René Descartes and the Empowerment of the Individual
“I think therefore I am,” a famous quote plastered on many walls, clothing, and posters. However, the man who uttered these famous words is perhaps even bigger curiosity. René Descartes was a 17th century French mathematician, philosopher, and many other things; unfortunately, being a likable person was not among those things. Ask any philosophy student what they think about Descartes’ argument for the existence of God, and eye rolls will appear on the faces of the religious and the non-religious alike. He was a fierce rationalist, who believed that through a rational person could find the answer to every mystery within themselves. It would be wrong to call him a narcissist, but more of an awkward self-centered human being who struggles with the perception of others towards his self. If a person believes that every answer in the universe can be explored within their own self, and others question and disagree with their answers, then this person will perceive the dismissal of their ideas as a dismissal of their self. This becomes very unhealthy very fast, and an unhealthy mind will snowball the problem while adding new ones.
However, this is not to dismiss the importance of Descartes. His contributions across a multitude of fields have to be appreciated. The processes and tools he created have benefited the thinking process. His creation, the Method of Doubt, asked that big problems be broken down into smaller pieces using incisive questions. Each detail was too be inspected thoroughly, each bite of the big question smelled, chewed, and swallowed; ultimately, collecting to form a complete answer. Too often do questions such as “does God exist?” confuse and muddle our thinking. Descartes asked that we chop such large questions down first, before we proceed to answer. Despite his answers, especially to that specific question, not satisfying anyone, the process itself is significant. Descartes helped establish a way for anyone anywhere to start using clear, rational, and careful thinking when answering any question, especially the titans which have romped our collective minds for generations. No longer an individual had to look up to the established authority for answers, those answers now lay within the individual self.
Descartes was a individualist, his ideas empowered each individual to make their own rational choice. People who tend to break away from the heard of the social human animal face grave consequences. They are labeled Narcissus, the Greek tragic figure who fell in love with his own reflection in the water. However, when the heard rejects the individualistic and there is no one else to turn to, then the individual has no choice but to turn only to themselves. Sometimes this results in isolation, other times it results in an individual who either hypes or chameleons their self in an attempt to be accepted by the heard. Descartes chose to become his own hype man, he was no narcissist, just an individual who thought the only way to re-enter the heard by by becoming its ruler. He died of Pneumonia in Sweden, while attempting help the queen set up a school of science, leaving the tools for self-empowerment to every individual who came after.
