What does it say to you that across communities where claims of critical thinking are everywhere — I haven’t found it anywhere? It’s become a pastime for people to take endless delight in advertising their immaculate critical thinking skills. But the second they’re challenged on anything that is even perceived as threatening their interests:
Don’t do any of this . . .
Indeed, nowadays, we tend to take in and repeat whatever the values and beliefs of those around us have rather than forming our own independent thought and stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving.
— Ann Baker, Critical Thinking: A fading skill in the age of information overload
Perfectly put — except for the “fading” part. In our Age of Unenlightenment — “fading” is an understatement for the ages. But in a world that operates entirely on narrative, not principle: Simply the act of sharing beliefs has become equated to acting on them. In this fantasyland, applying, principles somewhere magically means you apply them everywhere.
You think I just imagined the behavior illustrated in the video below (which captures the essence of my efforts and my idea for addressing the problems that plague America):
Sounds of Silence: The Deafening Noise of a Nation Decades in Decline
Ann Baker continues: “[Critical thinking] encompasses far more than mere information gathering. It also includes knowing where to look and continuing the search without prejudice about what we may find.”
“Bias” gets all the press
When prejudice is paramount to the problem. If it were just bias, convincing you with overwhelming and irrefutable evidence might still be difficult — but you’d be willing to be convinced. Prejudice doesn’t roll that way. In fact, it doesn’t roll anywhere — as you don’t budge one bit, and take pride in it, no less.
As a friend comically put it: “It’s not ‘Pride and Bias'”
It’s a mighty fine day when you wake up to high praise from a man of Glenn Loury’s caliber — twice! He once called my writing “brilliant,” was “honored by it,” and “blown away” by my site and signed up.
I’d like to think that’d at least give me a little credibility with his supporters.
I’d like to think a lot of things. Like when someone’s peddling principles driving his popularity — he’d abide by ’em when it wasn’t popular!
That was then . . . this is now:
And they already belonged to one before that!
Alas, we live in a world that would rather split hairs over semantics than consider the spirit of an argument. Whether or not it’s literally “religion” is not the point — it’s faith-based belief that has no bearing on reality:
a.k.a. Wishful Thinking
The same wishful thinking that’s utterly oblivious to the counterproductive nature of endlessly beating issues into the ground in entirely transactional tactics. Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving: It’s the mark of a market. All these channels are blunt instruments (including those I agree with).
Like Black Lives Matter, you’re just pounding away at problems without any examination of the efficacy of your efforts.
But why bother when failure is a pretty profitable enterprise these days? Then again, do these people really wanna solves problems anyway? Do you? As Theodore Dalrymple so perfectly put it in Life at the Bottom:
Man is at least as much a problem-creating as a problem-solving animal. Better a crisis than the permanent boredom of meaninglessness.
Life at the Bottom — how fitting!
If you think you’re making progress because of ever-increasing attention to your concerns — I suggest you reconsider:
We should be above whatever the fad or the fashion is of any given day. We should be looking at the deep questions. We should be analytical. We should be emphasizing reason.
— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today
Only for problems that are popular and easy to perceive? Whatever’s in your wheelhouse? Is that as deep as your questions go, Glenn? The likes of Loury & McWhorter (and all of America) — want to have conversations that work for them:
As if issues exist in a vacuum . . .
And don’t even get me started on this clownish crap for clickbait:
Jesus Christ — what’s it all worth?
“I’m an entertainer” . . .
When Rush Limbaugh said that long ago, I didn’t believe him. Now I think it’s the most honest thing he ever said. So when I came across this question below, it really hit home. I had asked a similar question before I found this one. His was better. Not only was it more direct, but it also shed light on something I hadn’t thought of — and I love that!
I wanted to believe — and it’s easy to get lost along the way. But I never get lost for long, and this question kickstarted my turnaround:
My version . . .
Across those communities:
I’ve never seen anything with even a hint of the questions we asked. And what they miserably fail to recognize is that their efforts act like a firewall by unwittingly providing an unlimited supply of candy to that piñata. I’m not suggesting they stop — I’m suggesting they reframe the debate by broadening it. Someone really “looking at the deep questions” — would have the courage to consider mine.
