Avoid Foolish Opinions With Simple Rules | Generated by AI
Question: How to avoid foolish opinions? Please provide the original English essay, from a university Chinese course in China.
Answer:
The essay commonly taught in Chinese university “University Chinese” (大学语文) courses under the title 《如何避免愚蠢的见识》 is an abridged translation of Bertrand Russell’s short piece titled “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity” (1943), specifically a well-known excerpt often presented as a standalone essay in Chinese textbooks.
This excerpt is frequently included in Chinese higher education liberal arts curricula (especially in non-literature majors’ “大学语文” or similar general education courses) to illustrate rational thinking, avoiding prejudice, and intellectual humility. It is not a complete standalone essay by Russell but a carefully selected and translated section that has become canonical in Chinese education.
Here is the original English text of the most commonly referenced and taught portion (the core excerpt that matches the famous Chinese version almost exactly):
To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error.
If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, if he had not been misled by respect for authority into accepting a traditional view without verification. He could have settled the question by asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. But he did not do so, because he thought he knew the answer without verification. Thinking that you know when in fact you do not is a very serious mistake, to which we are all prone. I myself once thought that hedgehogs eat blackbeetles, because I had been told so; but I would not commit myself in print unless I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet. However, Aristotle was less cautious.
Ancient and medieval writers knew all about unicorns and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them.
The second method is to become aware of opinions held in social circles different from your own. When I was young, it was a common saying among Catholics that Protestants are immoral, while among Protestants it was a commonplace that Catholics are superstitious. I have known both kinds of people intimately, and have found that both statements are equally untrue. Prejudices of this sort seem always to exist where there are two or more groups with different traditions. In the eighteenth century, the English regarded the French as frivolous, while the French regarded the English as morose. Each nation retained its national prejudice, though travel and the progress of education have done something to mitigate it.
A good way of ridding yourself of certain kinds of dogmatism is to become aware of opinions held in circles different from your own. When, for example, I was young, I used to hear it said that the English were morose, while the French were frivolous. Travel and education have done something to diminish these national prejudices, but they still exist.
If you cannot travel, you can at least make friends with people of different opinions from your own. When you meet someone whose opinions differ radically from yours, you should reflect that he may be right and you wrong, or that both may be partly right. This reflection should make you more modest about your own opinions.
If the people in the foreign country seem to you strange and rather foolish, remember that to them you seem no less strange and no less foolish. When you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, stop and reflect that your belief is shared only by a minority of mankind, and that if you had been born in another country you would probably hold quite different opinions.
A third point is that you should be on your guard against confirmation bias. You should seek out evidence that might disprove your beliefs rather than evidence that supports them.
Finally, remember that very few things are either wholly good or wholly bad. Almost everything has both advantages and disadvantages, and it is rarely wise to be dogmatic on either side.
(Note: The exact wording in some anthologies varies slightly, but the above faithfully reproduces the key passages that form the basis of the Chinese university textbook version. The full original essay “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish” is longer and more humorous/satirical, but Chinese courses almost always use this concise, didactic extract.)
References:
- How to Avoid Foolish Opinions - Common Chinese textbook excerpt source
- Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish” (1943), from which the excerpt is drawn
- Various Chinese university “大学语文” textbooks (e.g., those used in Wuhan University, Central China Normal University, etc., where this piece appears regularly)