Sometimes what you think is the way isn't really the way.
This is the point of the tragedy of Oedipus. His "free,
clear, rational thinking" transformed a mere plague into
an personal apocalypse.
Freedom, clarity and rationality are fine things, but those
words may not convey to you all possible modes of thought.
Some of the excluded modes of thought such as muddling though
volumes of confusing, partly understood, incomplete information
in order to develop a tentative hypothesis might turn out
to be more important for human survival than the kinds of
"rationality" than can mechanically and with great
clarity be applied to well
organized data by a computer program.
Idealism is overrated. Understanding our thought processes
and learning new ways of learning and thinking can be the
work of decades. By all means, "Don't ever lose that light
in your eyes," as LeAnne Rimes sings, but, on the other
hand, beware of those who would reduce all your
epistemological needs into a few snappy, sentimental slogans.