Brent Hamachek, author of Dissidently Speaking: Change the Words. Change the War. and vice president and associate publisher for Human Events Media Group, said he hopes his new book will challenge the way Americans think and motivate individuals to stop saying “it is” and instead start asking, “is it?”
Hamachek said his book challenges the “things that people have generally accepted about structures in the world around them.”
“I take the things that people have generally accepted about structures in the world around them – so let’s say political societal movements, personal relationships and conversations, and then the most important relationship, the one we have with ourselves – and I have tried to take and dump everybody’s toy box all over the floor and challenge the things that they take for granted, the phrases they use, the constructs they think exist and say, ‘Let’s flip two words in the English language’ and let’s try to get you to stop saying ‘it is’ and let’s try to get you to start asking, ‘is it?’ I think that if we do that, we can have a profound change on Americans and the way they behave and the way they interact with one another,” Hamachek explained on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Hamachek said he hopes that his book will turn readers into skeptics, noting, “You can’t be a skeptic without critical thinking.”
“A skeptic without critical thinking is a cynic,” Hamachek said. “We’ve got plenty of those in the country. I want skeptics. I want people that are thinking very long and deeply about things they’ve taken for granted. I want them to say, ‘is it?’ And I want them to start to question what’s being presented to them and to come at it with a far more open mind.”
When asked by Leahy if skeptics can “solve problems,” Hamachek pointed to one the the most popular philosophers of all time, David Hume.
“Skeptics can solve problems. You go back to the classic David Hume, the greatest skeptic of them all, who walked through and destroyed philosophy and proved that with skepticism, you can destroy everything. Then he said, in essence, ‘But don’t go too far with this, or you’ll be unable to act.’ So skepticism doesn’t mean to doubt everything forever in all instances of being paralyzed. It means to ask enough questions to form enough of a solid base of knowledge so that you can take a rational, reasoned action,” Hamachek said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Brent Hamachek” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
