Critical Thinking is a lost art. Over the past 2-3 years I’ve seen our company include “Critical Thinking” training in their monthly listing of classes. As an Engineer for 33 years, the fact that companies now have to “Teach Critical Thinking” scares the hell out of me. Covid response is a glaring example of the results of educational conditioning instead of teaching skills. The author is right, it’s easy to manipulate skulls full of mush.
This puts me mind of an old saying...
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
“””the fact that companies now have to “Teach Critical Thinking” scares the hell out of me”””
I fully agree. From my viewpoint it seems our educational system is creating ‘non-critical thinkers’ these days. In today’s educational system those who blindly follow are the ones rewarded.
Let’s hear it for publik skrewls!
Critical thinking used to be called independent thought. Today, people don’t know what to think until they are told.
Everything you have said is true but I would add they have also “othered” independent thinkers. As soon as you question the dominant narrative people start lumping you in with the “crazies”; they think you are one of those people who believe in flat earth, faked moon landings, etc. I have run into this with a few people with whom I have tried to layout my carefully thought out concerns with over Covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and election fortification.
There is also a psychological trick that has become very evident in the last year or so. They bring out the conspiracy nut version of information (exaggerated and often nonsensical) to be “fact-checked” and debunked so that when the actual facts come out the normies think you are a ill-informed nut for bringing it up. Now we have the meme that last week’s conspiracy theory is this week’s fact.
You would think people would recognize this after the same game played over so many times, but so many remain blind.