Today I received more than half a dozen questions from one Western woman. So I have dropped them. I have not chosen any of them for the simple reason that, in the name of questions, she is simply exhibiting her own knowledge. For example, she says, "You teach compassion, and still you have called a few thinkers idiots. There is a contradiction in it." Now this is not a question. She is simply showing a contradiction in me — she understands better. The question is just an excuse.
My difficulty is that I simply call a spade a spade. Who has told you that idiots cannot think? Who has told you that idiots cannot philosophize? In fact, only idiots do that! The intelligent person lives truth. He does not think about it, because by thinking nobody has ever found it. Only idiots think about it. By thinking he shows his stupidity. I have called many so-called great thinkers idiots because they are idiots. What can I do?
For example, Aristotle is one of the great thinkers. He is thought to be the father of Western logic. But he himself is not very scientific in his approach. In his book of logic he writes that women have less teeth than men. He had two wives. Only one was enough, but he had two. So he could have asked Mrs. Aristotle 1, or Mrs. Aristotle Number 2 — whoever was less terrible — to open her mouth, and count the teeth before writing such a statement. That would have been a scientific approach, an intelligent approach. But because it has been believed for centuries that women have to have everything less than men, how can they have an equal number of teeth?
So in Greece it was a long tradition, but not a single man ever tried to count. Not a single woman ever tried to count to prove that this is absolutely nonsense. And when a man like Aristotle writes in his book that women have less teeth than men, what do you want me to call him? What is the purpose of having two wives if you cannot even do such a small experiment…? His approach is not experimental, it is not existential. It is not scientific. He is simply accepting a superstition which is absurd. Now I cannot say that he is a man who knows. He has not even learned the ABC of knowing.
The woman is very much troubled that I have called a few thinkers idiots. But what else is one supposed to do?
OSHO