By not deviating from your lane — you don’t understand the roadblocks within it that were created outside of it.
It would be extremely difficult to reach the Left no matter what you do. But by feeding that firewall, you’re building in barricades that block you from reaching them in ways you might be able to without the Right sailing away on Scot-Free.
The Left institutionalizes weakness — and the Democratic Party is notorious for lacking backbone. You weaken the very people you’re trying to strengthen — branding weakness to boot.
And right on cue, the Right is ready to pounce.
I don’t blame ’em: Except for the part about them being weak while branding strength. Not to mention the force field of fallacy behind this firewall.
Conservatives control the narrative about responsibility and think that magically translates to taking responsibility. Republicans pounce on the Left day in and day out — as if the Right’s record vanished off the face of the earth. It’s all about framing the narrative — and the Left institutionalizing weakness is a gimme for the Right to rail on ’em.
That the Left brings it on themselves is another matter.
And the icing on the cake:
Somewhat sincere intellectuals justifiably calling out universities, woke ways, racially rigged incidents and such: Providing endless fodder for the Right to rip people for behavior that pales in comparison to what they’ve done for decades. The Right delights in ridiculing the Left for burning buildings to further the cause. Yet they went batshit crazy after 9/11: Setting the world ablaze — and browbeating anybody out of line in their March of Folly.
That — is faith-based belief at its best. The Left’s anti-racism religion, woke, and whatnot — they’re amateurs. I didn’t write Mariana Trench of Mendacity from my imagination.
By the way . . .
The right often accuses the left of exaggerating victimhood, turning a blind eye to reality, and distorting language to do so. The left, it’s often said, harbors “snowflakes” and the like who are beset by a victim complex. Lately, however, this frame of mind knows no party or political affiliation. Especially since the Capitol riot, assorted conservative figures have embodied a fragility of the right.
Lately?
Mr. McWhorter — I’ve been in the trenches dealing with these chronic complainers a helluva lot longer than “lately.” And about that branding: So courageous from your keyboards: Gutless in the face of facts you don’t like — disguised by your goose-stepping glory in the Facts Over Feelings Parade.
But the Right is Not Always Wrong (far from it):
And the smart move is to agree with them when they’re making sense (it’s also the right thing to do). The right thing tends to be the demanding thing — the difficult that can’t be captured in slogans, kneeling, and knocking down monuments. I don’t care if Kaepernick kneels — I care that you can’t solve multidimensional problems with one-dimensional gestures.
On that note . . .
Geraldine Ferraro and Rush are in opposite camps, and yet she said essentially the same thing he did:
If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.
Every word of her statement is true — but that didn’t matter one bit to those who bombarded her with “vicious e-mail messages accusing her of racism.”
Utterly Ridiculous
And I say that as someone who voted for Obama in 2008. I gave Romney a shot in the second round. I just have this old-fashioned idea about not rewarding people who are dishonest and don’t do a good job.
This nation has no such notion.
That Rush did more damage to America than maybe anyone in history — has no bearing on the truth when he told it. My mind is not for sale — so I can see what’s what no matter what I think of the source. And for the record, the Right is right on the money on the utterly ridiculous ways of woke:
And don’t even get me started on how homelessness is a problem perpetuated by those most sensitive in their approach to solving it. Whatever their asinine ways on the Right, they make a helluva lot more sense on this subject than the Left.
If you wanna start solving problems instead of perpetuating them, it’s gotta get ugly.
Or as ol’ Bill perfectly put it:
Roger Waters’ question from 1988 has been answered:
The smorgasbord of sub-cultures has created another dimension of delusion in America — hardening minds not broadening them. The commentary in these communities speaks volumes about social media and the state of society: Habitually hailing high praise for purveyors of virtue:
Virtues that vanish the second they’re called to put them to the test.
