It is commonly believed in many circles - particularly those dizzying circles one finds oneself in within academic and educational institutions – that the rational mind is the highest cognitive set currently available to human beings. The rational mind is higher than the emotional mind, it is assumed, because the emotional and unreflective mind led us into mass superstition during the dark ages. Then science, with its empirically founded scientific method, led us out from the darkness and into Enlightenment. Thereafter came massive progress in science and social science; and the benefits to society are obvious. Just look at all those clean hospitals, computers on office desks and airplanes that can whisk us around the world in a matter of hours.
In the dark ages of prehistory people pretty much believed whatever Mum or the village idiot told them. Most people couldn’t read or write for a start. It was said that there was only one literate man, a clergyman, in all of Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. Now almost everyone in Britain can read and write; and you take your capacity to make sense of the black squiggles on this page for granted. Thank about that for progress!
People haven’t always employed the critical/rational mind the way we do today.
