what I mean is, the central thesis of this piece is that reason, as a tool, and all its incumbent and dependent faculties, should be engaged as indiscriminately as possible. All things, people, and ideas are up for grabs, are within the scope of reasoned analysis, and all should fear its Damoclesian specter.

This essay is for those who were born to equilibrate, who involuntarily cock their heads to the side in wonder at the bullshit they just heard; who are perpetually frustrated by certainty and self-satisfaction; who are haunted by a complete and utter lack of faith in their own knowledge and cringe at self-assurity and pomposity. You wander around generating a field of super-charged particles that, frankly, fuck shit up, and you have no idea why things seem to decay around you. Well, it’s because you’re not safe. You are radioactive. As soon as someone thinks you might be the right person with whom to have that conversation (you know, the one about guns and penises) expecting to get an enthusiastic confirmation of your exact location on the political spectrum, you say “Oh…no I hate them, too.” And some people just can’t handle that.

Let me be clear, I am not talking about contrarians, or the “I’m just brutally honest” types. Fuck them, too. No, if there are two things we need fewer of, it’s micro-managers and those guys. I’m talking about people whose first and last allegiance, as if they can’t help themselves, is to skepticism and equilibrium. Balance is what they’re after, whether they know it or not. My case here is that the only way out of the mess societies seem to get themselves into from time to time is to be unafraid to analyze, question, and criticize today that which may lie in territory which yesterday you may have found appealing. To those who carry the weapon of reason, labels, borders, names, party lines, titles, and flags, mean nothing. They mean less than nothing.

Now, as you’ll see, I have never and will never advocate for a completely uniform and indiscriminate method of application for the weapon of reason (although I did say that engagement should be indiscriminate. More on that later). Why in God’s name would you be indiscriminate when the whole framework of appropriate reasonability rests on the faculty of discernment? Don't be the Fenimore Cooper of argumentation. It is important to have a sense of proportion, to know your audience, as it were, and to treat every question, every scenario, every demand upon the mind, new or familiar, as a fresh opportunity to engage with the material as though for the first time. A child-like fascination, as it turns out, is a dazzling and formidable tool.

You may be feeling a certain wariness at the idea that I’m formulating here, and probably because what I’m talking about gets touted as impossible. We are often told, and through nearly every medium, that true freedom from prejudice is impossible, and that everyone has biases they don’t know about. And I agree. However, the nauseating implication underlying this quasi-religious proposition is that, as a consequence, no one can be trusted who does not hold certain axioms. I was once set upon by a truly silly man who asked me if I thought stealing was always wrong. “I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it that way,” I said. “I can’t talk to somebody who doesn’t think stealing is wrong,” he replied, turning away to jangle his superiority in someone else’s hapless face.

The fact that he telegraphed his prejudice so clearly made it impressively easy to get him to stop talking to me, which was the goal. But I couldn’t help but wonder what it must be like wandering around all the time in a state of such profound surety in one’s own beliefs and modes of thinking. See, he didn’t want to talk to a person, he wanted to talk at a person. And…fine, good for him. Sometimes it is entertaining talking to someone like that, but mostly I find it a but annoying, like a weed-smoking stranger who clearly doesn’t mean you any harm but isn’t all that fun because you’re sober. “I hope he’s doing OK,” you catch yourself thinking.

I digress. The point here is that many people are desperate to make “sense” of things, and desperation is the real problem. A desire to have rules, or to be a part of a sensible hierarchy isn't necessarily a bad thing, after all, order is important for humans. But I believe that there is an underlying order, or inherent quality to the universe that we should endeavor to investigate and understand, rather than believe we are creating our own order out of chaos. To be mercilessly curious and investigative requires a rare kind of audacity.