Isaac Newton and Einstein were brilliant — partisan hacks and high-minded influencers fueling a fix, are not. These people are not problem solvers, they’re entertainers. Their audience doesn’t know the difference (and I’m not sure they do either). I’m sure it’s intoxicating to amass a following and feel like you’re making a difference. But I’m going to weigh their impact partly as a reflection of their community: How people behave, not what they believe. If you can’t get that right, I don’t care how big your following gets — you’re taking this nation nowhere.
What’s more, you’re making matters worse and being rewarded for it. I’ve got an idea on how to change all that. But you make it impossible to explain it . . .
When you don’t do any of this:
If only you’d laid it all out exactly as I like it — then I’d abide by the principles I preach
Is that how it works?
That’s about the size of it. I guess I figured that if you didn’t understand something — you’d try this on for size, but I’m old-fashioned that way:
Einstein borrowed from the one below:
The worth of man lies not in the truth which he possesses, or believes that he possesses, but in the honest endeavor which he puts forth to secure that truth; for not by the possession of, but by the search after, truth, are his powers enlarged, wherein, alone, consists his ever-increasing perfection. Possession fosters content, indolence, and pride.
— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
If only Loury had listened instead of clinging to possession — what wonders he could have worked with what I have in mind. While you should not need an incentive to do what’s right and abide by your own standards: Whatever he’s making on that book . . .
Would be pennies on the dollar had he heard me out on my idea and ran with it.
All ya gotta do — is do what you say you do. And my idea is a framework for debate that boxes you in to do exactly that. You won’t like it — but here’s the deal: Your opposition won’t either. And who knows, you might learn to love embracing challenge, changing your mind, and the fruits from demanding across-the-board accountability.
This — is not that . . .
This is Broadcasting Beliefs About That
To the uneducated, abstract ideas are unfamiliar; so is the detachment that is necessary to discover a truth out of one’s own knowledge and mental effort. The uneducated person views life in an intensely personal way — he knows only what he sees, hears or touches and what he is told by friends.
As the unknown sage puts it, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
But more than ever, even the most educated minds act in an uneducated manner in service of their interests — and do catastrophic damage by doing so. Even the best of the bunch are part of the problem they’re trying to solve.
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand. It’s all so incoherent and confusing with all these things I have to stop and think about.”
That’s because you wallow in a world of paint by numbers:
Where people telling you what you wanna hear every single day: Package it all neatly into nursery-rhyme narratives (turning your mind into mush). When did acquiring knowledge become: I don’t understand everything — so I can act like an imbecile who can’t understand anything? And whining about my website and throwing a tantrum like a child is the best ya got?
It’s not my writing, my graphics, or my doc: The flaw is within you and it always has been. You have no original ideas and not a molecule of courtesy or curiosity for those who do. I have to spoon-feed you like a child while you spit it out and cry about being hungry. You have no imagination and are utterly devoid of any virtue that would allow for actual conversation to take place.
Not that lickety-split, self-satisfied crap you flood the internet with daily.
First time I ever heard of John McWhorter was in a 2017 interview. In talking about take a wild guess, he said, “He has a rather narcotic joy in dismissal and belittlement.”
A lot of that goin’ around!
And the likes of Loury & McWhorter are fueling that frenzy:
Unwittingly producing a toxicity of venom I hope they’d find sickening if they realized what they were doing. I’m not suggesting they stop — I’m suggesting they reframe the debate by broadening it. It’s the kind of thing that takes actual critical thinking to understand:
Broadcasting your abilities doesn’t count.
Keep that in mind when we come to what Loury had to say when I challenged him on something practically baked into his DNA. And we ain’t talkin’ run-of-the-mill politics here: It’s a matter of mathematical certainty (on the fiasco for the ages that shaped everything you see today). On that note. Professor Loury — behold some of your finest work from your fanatical followers:
As any proper scientist can explain to you, there is no such thing as irrefutable evidence OR mathematical certainty
Well, since I interviewed a world-renowned nuclear scientist (on a topic you have yet to even acknowledge): Perhaps we should discuss what HE said (as among the world’s preeminent experts on uranium enrichment).
Instead of “any proper scientist” as the arbiter of truth?
