Decades ago, when buying a Christmas toy, I needed to look at the box carefully. If the box said “batteries not included,” I knew I would need to pick up some batteries so there would not be any tears on Christmas Day.
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These days, I often see new social media entries or opinion pieces that (should) contain labels saying, “Critical thinking not included.” Many of us spout off the most outrageous things without examining whether those thoughts are based in truth.
Critical thinking is absent everywhere. We hear many unsubstantiated sayings:
- “Men can get pregnant.”
- “The world will end in ten years.”
- “All whites are racist.”
Many people accept them outright, simply because they are uttered by the “right people” (our friends, celebrities we admire, teachers). They never wonder whether they are true.
In a recent podcast on Triggernometry, a young woman described how immersed she was in climate alarmism for several years without questioning any of its claims. Once she began her own investigation, she changed her mind, but it still took years to go public because she knew that her friends and coworkers would cancel her.
The left does this whenever one of its members begins to question any woke concept. It has been reported that questioning any leftist heterodoxy on BlueSky or Slack will get you shut down almost immediately. Or you could get in trouble at work or school. Cancel culture has been felt by many who publicly air their disagreements, however minor. “The science is settled,” don’t you know?
But it is also present on the right. Instead of referring to “the science,” many on the right depend on whatever Donald Trump says. Disagree with Trump in any way on conservative platforms, and some will call you “an infiltrator,” a “NeverTrump,” or a “traitor.” Trump himself does not easily tolerate dissension within his administration. (And for those who want to know, I really like Trump. I voted for him three times.)
We should not be surprised at this situation. Modern public education often involves simply learning the subject matter and echoing it during tests. Rarely do students need to think for themselves. This replaces classical education (sometimes used in homeschooling), which promoted logical critical thinking (known as “dialectic”). Now that public education has been infused with cultural Marxism, students are imbibing it all without wondering whether it is true.
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For those who want to engage in critical thinking, recent conspiracy theories have made it a bit harder. In the past, if someone told me Elvis was alive, 9/11 was faked, or the moon landing never happened, I would have challenged him to think about how unlikely that would be, and how many people would have to conspire for that conspiracy theory to be true. And that may have been justified in the past. However, over the past half-dozen years, we have seen that many conspiracy theories have been true, such as plans to frame Trump, plans to fake Medicaid to the tune of billions of dollars, and plans to tip the vote via mass migration. Thinking critically about conspiracy theories is not as simple as it used to be.
Finally, critical thinking is often absent because we have no time to think. Ubiquitous smartphones, TVs, and music do not give us the empty time we need to think, to probe, and to question. It is convenient simply to allow ourselves to be entertained. We constantly fill up our quiet times with something. If we are sitting in a waiting room, are on a drive to the store, or have a few minutes at work to chill, we often call, watch a video, or scroll through social media. So when do we take time to think critically about something we have heard?
One thing I really respected about the late Rush Limbaugh was the fact that he allowed people who disagreed with him to go to the front of the queue. He would allow them to talk and air whatever question or grievance they had. He would treat them with respect and give them time to make their point. Then he would provide a counterpoint with a great deal of grace and courtesy. It is that respect for the differing point of view that has at least a chance of changing another person’s mind.
I suggest we let conservatism become great again by respectfully allowing critical thinking in our midst, and let’s make mental room for it in our own minds.
John Long retired from a 33-year career in I.T. and now spends his time as a Christian activist. He occasionally writes satire at his blog Chicken Dentist.
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Image: ElisaRiva via Pixabay, Pixabay License.