The cure for intellectualism

Nassim Taleb says that the benefit of a new technology is usually in eradicating the bad effects of an old technology. To take one example, portable education - videos, podcasts, kindle - frees us from long hours on the chair on which we were placed by the invention of the PC. This can be neatly encapsulated by the emergence of the 21st century "tablet," reminiscent of the stone slabs on which humans first learned to write.

Intellectual ideas should be submitted to this test. Use the intellect mostly to refute harmful formulations in their own language. Do not fall for the falsehood that you are obliged to offer a "better idea." Taleb again: you only replace a story with a better story. Teaching is best done, therefore, by approaching the subject matter obliquely. You cannot teach the mind to quieten by saying "stop desiring things, it's making you unhappy." The wish to obey this comes from yet another desire. If someone intellectualises too much, you must hide the solution within an intellectual package.

Ideas get in the way of perception. In rugby, the fullback does not think about the physics of a ball falling from the sky. That would distract from the task of catching it. If he seeks help from science or psychology, it should be of the sort which does a job then retreats as the need elapses. It must be like a light bulb which is able to turn itself off. Everything important in life works like this. In War and Peace Tolstoy gives the example of Prince Vasilli that the characteristic of a man of the world is quickness of perception and apprehension. Human society is a turbulent mass of psychological complexes. Trying to think them through is to drown in them.