Independent thinking: the dilemma of Thomas More

Most of you probably know the story of Thomas More, theologian, politician and thinker, Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII. A wise and balanced man according to the chroniclers of the time, who had the great misfortune of confronting his king, outraged by the policy followed by the monarch on several topics. Among these topics, the best known and taken on several occasions to literature and film, was the confrontation with Henry VIII because of his divorce initiative and the resulting clash of England with the Catholic Church.

I will not go now to assess the position of Thomas More on the fact of divorce in particular. Probably his position, as it was, would be difficult to justify in today's society but I want to assess the relative position of the character in front of the prevailing power and given the historical conditions of the time. Thomas More belonged to that minority of people who are so convinced of the goodness and legitimacy of their positions that ended up by defending them with all its consequences. Let me remind you that the British politician literally had to pay with his head the confrontation with his king or, what is the same thing, the confrontation with the dominant thinking at the time.

In our society we tend to magnify the importance of democratic values, sometimes in a not very successful way. Everything makes us think that the majority always carry the reason because this is democracy. However, there are usually certain minorities that are more deeply aware of the scientific, social or economic challenges of our time and that lead innovation and head movements for social change.  Those minorities that are able to identify real long term trends and are able to react as opinion leaders and to put on the table new areas for thought and action.

Those illustrated minorities are usually those that are at obvious risk since they are far from sharing the same uniform thinking in which the population sometimes plunge in a not very grounded way. They are those minorities that are able to identify the real problems and the real dilemmas but escaping from the dominant opinions dictated by the political and media establishment. I’d like you to think about Galileo Galilei. Who was right, that heterodox and reflective minority, in this case represented by Galileo, or the majority that defended the dominant thinking at that time that kept on arguing that the Earth was flat?

Those silent minorities are the ones who dare to think differently, who dare to propose unusual topics or to have authorities and the powerful face awkward questions while those powerful mislead people with false dilemmas and artificially created trending topics, usually because of their unmentionable self -interest.

We found those minorities in diverse locations such as private companies, the public sector, in politics, in the media, in the scientific community, in the third sector and generally in almost any social organization. They are usually people with a keen intuition, with a social intelligence that make their thoughts and opinions go beyond political correctness. Many other times they are just ordinary citizens that are simply not drawn by the mainstream and want to exercise their right to see things differently. They are those people who, while everyone talks about certain topics, dare to raise different questions and see things from a different angle to that of most mortals: uncomfortable people!

That’s why so often those minorities are at serious reputational risk. They are stigmatized as the " freaks " of social opinion. They are carefully scrutinized by the “establishment” and by society as a whole. They almost never get any reward for having the courage to ask the questions that allow progress without being swayed by the uniform thinking so common in our Western democracies. People whose thinking is not considered properly, who are removed from most social debates and who are treated as nobodies by the apostles of uniform thinking.

Perhaps Thomas More was a predecessor of how difficult it is for certain minorities to confront through reason and intelligence the human tendency to create those uniform and monolithic ways of thinking that require unwavering adhesions. Thomas More paid with his head for that. In our modern society we have also coined the expression " cut off the head " for those who are deprived of their positions or responsibilities for confronting the established powers.

It is clear that we have not improved much in the last five centuries. Thus, you should recognize that, although it's a pity that Mr More could not because the head was separated from his trunk at the time of his burial, if Thomas More could raise his head from the grave, he would be very disappointed of how little things have changed, at least in regard to the topic we are talking about. He could at least experience a partial satisfaction since today the heads of those people who, like him, show a way of thinking that’s independent and it’s far from the dominant social trends, are not usually severed, at least in the literal sense of the word.