We Need To Be Unreasonable

By Horisun Antunee

Reasonability is death. It’s the death of imagination. It’s the death of creativity. It’s the death of an innumerable number of things. But beyond all of them, reasonability is the death of responsibility. 

When people say that they did what they could, it usually isn’t true. Don’t get me wrong—it’s usually not a lie either. People that say that often believe it’s true. What people really do is what they can do given the constraints that the world has imposed upon them. 

Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that doing what you can is unreasonable. When you live within the constraints of this world, you’re only able to do so much. When you have to work thirty or fourty or fifty or sixty hours a week, you might not have time to make the world a better place. And when you have to spend the money that you made while working those long hours to pay for basic necessities like water and food and shelter and health care and education, you might not have much to give after that. The problem is that within the constraints of this world, it is only reasonable to do so much.

 The problem is that reasonability points to what can occur given the circumstances. It does not pertain to the best thing possible—to the best good possible. And that is what people need to be focused on.

Given the constraints that have been imposed onto people, you’re only able to do so much. But more could be done if we entered the unreasonable—if we discarded the constraints of this world and considered the best thing in any given circumstance. But that could only occur if people rejected the system that they exist within—the system that illustrates what is and what is not reasonable—the system that forces people to do less than is possible and then justifies it with reasonability.