Self-awareness. The ability to apprehend their own subjectivity and understand its limits is not just what separates the dumb from the smart but also man from a

Self-awareness. The ability to apprehend their own subjectivity and understand its limits is not just what separates the dumb from the smart but also man from animal. The dumb go through life never interrogating or understanding their own desires or the source of their worldview. What makes great comedians great? The ability to play with their own subjectivity, to understand the absurdity at the heart of their being while admitting that they can never really transcend their tragic humanity. Too many people equate intelligence with thinking rationally. Actually, it’s a midwit habit to believe that rationality is achievable. The smart move is to realize the irrational source of all our preferences and prejudices without discarding them on that account, to embrace irrationality as a necessary component of human reasoning.