Why we badly need to challenge the BHLisation of minds

Attali said that he no longer allows himself to be guided by pessimism or optimism. Both, he said, are the attitudes of spectators in the stands, rooting for the players below, hoping or fearing for them. We human beings, Attali said, are not spectators, but players in our lives. And like all good players, he added, we are better off fighting and working until the final whistle, instead of getting caught up in our hopes and fears. And how should we react to those who are constantly telling us about gloom and doom scenarios or quoting Goethe and Shakespeare? We should stick out our tongues or thumb our noses at them. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/paris-summit-proves-europe-ne...
 For the man who thinks for himself becomes acquainted with the authorities for his opinions only after he has acquired them and merely as a confirmation of them, while the book-philosopher starts with his authorities, in that he constructs his opinions by collecting together the opinions of others: his mind then compares with that of the former as an automaton compares with a living man. A truth that has merely been learnt adheres to us only as an artificial limb, a false tooth, or at most like transplanted skin; but a truth won by thinking for ourself is like a natural limb: it alone really belongs to us.