the rational avoidance of real and practical dangers to which there is no reason to expose oneself. In fact, opposite
principles are at work in these two cases: in the first case, one is fleeing from reality; in the second, one is taking
proper cognizance of it.
The preservation of the will to understand, and of the supremacy of one's rational judgment, entails the same
fundamental principle: that of a profound respect for facts—a profound sense of reality and objectivity—a
recognition that existence exists, that A is A, that reality is an absolute not to be evaded or escaped, and that the
primary responsibility of consciousness is to perceive it.
This principle is at issue in a decision that is crucial to a man's self-esteem: the choice between judging what is true
or false, right or wrong, by the independent exercise of his own mind—or passing to others the responsibility of
cognition and evaluation, and uncritically accepting their verdicts.
Here, again, the basic choice involved is: to think or not to think.
A man cannot think through the mind of another. One man can learn from another, but knowledge entails
understanding, not mere repetition or imitation; in order for it to be his knowledge, a process of independent
thought is required. The necessity of intellectual independence is implicit in the will to understand.
"Understanding" is a concept that pertains only to an individual mind.
Since the basic sense of control over one's existence, which lies at the heart of self-esteem, is psycho-
epistemological—since it pertains to the efficacy of one's consciousness—to relinquish the responsibility of
independent thought is necessarily to relinquish self-esteem.
"What are the facts of reality?" and "What do people say or believe or feel are the facts of reality?" are two radically
different questions, and reflect two radically different psychologies and methods of psycho-epistemological
functioning.
Implicit in the choice to think or not to think, is the choice to accept or to rebel against man's nature as a rational
being who must survive by the use of his mind. Since thinking requires an effort, and since man is not infallible, a
man may respond with fear to the responsibility of thought and intellectual self-reliance; and, surrendering to that
fear, he may attempt to transfer to others the