please criticize and rate my essay on "question authority".

[gandalf7]

this essay was written under time constraint :

 

"question authority. Only by questioning accepted wisdom can we advance our understanding of the world"

 

I agree with the author completly when he says that we cannot advance our

understanding of the world without questioning accepted tradition. But we need

to employ some caution when we are questioning the accepted. We need to have

logical reason for questioning the accepted.

 

It was a well known fact that that earth was the center of the universe. This

"fact" had been well known since time immemorial. But kepler refuted it.

Copernicus refuted it. Their ideas were not universally accepted. But we know

now that they were right. They questioned the accepted because there was no

evidence to conclusive prove the accepted. They question it because they thought

otherwise. And they were right. We owe the development of astronomy to these

pioneers who laid down the foundation of rational and experimental science.

 

Newton once said "I have seen further than others only by standing on the

shoulders of giants". He meant that his work was based on the work of other

great scientists. If Newton were to question their work irrespective of it's

merit , he would have had to rediscover all the truths they had discoevered.

But if Newton had not questioned some of the accepted fact prevelent at that

time , he couldnt have come up with anything new at all. As we know , Newton

considered the work of his predessors , questioned popular belief and

independently came up with his theories about the world. Some of his results

were corraborated by existing theories , some were not. In that sense , his

work challenged existing theories and saw what others had failed to visualise.

Newtons formulation of the laws of motion , of gravity and of calculus were

against many popular sentiment. The laws of gravity showed , contraty to

existing belief , that the sun did not revolve around the earth. His laws were

invaluable in better understaing our world. That is how he saw beyond others ,

by questioning tradition.

 

Much literature has also been written about society which accepts prevelant

wisdom passively. George Orwells "1984" demonstrates a stagnant society where

people are trained to accept. The society as a whole , does not develop. It is

not until the protagonist questions tradion that some development takes place.

 

We need to be careful in how we question authority and existing tradition.

Hitler too questioned accepted wisdom , but his activities were hardly becoming

of a great leader. His belief of aryan superiority and his anti semetic

sentiment caused one of the greatest losses of life on this planet. If hitler

were only more logical in his approach , and had considered alternate

explanations to his theory that Jews were the main cause of the downfall of

germany , a great catastrophy could have been avoided.

 

For many centuries , sages in India have been practicing yoga and ayurveda. But

their methods were questioned by modern practioners and they were labelled as

quacks. but today , we are reverting back to Yoga and ayurveda for our well

being and for treatment with natural medicine. this is one example of how our

questioning of age old tradition has been baseless .

 

 

In conclusion , i feel that withouth questioning accepted tradition , there

would be no development. But some amount of caution needs to be employed and

accepted wisdom should be given proper merit where deserved.

[vasugup2212]

i think the essay was really well written given the fact that u attempted it in a timed environment.The examples were really gud and relevant and supported ur point really well.