Unreasonable People

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." - George Bernard Shaw

Those without reason go against logic, seek to challenge the inevitable and strive to achieve the impossible. They take the road less travelled for it seems the only way to achieve things on a scale of such grandeur. There is little doubt that the unreasonable people are singly responsible for the huge progresses in the world. They are the dreamers - the innovators who refuse to accept the average and constantly push the boundaries set by their more earthly counterparts.

History will show that those who had a rather distinguishable thought provided great catalysts to change. In fields ranging from the arts to politics to science, those who encouraged different thinking, that which went against the grain, were perhaps most influential. How else could we explain Beethoven who composed through years of silence to be revered as one of the greatest composers who ever lived? Magellan who sailed the world round when all others claimed it was a pointless exercise given the earth was flat? And that most treasured Galileo who was most antipodean in a time when it was believed that the earth was the centre of the universe. Only centuries later did people come to accept his theories as fact. These men all left their own unique and rare mark on the world. They were revolutionaries who championed change in a world which was so content to remain the same.

Given surmountable evidence for the progress of humankind due to the "unreasonable people" to whom Shaw refers, it should also be noted that not all change that was caused could be perceived as progress.

It is clear that the "unreasonable" people which Shaw refers to cause change. That is not in dispute. Nevertheless, change does not necessarily imply progress where progress infers improvement or betterment. There are countless leaders who strove to adapt the world's view to their own and thereby attaining such power.