The West's War on Critical Thinking

June 20, 2024
The West’s War on Critical Thinking

By J.B. Shurk



Nobody enjoys being manipulated. I have never met anyone who remarked, “I’m so glad people cleverer than I tricked me into doing what they wanted.” Yet we are all bombarded each day with messages from people and institutions vying to shape our thoughts and control our behaviors.


Television commercials push us to buy certain products. Politicians describe domestic and foreign threats in such ways that only they can provide necessary solutions. Religious leaders choose which doctrines of their faiths must be diligently observed and which ones can be casually overlooked. More open societies might be marketplaces for competing ideas, but the most effective salespeople within any society are the ones who know how to magnify their own messages while silencing others.


Given that this is the case, a society interested in protecting its people from manipulation would be highly invested in educating citizens from a young age how to use reason, rationality, and logic to filter truth from falsehood. Aside from a smattering of classical and religious schools that focus on how to assess information and judge its credibility, it is evident that Western educational systems have been designed with no such purpose in mind. Students are taught what to think but not how to think. They are handed bits of knowledge without first being provided the cognitive tools for acquiring knowledge on their own. They have no appreciation for how misleading rhetoric and faulty logic are used to produce spurious arguments. They have no background in philosophy sufficient to arm them with the mental acuity necessary to spot and reject propaganda. They have no comprehension of the linguistic games that are used to program their minds. They lack shrewd discernment.


What does it say about a civilization that generally requires young people to spend thirteen or more years in public school systems engineered to produce mediocre minds? It should set off alarm bells! When governments are in the business of dumbing down citizens, they are investing in future generations who will be obedient slaves. Or, if an animal farm metaphor makes it easier for a millennial “influencer” to understand, Western governments prefer easily managed cattle that they can move from pen to pen before sending them to the slaughterhouse (think: Ukraine). What they do not want is an independent-minded cow knocking over a fence and freeing the herd from certain death. Schools, like penitentiaries, are institutions for corralling large numbers of humans together, so that a mixture of indoctrination and punishment can be efficiently administered until most learn to “behave.” When Western education mimics Western incarceration, Western citizens should start to wonder just who the real prisoners are.


The U.S. Pentagon, the NATO military alliance, and Western espionage agencies spend a great deal of their resources influencing human minds. “Great,” you might say. “They should be actively shaping the opinions of civilians in adversarial nations.” Except I’m not talking about “winning the hearts and minds” of foreigners living under dangerous dictatorships. When I say that the military and Intelligence Community are currently fighting an undeclared war in what they call the “cognitive battlespace,” it is your mind that they are fighting to influence.



Read much more here:
https://www.americanthinker.com/arti..._thinking.html

HawkTheSlayer wrote:June 20, 2024
The West’s War on Critical Thinking

By J.B. Shurk



Nobody enjoys being manipulated. I have never met anyone who remarked, “I’m so glad people cleverer than I tricked me into doing what they wanted.” Yet we are all bombarded each day with messages from people and institutions vying to shape our thoughts and control our behaviors.


Television commercials push us to buy certain products. Politicians describe domestic and foreign threats in such ways that only they can provide necessary solutions. Religious leaders choose which doctrines of their faiths must be diligently observed and which ones can be casually overlooked. More open societies might be marketplaces for competing ideas, but the most effective salespeople within any society are the ones who know how to magnify their own messages while silencing others.


Given that this is the case, a society interested in protecting its people from manipulation would be highly invested in educating citizens from a young age how to use reason, rationality, and logic to filter truth from falsehood. Aside from a smattering of classical and religious schools that focus on how to assess information and judge its credibility, it is evident that Western educational systems have been designed with no such purpose in mind. Students are taught what to think but not how to think. They are handed bits of knowledge without first being provided the cognitive tools for acquiring knowledge on their own. They have no appreciation for how misleading rhetoric and faulty logic are used to produce spurious arguments. They have no background in philosophy sufficient to arm them with the mental acuity necessary to spot and reject propaganda. They have no comprehension of the linguistic games that are used to program their minds. They lack shrewd discernment.


