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As a philosopher, a man or woman attempts to see the world, or reality, in a different light. Considering the situation of the United States, this different light is a positive light. That light can be more specifically described as a positive, critical light. The term critical can often bear certain negative connotations. Here, however, it should take the form of constructive rather than destructive. So, the philosopher will attempt to look at the world in a critical way, such as to meditate upon possible constructive solutions or answers. Often time such meditation rises more questions than any solutions or answers.

I think it would be safe to say that the average american citizen does not think critically. I suggest googling "amount of tv hours watched weekly" or something like that. Rather than getting into a rant, I will simply state my point with this experiment. There are many distractions in today's life. Cell phones, fast food, the newest alcoholic drink, what's hot and what's not, and all sorts of other similar illusions dominate the minds of many american citizens, both young and old. With such a dominion, it would be hard for the average american citizen to watch a TV ad and think deeper into the message. How many times have you seen a car insurance advertisement on TV and then reflected, "Now, did that ad really make me want to appeal to that insurance over my current insurance? Why or why not?" When we don't critically think about the majority of our daily activities we are wasting our human capacity. The mind is capable of ridiculously amazing things and we don't even use nearly a quarter of our whole mind! The philosopher taps into more of the mind than the average person. This does not necessarily make the philosopher smarter than anyone else. This ultimately allows the philosopher to see the world in that constructive, critical light.

There is another point I wish to address in regards to the many distractions of today. Philosophy has been around for a long time. From the pre-socratics all the way to Bertrand Russell, philosophy has been around for a few thousand years. So, coming up with an "original thought" in philosophy would be quite hard. Some of the most brilliant thinking was done by Plato and succeeded by Aristotle. There were no cell phones after Athen's heyday. There were no traffic jams, no sexy women beer ads, no reality tv shows. There was a significantly less amount of distractions. On the other side, there was no nano-technology.

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