Critical Thinking – a Liberal Activity
It should be no wonder conservatives want to downplay critical thinking in school curriculum in favour of flooding it with authoritarian dogmatic propagandized indoctrination. As the Scientific Method is to facts of nature and the hard sciences, Critical Thinking is to the logic of society and the soft sciences. Critical thinking is liberal thinking, it IS meant to free one from dogma, skewed interpretation and challenge authoritarian indoctrination for what it is – unreasonable. This appeals to those who critically question authority and tradition as a means to challenge how and why things are done. Critical thinking further appeals to, and allows for, those who, with empathy, view all members of society as having an equal stake in it. Conservatism itself does not stand up to the scrutiny of critical thought. Here is a definition of critical thinking – disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence. Conservatism is emotional, founded on belief rather than evidence and rational thought. It is an oppositional emotional response to change brought on by threats posed by progress, it is reactionary. Conservatism is maintained by dogma and indoctrination of the conservative ideal that people can’t be trusted, especially ‘the other’ (be they racially, sexually, religiously, culturally different), to do the right thing and must be held in line by law, nationalism and strong government. Pressed to explain, conservatives often fall back to ‘it has always been this way’, ‘if it isn’t broke why fix it’ and ‘it worked fine in the past’ arguments, or appeals to mysticism and an all powerful god as ‘the way’. And true, some people like it that way. It’s how their mind works, emotionally focused on themselves, happy to be told what and how to do, insulated from the outside, threatened by the outside, blaming all ills and feeling cheated by those on the outside. Often refusing to explain whatever that way was, conservatives leave a critical thinker wondering while it maybe isn’t broken it could be improved and the more that it is the better for society, yes? The lack of clarity, and often obfuscation, presented by conservative thinking is frustratingly notable. Conservatives often negate rational proposals, sometimes even investigation, out of hand as it may lead to too much change from their core values from earlier times, or expose inequities of which they have the advantage and are loath to give up. This is anything but open-minded, it is decidedly closed minded and quite often is the response to perceived notions of declining power, privilege and position in society that progress often leads to. Even if conservatives know the facts as truth, but these facts don’t fit their ‘vision’ they will outright deny the truth, conflate it to suit their needs, delay its acceptance or blindly defend their view with awful reasoning. Solid real evidence, as when it can be demonstrably affirmed that some change would be good for all, is actively negated by conservatives as non-evidence and responded to with irrational and emotional pleas, red herrings, excuses, and lies, why it is not for them and, therefore, the rest of society, which, it must be said, generally appeals to like minded people, ie, other so-called conservatives. So, critical thinking is decidedly not what conservatives would see as needed to be taught to youth in schools, and, in fact, may be viewed as the core threat to the conservative ethos. Critical thinkers are viewed as rebels and non conformists, the enemy, so not something conservatives want to encourage. Falling back to traditional conservative thinking, obedience to dogmatic authority and acceptance of dogmatic indoctrination by youth for the preservation of conservative authority will be what conservatives strive for. Dec 22, 2019