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Are you a victim of push-button phrases?
September 23, 2010 - 9:54pm
Space holder...
Critical thinking is all but dead.
Over decades of relentless propaganda most people internalized a number of catch-phrases that come with a whole slew of unexamined meaning, hopelessly defeating any attempt of intelligent analysis.
For example, take those words that are all based on beautiful concepts and became dirty words in our media: 'Socialism' is based on society, 'Communism' is based on community, 'liberalism' is based on liberty, 'peacenik' is based on peace, etc.
There are newer ones that are triggering feelings of 'good' or 'bad' without going through the brain.
Depending who you ask, 'tax-cut' is good, 'terrorism' is bad, 'god' is good, 'big government' is bad, 'family values' are good, 'tree-hugging' is bad.
Whenever any of these phrases are used, it is taken for granted that everybody understands what they mean and there will be no questions asked.
Whose god? Whose tax-cut, whose terrorists? What kind of family? Why, how, when, how long, how much, where, in what context?
The so called tea-party movement in the US is based on one slogan: "big government".
How big is big? Why? By what criteria? Do we need a government at all? Why? If we do, what determines its size? What is an optimum size? What does it depend on? How is it defined? Describing government as a "decision-making body of human beings" why pick on the government? Why not big business or big unions or big clergy?
The phrase often is "freedom from big government". Freedom for what? If human affairs are not organized intelligently and we live in a mess (like now) then what are we free from or free for?
We have become a push-button society where our brains are programmed to blindly react to unexamined catch-phrases, disarmed by the weight of decades-long propaganda attached to these phrases.
See how many more you can identify - my short list up there is just the tip of the iceberg.
"Tip of the iceberg." Funny.
How about "sections of a prefabricated henhouse"?
spiralling cost
unprecedented (worst, best, biggest...)
changed forever
time immemorial
inexplicable
I've been called a bleeding heart social worker. They kind of have the profession right, but it seems to suggest that the sutures from my bypass surgery are failing. I've never had this, but I appreciate the concern for my health of course.
Ah it's a slippery slope.
Is there a link to those pre-fabricated henhouses?
The main problem is that nobody asks enough questions! Not the public and not the media. They may express an opinion (positive or negative) but they don't question the actual meaning of the phrase. They just assume that everybody understands what they mean.
Take taxation. Everyone agrees that we pay too high a proportion of our income. What would be the right proportion? Why pay taxes at all? And if we do, what is the right amount? Should it be the same for everyone or should it be progressive? If yes, how progressive? Why? What determines fairness? How do we calculate it? Everyone who ever filled out a tax return knows that tax laws are insanely complicated. Who made them, based on what principle, what criteria?
Same about "big government". Nobody ever defined what "big" means in this context.
Since nobody asks questions and the debate never goes beyond blind agreement or blind opposition, it becomes a macabre dance of deranged automata that goes through the motion of discussing without any content and substance.
That is one reason I find the future hopeless: it is not only that we are on the wrong path to finding a solution but rather, we don't even now what a path is and how to find one. Our entire civilization became a civilization of zombies.
Okay, here is another aspect of the same thing.
Not words, but numbers. Such-and-such cost 1.8 billion dollars.
Mouths and eyes go round; hiss of outgoing breath: we are shocked and apalled. And never quite get 'round to asking: "How did you arrive at that figure?" "What are your sources of information?" "Have you actually seen the bills?" "What were they for?" "Who signed the cheques?"
"Tell us exactly what will result from this unprecedented, unforseeable devasting disaster of incalculable magnitude."
If I were to add one, you'd smack yourself in the forehead, say, "Of course," then go edit out your comments in the class identity thread.
I don't want to be held responsible for any blunt-force trauma to your cranium.
I wonder what chomsky would say about this, from his linguist perspective.
i think it has to do with propaganda. We're constantly using words with no regard for their meaning, and out of context.
sometimes it doesn't really make sense. anti-american for example makes no sense in the context it's used, on a language basis. But in terms of propaganda it's perfect.
same with other words, anti-semetic, free market, free trade, defense, international community, security, and hundreds of others are routinely misused.
The Babbitt and the Bromide
Let me try to explain the intended point of this thread a bit more clearly.
What bothers me on these forums (and in the mainstream media) is the almost total lack of reference points. The discussion is floating in air, without an anchor in reality. We have no starting point on which we agree.
We just express emotional and personal opinions and expect others to agree with our un-stated assumptions. Sometimes even we ourselves do not know what assumptions.
