Travellers and Philosophy

I finished my last article a little puzzled about the attitude of many a traveller with some more thought, and help from a book, I have come up with a way to shed a bit of light of this.

A few defintions and terms are necessary first. I´m going to borrow the terms from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance.
A simplistic breaking down of human understanding gives two types: Classical and Romantic. Classical being ´primarily one of underlying form´, this basically means seeing things as part of structure where logic rules and things are restricted. And with Romantic being ´primarily in terms of apperance´ which is a little more self-explanatory.
Both schools of thought suffer from similar problems and this can be seen when pretentiousness is considered.

Classical Pretentiousness to the other school:
Here a classic expresses thinks in purely classical terms, no simplification from pure logic. He sees it as pure and correct in it´s current form and is unwillingly to make it not seem dull, dry and complicated to the outsider, because one who doesn´t understand pure classical form doesn´t deserve to understand it´s accomplishments.
To avoid this explanation becoming somewhat ironic I will give an example. A Maths professor writes a long proof of a mathematical formula in pure mathematics terms. He refuses to explain it in any other way e.g. through numerical examples, diagrams or wordy explanations outside of the current definiton. This is Classical pretentiousness, thinking that only those able of seeing things in the same way should be able to see the conclusion. Basically in their mind if you are not clever enough to see something written theoritically you don´t deserve to understand it at all. They see beauty in pure logic and they expect others to see the same.

Romantic Pretentiousness to the other school: To express things in purely romantised terms, in their apperance, through emotions etc. Not explaining the underlying thought process because this approach itself is almost the definition of the pure logic they want to omit from their area of expertise. They don´t want to teach what they see as normal or natural as they believe it should be only explained in a romantised way and if you don´t see this you are not worthy.

In fact the idea of prentiousness is the same in both. My whole reason for defining the above terms is that I see different aspects of travelling as a mixture of romantic and classic thought (not necessarily pretentious with it but this parts just helps explain it). The whole idea of seeing beautiful things, moving around solely on emotions without a plan is romantic. The politics and economics which are strong factors in the development in the country could be argued as swinging towards being classic. They require a logic and are complex. This creates a problem for many. They want to travel romantically but increasing the knowledge of the area forces them to take the other school of thought into account. Many don´t like this, they want things to fun, hedonistic or they want simple impassioned view points which don´t need to use classical thought to conjure up. The political issues are complex and studying them is frequently depressing in their conclusions and time consuming. They also make seeing the romantic outlook difficult to continue with as well.

The women I described previously neared this latter school of thought, enjoyed the romantised approach to an extend and delving into other areas didn´t interest her. I try to travel for both reasons as I would hope everybody does, but it´s difficult. A romantised outlook seems difficult when you consider those less fortunate and the issues involved. You know that you should spend money in local places rather than international, do volunteer work, give money to charity not to rich businesses, basically not travel for selfish reasons but use the money to help others. One perhaps kids themselves that they are trying to educate themselves, that economising and being selfish in the short-term is fine because of a greater good approach. Who knows maybe this is true for some.
To see travel as a pure romantisism seems ignorant, hedonistic to the classical minded, hence classical pretentiousness is possible and this is also the possible the view taken by future employers - a long holiday. But is it? As mentioned early when questioning what poverty is (generally defined as a economic rather than emotional thing) all the above reasons are purely economic. How far does a happy cheerful (ignorant ?) traveller who plays with kids and spreads the romanticism spread wealth of a different type.

On the flip side a pure classic seems overly serious, unrealistic. What are they achieving by torturing themselves psychologically, do poorer people really want the better off to be miserable. Isn´t it all just small potatoes whether the act economically responsible or not, it all ends up in the mixer. And once again, depression is a contagious as a smile.

Carrying on my discussion away from travel once again, a comparison can be made between these cases in the extreme.
A pure classical outlook often leads to unhappiness. Human emotional needs are frequently irrational and when you try to find rationality in the irrational confusion and frustration occurs. A sense of hopelessness through the unrestrictedness which exists outside the restricted one that person knows.
A pure romantised outlook also leads to confusion. Science is impossible to ignore, reason is impossible to ignore completely even though it can seem ugly restrictive.
Pure superficiality leads to contradiction and emptyness to the classic but contradition is part of logic.

A genius of either field (e.g. great scientists or artists) often tend to have either a stond resistance to the other field. Also a pure rational approach i.e no care for fashion or emotionally needs or boredom hints at insanity. A pure romantised approach ignores all reason and the same diagnosis can be formed. Hence why geniuses are often eccentric.
It´s like left and right wind politics they join up and loop around and have much in common.
But even this is a vast simplication. To see it as blind, closed is think only as a classic, which is where this whole argument potentially suffers as talking about Psychology isn´t a strict science. Rationality itself is the tool of a classic and debate of this just continues that spiral. The romantist doesn´t see closed doors and taking this approach is important in most things, having belief. This is why I said I saw the women was as a little bit of romantist but she lacked the belief, which is where my intepretation falls down.

The master of the two foes, any other others which may exist, is the envy of the many.

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