Such high praise from Loury is a helluva lot of incentive for me to think these people are the “geniuses” their ever-growing audience thinks they are. I don’t roll that way. While I maintain a degree of respect for him — and I’m forever grateful for the inspiration he provided:
If you’re part of the problem, I don’t care who you are — I’m calling you out!
And that’s . . .
I believe in applying the same rules to everyone . . . I seek to treat everyone equally . . . I am open-minded . . I seek to understand . . . I pursue the objective truth through honest inquiry.
— F.A.I.R’s Pro-Human Pledge
Cognitive dissonance doesn’t care that you signed a pledge:
And neither did Loury!
I KNOW . . .
That you know the answer to this question:
The imagery above is all you need to answer that question, and the more you look — the worse it gets (and not just on Sowell). The story I’m out to tell takes both parties to task on the biggest & most costly lie in modern history — along with some other issues at the core of America’s decline.
Sowell is simply a conduit through which to tell that story.
And how his role within it could be harnessed for good. Compelling him to admit where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right. It’s the kind of thing that someone looking to “expand that aperture, to learn about the world from outside ourselves, learning more, knowing more” — and being open to change: Would be willing to consider!
By the way:
Assuming bad motives is in gross breach of the very principles upon which Sowell is put on a pedestal. Not to mention how his disciples defend the indefensible by issuing rapid-fire ridicule for satisfaction in full. Sowell’s a well-mannered guy and these people act like animals to honor him.
Just what would it take to do what you say you do?
Alas, Loury had no such notion when I took his hero to task. Like Sowell’s army of acolytes marching in lockstep in the Facts Over Feelings Parade: Those precious virtues you peddle are rolled right over with your feelings. Virtually 100% of Sowell’s followers refuse to look at the bigger picture or even a single frame of it.
Never mind that the following image alone is enough to know that something’s not right: Not to mention the most obvious answer imaginable on “Which ones strike you as glib?”
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
Old information at the beginning of the sentence, new information at the end.
— Steven Pinker
How do you feel about no new information — anywhere?
What happened to all this jazz?
In what parallel universe does this even remotely reflect anything like that:
A couple of 2-minute reads that never even mention the tubes that took us to war (or anything else of substance on this endless saga of absurdity). Touting technicalities as “facts” doesn’t get it done: Especially when you make a living selling slogans and catchy quotes about careful consideration. If you only apply the principles you preach when it serves your interests — they’re just empty claims on a cup and a meaningless mantra touted on a T-shirt.
As in — not this:
Sowell is a great man because of his books. I stand by that. you want to refute his books — go ahead. I’m listening.
— Glenn Loury
You confine his record to a box of beliefs that suit you — and stand by that.
How noble of you!
America lost its way long ago (and you’re right about how some of that happened). But all that pales in comparison to the aftermath of 9/11. Every major problem in America was exponentially exacerbated because of that fiasco for the ages — which Sowell helped sell and got off scot-free.
They all did — as they always do (Democrats & Republicans alike):
And that folly is being increasingly fueled by this folly:
Until the rise of podcasts, twitter, and the various forms of independent media / journalism, people weren’t really aware how legacy media was influencing their thinking. I think people are finally waking up and may surprise you here, especially if more talk about it.
New formats for funneling information that caters to your cravings is not what I’d call enlightened. And those who couldn’t spot clearly dishonest actors before — think they’re wide awake now? The Twitter bio behind that quote begins with “Groupthink averse.”
It would never occur to him that everything in that Tweet is Groupthink 101.
Brought to you by “new media”
“We . . . want it now, and if it makes money now, it’s a good idea. But . . . if the things we’re doing are going to mess up the future, it wasn’t a good idea. Don’t deal on the moment. Take the long-term look at things.”
— The Dust Bowl
That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of [does it matter?]
— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today
When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word. Taking on the entire country by myself is worlds away from what everyone else is doing. Explaining America’s decline from decades of dishonesty and systematic self-delusion in the Gutter Games of Government: Is apples & oranges as it gets when compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.
