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Hyper-Rational-Process
It is often accused of rationality (or more specifically, rational people) that it is inflexible and uncreative. I have always known this to be untrue instinctively, but have not found a way to express my disagreement until now.
I share with you Joshua Prince-Ramus, the semi-famous architect of the Seattle Library. (I say “semi-famous” because I had not heard of him until today, and I studied Architectural Engineering in college not 4 years ago.)
What Rince-Ramus demonstrates is that rationality does not always appear rational at first glance. It is able to buck convention, think independently, and be flexible yet ever consistant in it’s brilliance when properly applied.
Rae
Special thanks to my facebook friend who shared this.
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The Hyper-Rational-Process by Rae, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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© 2010 FreeThought Fort Wayne. 
Don’t you hate that? Both atheists and skeptics get accused all the time of being uncreative, not having any imagination, rigidity of thought… The list goes on. And none of it’s true! We’re just humans with all the talents and foibles of any other person on the planet.
There is something to be said about placing too much value, or too much trust, in one’s ability to be rational but that’s another thing entirely.
Yes. Misplaced confidence in one’s reasoning ability is always a roadblock to overcome. (Eespecially during those first couple years after one’s enlightenment to reason when it’s easy to become zealous for a particular concept or philosophy (or personality) that espouses rationality, but isn’t entirely rational itself. I’ve nbeen down that road.) Rationality requires great confidence in one’s *own* rational process with limited reliance on others’ theory and words (a.k.a. Galbraith’s conventional wisdom), so one has to be ever vigilant against personal reasoning prejudices. Hence the last words of the post: “when properly applied.”
So all ye rationalist tread with self-awareness. A strong ego knows it’s limits and can distinguish itself from that with which it identifies. It is not for the lazy minded or the weak at heart. It’s life-long effort and practice. You don’t just one day decide “I’m going to be rational” and then everything is easy.
The older I get, and the more errors I see on the part of so many people, the more I have to admit that I’m almost certainly wrong about a lot of the things I believe. Problem is, I have no way of knowing which ones.
@Rae: I didn’t intend my last line as a dig at your post. Hope it didn’t come off like that.
@Leo: It did not.