I'm Not a Rational Person...and You Shouldn't Be Either
Guest Article: Rationality has taken us far but can some irrationality take us further?
Following a long lineage of tried and patriotic leaders, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017.
His campaign, which had gone viral for quotes claiming China will “rape our country” along with the infamous “I love Hispanics!”, had certainly made numerous enemies along the way.
After he was inaugurated, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited President Trump to discuss moving forward and how these concerns over his mentality could be quelled. Panetta’s advice:
“Do what is rational, not what is irrational.”
Any proponent of philosophy, whether ancient or contemporary, has likely heard the word “rational” over a million times. It runs through every conversation and piece of writing, inadvertently guiding the words of the authors who use it.
For the philosophers in question, there’s been reason to do so. Supporting rationality as not only a construct but also a criterion of judgment has allowed for an objective measure on which we could judge anything we wanted to—actions, institutions, conversations, relationships—and everyone could understand. Everyone could conform to this standard of judgment.
Yet, as we’ve been struck with such political crises and social strife, it’s clear that rationality no longer fits our modern society. It’s clear that no matter how many times we promise to act rationally, such as with President Trump, we’re never actually able to follow through on that promise.
A few weeks ago, I published an article about why we should actually stop using rationality as this criterion of judgment and the need to view the downfalls of such an approach. My argument can be shrunk into the following points:
Plumwood, in her work Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, introduces the concept of dualisms, or hierarchical relationships, through which we have shaped society. Perhaps the most prominent dualism is that of reason/nature, the idea that we see ourselves as rational creatures and nature as an irrational resource to be exploited.
This is the foundation of reason as the superior force behind our actions. We tend to see ourselves as rational and anyone who doesn’t conform to our self-image as irrational. It’s not an objective standard but rather one that makes us feel comfortable and superior.
Similarly, using rationality as a judgment criterion dismisses emotions and other external factors that affect our decision-making skills. This is not to say we should act in unbridled emotion, but we shouldn’t act in unbridled reason, either.
The solution? No clue. However, finding a middle ground between rationality and emotion will doubtlessly be beneficial for political and social actors.
2,000 years ago, in the age of the Stoics, this argument would be seen as nonsense. For Marcus Aurelius and the Romans, reason was the only criterion of judgment. Without reason, one could never learn to live a happy or productive life.
2,000 years later, however, and it’s clear that this isn’t true anymore. The stigma around emotion has been debunked, and despite the growing Stoic movement, many are swapping the idea of living a “rational” life for one in which they freely embrace their emotions rather than learning to filter them through philosophical criteria.
And there’s a reason why. The philosophical criteria we use and the logic determining validity are inherently discriminatory.
I can guess what you’re thinking: How can philosophy be discriminatory? Isn’t it supposed to help people? I thought logic was supposed to be objective!
However, some underlying issues exist when developing philosophical arguments and formal logic. Let’s start by looking at Andrea Nye’s description of logic and how it can produce inherently discriminatory results:
“Logic abstracts from content and substitutes natural language with a formalized language; for this reason, it produces relations between individuals that are tools of social exclusion.”
It may be true that wielding reason and formal logic separates philosophers from the rest of society. Yet, it’s very hard to sympathize with Nye’s notion of a modern elitism that faintly reminds us of Plato’s philosopher-kings. Using formal logic to communicate or dissect arguments doesn’t have the breadth to place philosophers on a pedestal.
Nye’s criticism of logic differs substantially from Plumwood's, who claims that formal logic promotes a “master model” in which all surroundings are defined in terms of the master.
But similar to Nye, the master model presents a type of elitism, a dualism that we often conform to without even knowing it: we see ourselves as superior and rational and anyone who doesn’t conform to our self-image as inferior and irrational.
On a high level, I think most people are sympathetic to the view that this dualism is wrong. It’s wrong to assume someone is irrational based on their political party. Someone can’t be irrational simply because they went through gender-affirming treatment.
Yet, deep down, it’s one that we subscribe to on a daily or even conversational basis. Rationality, as much as we believe it has an objective standard, is used as a tool to make ourselves feel comfortable. To make ourselves feel superior. To push away those with stronger emotions, those from other cultures, and those with different perspectives. In claiming that someone is rational, we’ve created a standard, a hierarchy in which one person is superior to the other. In a way, we’ve purposefully created an inequality of our own.
If rationality is supposed to be the objective standard for our society to strive for, then how come it’s discriminatory in nature?
One of the main criticisms of my first account on rationalism was that it’s not the criteria of rationality itself that’s the problem, but rather it’s the people wielding it to do unjust harm to others.
And, of course, that can be entirely true. There is certainly an emphasis on the subject, the person claiming rationality, that does the most harm in this situation.
The issue, however, is that the discernment itself consistently leads to the inhumane treatment of people. Disregarding emotions always leaves out a part of the story, and a lack of situational awareness never treats someone how they deserve. The faults of rationality will never be able to guide a political society to the ideal we strive for.
It’s clear that wielding rationality is a problem. In times of grueling political strife, nobody looks towards reason as a haven. Nobody believes that they can trust rational people to help them solve problems. Nobody cares about being rational any more.
President Trump may have been told that his actions throughout his presidency were rational, yet over 50% of Americans believed they weren’t. President Biden claimed that Putin was a “rational actor” when he invaded Ukraine, but practically the rest of the world disagreed with him.
The objectivity and stability we seek in reason will never appear. The solution may not be to abandon reason altogether but to recognize it as a tool that can be both a scalpel and a bludgeon. It’s a dance, a constant negotiation between the head and the heart that may be hard to settle but must require our best efforts regardless.
Yet, the question remains whether we can carry out such a dance. Perhaps the tools we’ve been structured with are inherently flawed, and negotiation between them is inexplicably hard to find. Or perhaps there’s hope for humanity, a chance for a radical restructuring of our societies and ourselves.
The dance may never end – it’s about who partakes in it.
Very well written.
Spot on. Thanks for reading, Henya!