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Strega,

She was in a classroom around age twelve, and the class was required to write the one word they felt typified Americans. Everyone else wrote “Individuality”, and she wrote “Conformity” 🙂

This isn’t a country that celebrates individualism. We would be looking at the conformists to introduce new education programs promoting individua…

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Jake,

loaded question number one. Not gonna address the union secured and tenured part. I will just say in general our compulsory education generally fails in that regard. Occasionally a teacher of unusual perspicuity and concern makes a difference. In general however it is closer to all in all just another brick in the wall.

I wasn’t meaning…[Read more]

@_Robert_  Put you and her on an 8:30 AM train and it is a completely different picture…

I agree and it usually was. I had (have) no problem with anyone being a goth. I am all for people expressing their own individuality, especially with a subversive or non-conformist undertone towards “the system”.  I lived in a squat house with 12 people f…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
@strega – Everyone else wrote “Individuality”, and she wrote “Conformity”. I had a summer relationship with a goth girl in the mid 1980’s. My style at the time (if style is the word to use) was t-shirt, jeans, sneakers and a packet of Rizla. She was full goth, all the time. She was trying to persuade me to “change…

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@Strega – Everyone else wrote “Individuality”, and she wrote “Conformity”.

I had a summer relationship with a goth girl in the mid 1980’s. My style at the time (if style is the word to use) was t-shirt, jeans, sneakers and a packet of Rizla. She was full goth, all the time. She was trying to persuade me to “change my lifestyle choices” or whateve…[Read more]

I went for an end of term dinner in an Elementary School in the USA for some relations who were probably about ages 910  at the time. I don’t recall the menu but I will always remember the notice at the front entrance over the flowerbeds. It read “No firearms beyond this point”.

The most common reply I get from ChatGPT is “Great catch”. Then I wait for the next reply and check it too……..

Anyone tied to an ideology cannot think critically by definition. The rise of extreme right and left ideologies is why critical thinking is almost dead.

These extreme right billionaires like Musk and Bezos have given up on the Earth’s future and want to fortress the US and switch to crypto-gold while they devise their tech-bro extraplanetary…[Read more]

@strega – isn’t there a difference between individuality, and individualism?  Individualism can be a social situation, the opposite of communitarianism.  People rely on themselves and a small circle of people, while in communal societies, people rely on the whole community.  Community societies are “shame” cultures where the community governs th…[Read more]

Strega, i don’t see a path either. Just trying to be creative. AI is an unknown and we see growing reliance and connectedness between humans and AI so who knows. And being creative widespread dissilusionment with both political parties after a disastrous Trump presidency with existential crises might foster a receptiveness to critical thinking for…[Read more]

An American friend once told me a story.
She was in a classroom around age twelve, and the class was required to  write the one word they felt typified Americans.  Everyone else wrote “Individuality”, and she wrote “Conformity” 🙂

This isn’t a country that celebrates individualism. We would be looking at the conformists to introduce new educati…[Read more]

“My question is whether our present compulsory state schooling and teachers with tenured, union-secured positions further our mass lack of criical thinking.

And related to that, how do we get to a society of critical thinkers from where we are now? So much rides on that, indeed everything good.”

loaded question number one. Not gonna address the…[Read more]

Reg and Jake,

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr.

Hey, Rein-y. Democracy only has anything to do with justice if a majority wants justice–or injustice for that matter, which a majority too often does if unchecked. Socrates was forced…[Read more]

What’s the difference between critical thinking skills and conspiracy theorising?  I guess it’s the quality of the evidence, and a willingness to have an open mind.  If you get all your evidence from Youtube, and won’t change your mind no matter what, that’s not critical thinking.

People can use their critical thinking skills to support their unconscious prejudices. Greyhound racing, for example, is quite wisely banned almost everywhere in America and yet horse racing, which is exactly the same thing applied to a different species, persists.

Go figure.

Channeling my anger and ChatGPT updating my rant.

The Benefits of a Society That Values Critical Thinking (Compared to Theocracies)

A society that places critical thinking at its core gains wide-reaching benefits that theocracies — societies ruled by religious authority — struggle to match. Critical thinking involves the systematic que…[Read more]

And would any government today really want critically thinking citizens?

I guess it would if it was a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr.

*Channels Reg without authorization.

Critical thinking is not innate. Not for the masses. Sure there are those women born into Islamic death culture who see through it and the hypocrisy of the western lefties with their Jew hatred and abandonment of human rights for all. One little example aformentioned. There are many similar albeit different…[Read more]

Reg,

If we have a shortage of critical thinking in society, how much you suppose is the fault of the very rooms where kids. are required by law to spend 6 to 8 hours a day for 8 to 12 years and the union-tenured teachers presiding over them? And would any government today really want critically thinking citizens?