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Think a Second Time I have written "Think a Second Time" because most people don't think a second time. Most of us form opinions about life's great issues at a young age and retain them forever. The reasons are not hard to discern: It isn't comfortable to think through every issue; serious thought is as strenuous as serious exercise, and as we age, most of us become preoccupied with other matters. Family and livelihood problems alone can take up all of one's attention, and if they don't, there is always television or sports or hobbies or some other diversion. This is sad, because unclear thinking is a major source of social and personal problems. Take, for example, the question of whether human nature is basically good. Differing views on this question alone explain much of the liberal-conservative divide in our society. If you think people are basically good, you probably blame socioeconomic conditions for the evil people do (generally the liberal position); if you think that evil comes from within people's nature, you are more likely to blame people for the evil they do (generally the conservative position). Your views on this issue can even profoundly affect your own happiness. Those who believe that people are basically good may have set themselves up for repeated disappointment in people, while those who have a more sober view of human nature (neither basically good nor evil) will, instead, celebrate their good fortune every time they meet a good person. In Chapter 1, I discuss why the belief that people are basically good is wrong. Who am I that you should want to read my thoughts on forty-three subjects? It is hardly an author's place to sell himself to a prospective reader-his writings have to earn your respect and attention. But since you have either already purchased (or been given) this book, or are reading this at a bookstore, I'd like to briefly introduce myself. I am a highly passionate moderate. In fact, I am so passionate and so moderate that I am even passionate about being moderate. I love life and goodness, and I hate cruelty. I want to hug every kind person and to inflict hurt on bad people (I believe in just revenge). I am religious and believe in God, but I readily acknowledge how much harm religious people have done, and I have a tough time praying to Him. What makes me tick is a desire to see good conquer evil, as corny as this may sound. I have been preoccupied with good and evil ever since, as a child, I saw kids bully other kids. This preoccupation permeates every chapter of this book. I have always believed that if offered a choice between clarity and happiness, I would choose clarity (though I have come to believe that clarity in fact enhances happiness). These essays represent my yearning for clarity. Very different versions of some of these essays were published m my quarterly journal, "Ultimate Issues", others in the "Wall Street Journal" and the "Los Angeles Times". A word, therefore, about my journal. I began writing "Ultimate Issues" to stay in touch with people who attended my lectures (after three thousand lectures, that's a lot of people). Speeches are like one-night stands-pleasurable and intense at night, but you never see each other again. By my fifteenth year of lecturing, I was looking for a long-term relationship. In 1985, I decided to write and publish a personal quarterly journal. Since then, through a divorce and remarriage, three children, changes in my professional life, and personal crises, I have published this journal every quarter, save two. My readers have followed my life and my thinking on everything from God's existence to having a national television show to male sexual nature. This is, therefore, not only a book of thoroughly revised essays, but the culmination of ten years of writing on these subjects. I would be very pleased if every reader of this book agreed with every word in it, but if thirteen years as a talk radio host are any indication, few readers will always agree with me, and few will always disagree. Many liberals, for example, will probably love my chapter on how religion can lead to cruelty but be annoyed with my essay on how liberalism can lead to cruelty ("Blacks, Liberals, and the Los Angeles Riots"). Religious readers will love my vigorous defense of God- and religion-based ethics but probably be troubled by my defense of men who attend a striptease show. But my primary- goal is not agreement; it is to provoke the reader to think a second time. |
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