What does it say about a civilization that generally requires young people to spend thirteen or more years in public school systems engineered to produce mediocre minds? It should set off alarm bells! When governments are in the business of dumbing down citizens, they are investing in future generations who will be obedient slaves. Or, if an animal farm metaphor makes it easier for a millennial “influencer” to understand, Western governments prefer easily managed cattle that they can move from pen to pen before sending them to the slaughterhouse (think: Ukraine). What they do not want is an independent-minded cow knocking over a fence and freeing the herd from certain death. Schools, like penitentiaries, are institutions for corralling large numbers of humans together, so that a mixture of indoctrination and punishment can be efficiently administered until most learn to “behave.” When Western education mimics Western incarceration, Western citizens should start to wonder just who the real prisoners are.


The U.S. Pentagon, the NATO military alliance, and Western espionage agencies spend a great deal of their resources influencing human minds. “Great,” you might say. “They should be actively shaping the opinions of civilians in adversarial nations.” Except I’m not talking about “winning the hearts and minds” of foreigners living under dangerous dictatorships. When I say that the military and Intelligence Community are currently fighting an undeclared war in what they call the “cognitive battlespace,” it is your mind that they are fighting to influence.



Read much more here:
https://www.americanthinker.com/arti..._thinking.html

""""Aside from a smattering of classical and religious schools that focus on how to assess information and judge its credibility,""

Religion groups have a culture of indoctrination , They are cults

I think it is wonderful for the NABOOBS to stick together like wrestlings "tag teams"
They could generate a great deal of income renting themselves out as "manure spreaders". They would put both John Deere and Caterpillar out of business.

Public schools here in America have been taken over by liberals, communists and subversives. What once was a public school is now an indoctrination center for left wing "thought", groupthink and victimization.

Public school libraries here in America are now filled with books that we used to call pornography and pornographic filth.

That is why homeschooling, co-op schools, church schools and private schools are so popular these days. That is also why Dems have opposed school vouchers so vehemently.

It's not just the schools and the media manipulating people. I also suspect they're chemically lobotomizing people through the food, water and medicine supplies. I notice almost zero critical thinking skills from either end of the socio-political spectrum. It's like people don't have any kind of frontal lobe anymore. Everyone is content with being a sheep, just mindlessly following what everyone else is doing. That's why you see everyone wearing the same clothes, driving the same cars, buying the same products, watching the same TV shows, listening to the same music, getting the same tattoos, etc. Having an original thought or making an independent decision is too much for them to handle.

Keith wrote:It's not just the schools and the media manipulating people. I also suspect they're chemically lobotomizing people through the food, water and medicine supplies. I notice almost zero critical thinking skills from either end of the socio-political spectrum. It's like people don't have any kind of frontal lobe anymore. Everyone is content with being a sheep, just mindlessly following what everyone else is doing. That's why you see everyone wearing the same clothes, driving the same cars, buying the same products, watching the same TV shows, listening to the same music, getting the same tattoos, etc. Having an original thought or making an independent decision is too much for them to handle.

It's an interesting thought that the libs are using food, water and medicine to prevent people from making an independent decision or having an original thought. As I have said before, absolutely nothing would surprise me at this point. The truth is usually stranger than the lies that we are fed from the media minions.

I believe this is why Dems have encouraged, supported and promoted illegal immigrations, terrorism and the proliferation of illegal guns and pharmaceuticals. A voter who is under the influence will not have independent thought and will just vote the way they want them to.

As we saw with the WuFlu, gain of function "testing" , lab leak (release?) and the mandated "Vaccine", anyone who legitimately asks questions about it is censored, cancelled, covered up or otherwise silenced. Daring to ask questions or think independently will get you a label of "conspiracy theorist" (aka "nut", "lunatic","mentally incompetent", etc.)

Looks like somebody doesn't want us reading the article.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/06/the_west_s_war_on_critical_thinking.html

Always remember philosophy is questions that may never be answered; religion is answers that may never be questioned.

If you cannot question the answers it's a religion.

Quark wrote:Always remember philosophy is questions that may never be answered; religion is answers that may never be questioned.

If you cannot question the answers it's a religion.

I guess I disagree with your hypothesis. There are answers that won't be disclosed but, it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with philosophy. It's all about power and money!

I also don't agree that a religion involves answers to unasked questions.

I would agree that not being allowed to question our "leaders" is a "religion" of sorts though.

God has no problem with our questions.

https://www.gotquestions.org/question-God.html