RATIONALITY, IRRATIONALITY AND COERCION

Rationality: Your senses, your ability to see, hear, smell, taste and feel provide you with the raw data about reality. You have the capacity to think, to integrate that data, draw logicalconclusions, resolve contradictions – that’s using the virtue of rationality.
What does it take to be rational? It takes a grip on reality. The rational person knows you can’t fake reality, can’t cheat reality; that any attempt to do so results in failure. They know their feelings are not a means of discovering the nature of reality. They know that reason is their only means of DISCOVERING what reality can be made to do.
Rational people are virtuous people. They hold reason and productiveness as virtues. They hold courage as a virtue because they know living entails risk; they hold stamina as a virtue because they know living is work; they hold honesty as a virtue because they know lying, cheating and stealing can’t work when dealing with reality - or people. They do what they say they’re going to do when they say they’re going to do it.
The irrational person, just as he doesn’t care to do an honest day’s work, so he doesn’t care to be honest with you. I have learned over the years that it’s the rational person that you can trust – he tells it like it is, and it’s only the rational person you can truly call friend.

Irrationality: The irrational person’s first problem is metaphysical; they don’t like reality. Some people will admit to this; they’ll say they hate reality, that they’re afraid of it. Their second problem is epistemological. “A is a”, “either/or” and “non-contradiction” are philosophical principles we use daily in our job, our relationships and in choosing our values, but irrational people do not. And the third problem is morality. An irrational persons morality, a guide to action, is going to have very little to do with reality or reason, so there’s only one thing left to guide his actions – his feelings. He elevates emotion above logic and reason, and whatever thinking is done is only to justify his feelings.

Coercion: The irrational person is not reality orientated, so he becomes people orientated. He is not an independent thinker – he is dependent on someone else to tell him what to do. He seeks out people that will “justify” his feelings, emotions and actions. Feelings and emotions are an automatic response to values. What one regards as for or against one’s values determines the emotional response.
You can and should evaluate and re-evaluate your values. Are they based on reality? Are they rational? Are they worth pursuing? Are they in my long range self-interest? Irrational people do none of this. They simply absorb the values of those around them – family, friends, coworkers, a spouse and in some cases a thuggish gang.
Not all irrational people are dependent on someone else to tell them what to do. Some of them want to do the telling – they want power. In the case of a gang, they want to be the alpha male leading a pack of wolves. And then there is the coercive power of the state.
Almost all people that go into politics do so because they want to do good, they want to help people. They are guided by the morality of altruism, guided by “we are our brother’s keeper.”But there are those that simply want power. Like the alpha male in a gang of thugs, they lust after power. To the irrational person, facts are whatever he says they are, he rationalizes his motives and actions and morality doesn’t exist. It’s his feelings, emotions and whims that guide his actions. He lashes out at anyone who disagrees with him. Fear and intimidation are his weapons of choice. He is narcissistic – constantly in need of an adoration fix. Above all, he demands loyalty. He’s not interested in logical, reasonable arguments to win your agreement – yours is only to obey. Politically, he’s a fascist. (can you think of anyone that fits that description?)
And then there is the socialist - perhaps more dangerous than the fascist because he has our cultures dominant moral code on his side.
Check out the link – a 2 minute read.

https://www.rationalselfinterest.com/post/altruist