How do you deal with irrationality?
inerte: With humor.If I can't, I just tell myself: Wow, the world is an amazing place. All these different people. I just hope that we can co-exist peacefully.Once I was drinking beer with a philosophist and two writers, plus a history student (my friend). Another philosophist, friend of the first philosophist, came to join us, and he was an asshole. He made stupid jokes, and one of the writers started arguing with him.After the second philosophist left, the first one and the writer started talking about if the way the writer treated the second philosophist was acceptable.They went on this discussion for, I kid you not, 90 minutes. Then they turned to me and asked me to be the judge, and I said:- I think you're both right. You (the writer), was right because the philosophist what joined us was a jerk. But you (the philosophist) is complaining how your friend (the writer) treated your other friend, so I think what you're really saying matters more, because you're telling your friend that he did something that you don't like, and he's just not listening. So you're the winner.Everyone on the table said "that's an interesting angle on the discussion", and the two went back to argue who was right.My friend (the history student) said that I didn't "get" the contend, because they were arguing for/with Reason (with capital R), and so they were expecting me to say who was right logically.Now, what everyone didn't know is that, while I know a little bit of Kant and Nietzsche, I simply wasn't playing their game. With me was my (then recent) girlfriend. So I didn't said what I said for them, I said so my girl could listen.I was trying to impress her. I was trying to show how I understand relationships and how we should see things through this point of view. Women like that, you know? :pAnyway.The two weren't really "arguing". They were philosophying (sp?). That's how they have fun. By endlessly trying to desconstruct the opponent's argument, by going into schools of thought, that's what they do on a Friday night at a bar's table.It's so fucking boring.But it made my day. I was really glad to learn how philosophists spend their weekend nights. It was just like me! Improving their skills, while having fun.Moral of the history? There's none.