This was originally written in response to a statement posed on a message board...
Interesting that you would bring this up. Randy [Barnhart] and I were recently throwing around ideas on a subject of interest... in the process we began talking of the difference between those who seek to "learn" from philosophy, and those who only "recite" it. Not just Gorean philosophy, but philosophy in general.
In the first case, those who read philosophy seek to "learn" from it... to be mentally challenged and to expose themselves to various ideas. In the process they question their existing beliefs, perhaps coming to agree with new ones, or becoming further confident in what they prior felt as their convictions remain unshaken. Reading philosophy in this way adds to experience and is such in itself. It becomes something we are exposed to and through consideration decide just how we feel.
When we come to a lifestyle, depending upon the particular subject, there is usually a necessity for this agreement to come in the form of application. This is part of the process of learning, for to stop at just mentally agreeing prevents you from gaining the fuller grasp of what the ideas present, limiting the benefits of them and giving them little true validity in your life. Stopping at the mental exercise may well be fine in some cases, if that is all that is sought, but if the consideration stops at theory than it is questionable if it is reflective of the given person's lifestyle. Seeing truly is believing, because if you cannot "live" by what you claim to believe, than you are either deluding yourself, or living a lie.
But in this, philosophy in general can play a vital role in the process of introspection and the resulting development of wisdom. Any experience which makes us think more deeply, be it an event faced in one's life, or an idea you come across, can benefit the man who is not afraid to face it and take its presence as a chance to further learn and grow.
In the second case... there are those who "recite" philosophy, seeking not so much to learn from it, as to find an identity or to wield a weapon. Those seeking an identity use the words as an image for themselves, a way to "feel" like they are something they admire... and those wielding the ideas as a weapon try to prove others wrong and themselves superior through a smothering of terms and definitions. These people latch onto philosophy as a means to appear like they are what they claim to be, and use the knowledge of a subject to further their assertions. In a sense they are living vicariously through the ideas on life provided by others, and grasp hold of these thoughts on existence as a means to make themselves "feel" they fit those ideas, if only for those brief moments they read or recite what they claim association with. Such people are in essence "playing a role," with the fantasy being a version of themselves that they wish others to believe is true.
The more people seek to actively understand Gorean philosophy, the better. This "active" understanding requires more than just a reading and a nod. If those thoughts are claimed to be indicative of a lifestyle, than they must revolve around that person truly applying what he says he believes, and just as importantly, that person seeking his own answers for himself.
If the process of learning in any form, dwells strictly on the recitation of ideas presented by another, is this a learning that leads to intimate understanding or a learning of easily repeated trivia and rhetoric?
If the latter case is the reality, then the learning is not of yourself and how you personally feel, but of rules sketched out by another. One must seek his own answers in life, and not seek only to find them, but to live by them.
We can read philosophy, observe the world, partake in events, and ask the opinions of others... all in the quest to learn more about ourselves and what we personally believe, earning our own truths through the process of seeking and living. But when we ask "how" to live, we are not finding the answers for ourselves, but instead are seeking to imitate those answers another person has found.
There is a big difference between asking someone how do they live, and how to live.
If you blindly take hold of another's answers on how to live, what has been earned and what have you made your own through the earning? Are you living your own lifestyle, or merely the imitation of another man's life?