Our opponents are no better off, so arguments seldom go anywhere. We keep shouting each other down, interrupting each other's statements -- nobody convinces anybody about anything; the argument is doomed from the start.
Quite often the purpose is to score points. We treat the discussion as a contest, instead of an attempt to find a solution and thus let everybody win.
If we tried to build science and industry by this method, we would still be in the caves. It just doesn't work. It can't.
The scientific method, which was so successful over the centuries in technology, is not limited to science: it is a general problem-solving method that could and should be applied to all our problems.
We need a common starting point. That means an agreement on definitions, facts and basic principles.
If we go from there, step by step, making sure we agree on each step, then either we arrive at the same conclusion, or a point of disagreement. Work on that point, until we reach a compromise, and then resume our discussion, knowing that we are still together, solving our problem.
However, the way we are going now, is simply going around in circles.
It can be entertaining and amusing, leading nowhere.
Amusing and leading nowhere, sort of like these little gems:
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
I always thought Peter Sellers had it right in Being There.
Not a chance of a snowball in hell, is there?
"Critical thinking is all but dead" is a push-button phrase that has been circulating since critical thinking was invented.
Speaking of origin, all this nonsense started when people started questioning whether Adam's rib really was where it said it was on Saturday night.
And speaking of definitions, this is what Google image defines as "democracy":
Critical thinking was not invented. It is a survival trait. Those who don't have it will die out. Unfortunately they may take the rest of us with them because we are few and they are many.
I guess you don't believe in natural selection, then!
Of course I do.
There have been countless non-viable species and we may turn out to be one.
That's all.
Ha. Good answer.
My point is that "critical thinking" is a pretty empty signifier. People love to rail against it without even knowingbeing clear about what it means. You made some gestures towards the "scientific method," but that's very different from thinking critically, at least in my opinion. Usually, those bewailing the status of critical thinking (or literacy levels, or ethical standards, etc.) are usually just putting their best curmudgeonly foot forward.
Anyway, starting points are so 1641. Il n'y a pas de hors-texte.
If you read my earlier posts in this thread (#2, #6 and #11) carefully, you can't help noticing that I said a lot more about "critical thinking" than "some gestures towards the the scientific method".
Who the hell here except the writer reads anyone's posts carefully?
Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas
Then why bother to 'respond'?
Ego-trip?
Yeah, that's pretty well my point.
Don't take it personally, alien. I more or less agree with you. I was pointing out that your definition of "critical thinking" was different from my own, and that finding a common so-called starting point was a vain enterprise. Better than finding consensus, I think, is to set up our necessarily different definitions and beliefs in tension with one another to see what emerges.
Catchfire, I never take anything personally on Babble.
I am curious now about your definition of "critical thinking".
In my own definition, summarized, it is a kind of thinking that asks a LOT of questions from every possible angle. That is what scientists do. They don't accept appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, appeal to self-interest, but ask and ask and ask everything that has any bearing on the topic. They keep an open mind and don't reject anything out of hand, they are curious and inquisitive but try to avoid traps, contradictions, obfuscation, dishonesty, hyperbole and the like.
As far as "beliefs in tension with one another to see what emerges" is concerned: what usually emerges is confusion and going around in circles, as I tried to explain before.
I honestly don't see any substitute for clear thinking and honest discussions about the topic at hand: agreement on facts, agreement on definitions, agreement on basic principles and agreement on objectives. If agreement on any of these four are not possible then it will indeed become a "vain enterprise" as you said in your last post. The "emerging tension" usually manifests itself in verbal abuse, fistfights, wars and genocides.
I think "clear thinking" is a myth. I think "critical thinking" is a vague term for "thoughtfulness" which rarely comes up in a positive clause: always "no one can think critically"; rather than "that woman sure can think critically." When I use it, I generally mean we should be sceptical but honest, thorough but hopeful, reparative, but not naive. Perhaps all tension leads to violence, and perhaps all violence is bad. I don't think I agree with that, is all.
Fair enough, Catchfire.
As you said we "more or less agree".
I have participated in many scientific conferences where I have seen my kind of critical thinking in action and observed it being a highly effective problem-solving tool.
I have also seen many "sceptical but honest, thorough but hopeful, reparative, but not naive" discussions going in circles, leading nowhere.
Critical thinkers seem to be rather adept at destroying the assumptions on which the powers-that-be depend for their power. Those folks become mighty uneasy around critical thinking that questions the social or scientific status quo. I don't believe it is a "vague term" at all in the social sciences where the theoretical and empirical vie for turf. What it means outside the scientific community, of course, is up for grabs.