Reverend, Dr. Ezzat Shaker
The contemporary German philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), who influenced the development of political and social studies and movements not only in Germany but in all of Europe and authored many famous books, has a fascinating book entitled “The One-Dimensional Man”.
In this book, he explains that the difference between civilized and underdeveloped human beings is that the former can recognize the multiplicity and contradiction in life, and deals with different situations on the basis that each problem can have more than one reason, and can have more than one solution. Therefore, instead of being persuaded with the apparent and obvious reasons, this thought drives them to analyze any problem to reach its root causes and the multiple factors affecting it, search for all possible solutions, develop alternatives and differentiates between them, and create new solutions, without falling captive into the traditional solutions.
On the other hand, the lack of thinking, the shallowness of their culture, and the insufficiency of experience, lead underdeveloped human beings to be unable to see more than only one reason for every problem and to only find one solution. Furthermore, they not only stick to this one solution, but also, they vehemently adhere to their opinions, believe it is the right one and condemn everyone who disagrees with them.
Before making any decision, we need to break free from the one-dimensional view, learn the multifaceted view, be free from the superficial view of things, and search for the roots.
Imagine someone who decides to buy a certain car because of its low consumption of fuel?!
Isn’t that a one-dimensional view? What about its spare parts? Its maintenance centers? Its durability? What does it look like? What about its motor? Etc.
Or imagine a young man making the decision to get engaged to a girl because she is beautiful.
Isn’t that a one-dimensional view? What about her morals, qualifications, family, and cultural and social level… Etc.
Dear reader: The secret to success in life is to train yourself in the multifaceted view, the view of the mature.