Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking, by Steve Allen

Steve Allen was a noted comedian, whom I particularly enjoyed for his Meeting of the Minds series on PBS, decades ago. (They are, unfortunately, only available on VHS).

Anyway, he wrote a bok called Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking, with 101 Ways to Reason Better and Improve Your Mind. The book is still available at Amazon and I encourage you to purchase it.

It was published in 1998 and now, 12 years later, nothing has improved.

I've been sharing his 101 ways to reason better, and am up to Rule 22. (I share just a few sentences from each rule. For each one he writes a couple of explanatory pages.)

Rule 22: Know that reason need not be the enemy of emotion.

When some people hear reason being endorsed they assume that, if the amount of rationality in the world is increased, it must inevtably follow that certain increments of sensation and emotion will decrease. The supposition--or fearful concern--is groundless. Certain things will indeed be decreased if the domain of reason is enlarged, but they are such things as foolishness, fanaticism, brawling, fear, ignorance, bigotry, and racial, ethnic and religion prejudice.

The previous 21 rules:
1. Decide that in the future you will reason more effectively
2. Do some casual studying about the brain, the mind, the memory, the whole field of psychology
3. Beware of rushing to judgement
4. Beware of falling in lve with your first answer
5. Beware of the erroneous assumption
6. Beware of making predictions on the strength of insufficient evidence
7. Examine your superstitions
8. Recognize that you have personal prejudices
9. Bewaew of prefabricated answers
10. Beware of arguments by slogans or epigrams
11. Be aware that your opiniuons, assumptions, and beliefs are often affected by peer group pressure
12. Do not make an exclusive commitment to either optimism or pessimism.
13. Beware of giving children only factual answers
14. Beware of thinking that because you are bright and quick-minded, you therefore reason well.
15. Beware of reacting to labels rather than to specific individuals
16. Study the subject of sensory perception
17. Learn how to learn
18. Develop the old-fashioned virtue of humility
19. Concede ignorance when you are ignorant
20. Use words wisely
21. Understand that your perceptions, opinions, and beliefs are, to a remarkable degree, determined by your point of view.