Chapter 3/1

General George Patton’s Advice

General George Patton said: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

That depends on the people and the task. I am certain that General Patton always made sure before taking his troops into battle that they had been taught “how” to aim and fire their weapons, how to disassemble and clean them, and how to operate and maintain their tanks and other vehicles. He wanted, as a minimum, that his men had been through basic training in military “hows.”
Patton did not take raw recruits straight from the streets, schools, factories, and farms, put them on the battlefield, and then order them to defeat the enemy. He did not win his great victories simply by telling his soldiers what to do and leaving it up to their ingenuity to figure out how to do it.

We often follow Patton’s advice. We tell people to “Think about it,” or “Think it over,” and we ask, “Why didn’t you think?” But we cannot assume that, left to their own ingenuity, people will know how to think. They may not. But they can learn. After you have read this book, you will know how to think.

Needed: a Method

We don’t require much instruction before we can use a computer effectively, but we do need to be taught how to perform a few simple procedures. We don’t need much instruction before we can drive an automobile, but we do need some instruction and practice before we can safely drive a car. We do not need much instruction before becoming able to think better than most people. Although some of us might be good thinkers by nature, most of us require, and all of us can benefit from some special instruction and practice.

After reading and practicing the next chapter, you will have completed basic training as a thinker. That will be enough to satisfy some of you. That may be all of this book you read. Learning how to read easy music and play the piano was enough for me. That was all that I had serious interest in learning. No advanced musical training for me, no long hours of practice. Just occasional playing, usually with one finger on the right hand, for my own ears is good enough for my own entertainment.
If, however, you want to become good as a thinker, you will find benefit in every chapter. You may find yourself living on higher ground than you would ever have imagined possible. What makes me suggest that?

I assume you are not like dim-witted Harry Robarts in Patrick White’s novel, Voss. Harry was “glad to offer his services to someone who might think for him.” On the contrary, you are already a thinker of some sort or you would not have picked up this book. If you are already a good thinker, you will rapidly improve all your thought processes. Whatever your situation, you can do it.

No, this is not a gimmick, not a “limited time only” offer, not a trick of some kind. I am not a writer looking for an idea to sell; I am a teacher. I don’t deal in gimmicks and commercial ideas. For the past thirty years I have dealt with ideas and thought; I am a philosophy teacher. My students have dug into Plato and Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, Comte, and Nietzsche. They have investigated epistemology, existentialism, ontology, and axiology (language you won’t find used in this book). The clue to good thinking isn’t a passing fad. It has been tested rigorously for centuries. Now I make it available to you, without big words and without any need on your part to know and understand philosophy.

My entire reputation--limited as it is to a small area of central Texas where I have chosen to quietly enjoy life-- has been built on my ability to teach people to think. When students leave my classes, they often say I am the first teacher in all their schooling who has made them think, and who has helped them learn how to think. When I speak in public, the most common responses are, “I’d never thought about that before,” “You make us think,” and, “You gave us something to think about.” The other common response is, “You make it so easy to understand,” and “You make it so simple.” That is what I can do for you. I have written this book because, after spending my whole career in the classroom at a remote little university, my students have insisted that I need to write so I can teach the process of good thinking to a larger classroom. One that includes you.

Before you have finished reading the next chapter, you will have the tool that will change and improve the way you think. You can put that tool to work immediately. If you read no further than that, you will be well on your way to developing a reputation as a good thinker. People will begin to recognize that your ideas are a force to be dealt with. Of course I hope you read the rest of the book. Reading it will help you understand what you are working with, and it will show you how to use the DIALECTIC in all areas of life.

I know you can do it because I have been teaching DIALECTICal thinking for more than thirty years and have seen all sorts of people become good thinkers. Many of them became better people in the process. Some didn’t. Their thought processes were improved, but their character was untouched. Jesus, in a story about a sower who lost three quarters of the seed he planted, seemed to tell his followers to expect only limited success. But he said that where there was appropriate response, success would be astounding. I hope for something like that for my readers.