In the early 1980s a heartless graffitist with a Sharpie Magnum Chisel Tip Permanent Marker wrote “Philosophy is Bullshit” on the men’s bathroom door of the Philosophy Department at The State University of New York At Stony Brook. That mean-spirited message lasted longer than expected given its location, but the lesson lingers to this day and might just have more relevance than ever in today’s cancel culture.

What is philosophy if not culture. It’s the continuous distillation of millennia of human knowledge into perspectives providing insight into better planning for the future, isn’t it? But as all of humanity strives to shed the ancient vestiges of race, gender, and class inequality, how seriously do we take the thoughts of a man like Aristotle who wrote 2,300 years ago that “the slave is a part of the master.” Or Jefferson, who despite writing “all men are created equal” believed forced servitude is a viable means for the less refined to achieve the equality he preached.

“Great Thinkers” espousing great ideas that all too often assuaged the conscience of those who profit from others’ loss are littered throughout history. They burnished their own credentials as “Great Thinkers” among those with the time and inclination to read great thoughts. We ignore these teachers at our own peril. But by today’s standards their thoughts were generated through a paucity of information on a par with primary school. Paying them too much mind in this, the age of information, is equally perilous.