clyde wrote:
I do appreciate your effort, but your rough translation seems vague to me. Do you think you could explain “Be smart†so a child (or I) could understand it?
What you asked for before was the definition of better, and you later proved you can look it up in a dictioary as well as anyone else. Then you claimed to not understand how that could be a guide to thinking or acting. I believe you are "playing dumb" to try to "win" by attrition - then again, my greatest fault is in overestimating people.
One must address anything to the developmental level of the person being addressed. An average adult can understand "be smart" pretty well. Since you have now asked for an explination that you or a child could understand, I will give you an example that children have repeatedly understood:
Child: (enthusiastically as if he thinks he has the right answer) I think the best way is to shoot people. Anybody gives you any trouble, just shoot them.
Me: What happens to people who shoot people?
Child: (hangs head, sadness replaces enthusiasm) They go to prison.
Clyde, how do you think this conversation would have gone if you had just told this child "do no harm?" This example child represents multiple who have spontaneously and seriously suggested shooting as the best solution (and children can, and do, get guns - so this isn't just a harmless misconception that we can just expect a child to grow out of). At least many, if not all of these children, came up with their answers from their personal life experiences (not just TV). Telling a kid whose family member or multiple family members have been shot is not going to understand "do no harm" and isn't going to understand why it isn't okay to shoot whoever it was that shot the one they loved. Many adults don't quite understand that either. Kids whose big brothers or other people they respect who are in gangs, so those kids are not going to be influenced by someone (or some bumper sticker) saying "do no harm" (in fact, in some neighborhoods a bumper sticker like that would get a car vandalized). The people who are there for them, the ones who they see love them, their personal heros believe in shooting people.
Reason can overcome the influence of even the closest people in their lives because reason comes from something closer - their own heads. Teaching people to be smart not just by thinking (they thought they were thinking when they thought that shooting people was a good idea, and they could give a lot of examples of why shooting people is a good idea) nor even just by thinking more intelligently, but by being smart by doing the right thing as the final result. Why right is right is a long process of maturing and teaching people to think clearly for themselves, so that they can more fully understand by realizing for themselves what all of this means. Clearing up unclear thinking can take awhile for the less mature.
I'm not going to try to explain the more mature versions to you because I have hashed this out long enough. I do present things differently to teenagers and adults depending on their ability to understand. Once a person really understands the more basic version, he can understand the next level up of how to be smart. He may require guidance from people who are already smart, but the first step in being smart is getting smart.
The guidance should come from parents or schools, but that doesn't always happen. If a person doesn't get it from those places, he is responsible for himself to learn how to be smart from other places and seek other mentors.
I'm not saying that "do no harm" is useless. Barney the big purple dinosaur, as annoying as he is to most adults, has a wonderful function fro small children. If you feel that this is worthwhile, go for it. As you said, this is just a discussion board.
I'm feeling like I'm working for free again, and I already put in enough volunteer hours for now. I do appreciate that you are asking questions, which is good, but I have to take care of myself too by not getting "burned out" because that is the smart way to be able to contribute my best to peace over the longest period of time.
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(edited because I am getting burned out and didn't phrase some of this as well as I ought to have the first time. My apologies to anyone who read the unedited version).