Understanding how seemingly unrelated events impact one another takes time and effort to digest.
You are being conditioned to do the exact opposite. All’s fair in The March of Folly and fraud on the The Yellow Brick Road — the path of America’s predictably counterproductive pursuits.
Where systematic oversimplification has taken over to the point where inconvenient correlations are condemned as convoluted. And any attempt to have a conversation on issues that clearly call for careful consideration — is hijacked by baseless beliefs beaten into your brain as bedrock fact. America’s in perennial pursuit of ideologies: Warfare waged with galactic levels of baggage & bullshit bolstered by . . .
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
— Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
Case in point: Even 20 years later . . .
Half the country still can’t get this straight:
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
What does it say to you: That on evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites? Shouldn’t any debate establish what the debate is actually about? What does it say about a country that can’t even establish that much on a matter of this magnitude?
As I said in my doc:
All the sarin gas shells in the world would have no bearing on the aluminum tubes and other intel, but loyalists to logical fallacies are not burdened by the inconvenience of FACT.
They will nitpick over pebbles while refusing to even glance at the mountain of evidence that crushes their “convictions.”
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
For the sake of argument: Let’s say Saddam had full-blown active WMD programs on chemical & biological weapons. The tubes would still be a lie — whether the war would have been justified in that scenario or not. I’ll go one further: Let’s say he had a uranium enrichment program in operation as well, but that the rotors were carbon fiber — not aluminum.
Once again, the tubes would still be a lie.
Getting lucky in finding something you didn’t know about — does not absolve you from a case that was woven out of whole cloth.
Loury was rightly talking about the Black Lives Matter manifesto driving the aftermath of George Floyd. But the Left’s ludicrous ways pale in comparison to conservatives going batshit crazy after 9/11. The Right delights in ridiculing the Left for burning buildings to further the cause:
Yet the “party of personal responsibility” set the world ablaze while browbeating anybody out of line in their March of Folly.
True folly, Tuchman found, is generally recognized as counterproductive in its own time, and not merely in hindsight. In Tuchman’s template, true folly only ensues when a clear alternative path of action was available and ruled out.
Ripping on woke is all the rage
And outrage industries of dish it but can’t take it — would talk about race and responsibility till the end of time. But heaven forbid we have a single conversation about war and responsibility.
Consequences matter or should matter more than some attractive or fashionable theory.
— Thomas Sowell
I couldn’t agree more . . .
Except there were no consequences on the fiasco for the ages driven by this manifesto:
Tuchman alighted on a root cause of folly that she called “wooden-headedness” — defined in part as “assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting contrary information.”
The outcome of that folly fashioned a culture of no consequences:
And predictably — more folly . . .
She also saw wooden-headedness as a certain proclivity for “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.”
If you’re not gonna do your part and accept responsibility for the damage you’ve done and dishonesty baked into your beliefs — why should the Left?
Why should anyone?
A Conflict of Visions . . .
And then some!
I’m not just taking Thomas Sowell to task because he’s got it comin’ — I need this guy for what I have in mind to right this ship. The ultimate irony is that blind loyalty limits him — while my criticism could elevate him to heights that hero-worship ensures he’ll never go.
So, you’re saying that your plan will elevate Sowell to worldwide recognition — by holding him accountable? That if he comes clean — he could be the catalyst to turn the tide?
That’s exactly what I’m saying!
It won’t matter that he blew it on WMD or why — all that matters is having the guts to say: “I was wrong and I’m trying to make it right.” In a culture consumed with feeling right, wouldn’t it be refreshing to talk about the immeasurable value in the willingness to be wrong?
Don’t just tell people how to behave: Lead by example — especially when it comes at a cost!
There are far worse culprits on all-things Iraq, but I’ve been down that road for decades. Discovering Sowell and the underworld of absurdity that shields him — makes him ideal to put these lies in their place once and for all: And change the dynamic of debate to boot. Elevating him is not my aim, but I can live with it to stem the systematic self-delusion that’s taken this nation totally off the rails:
Left & Right!
Incredibly, you look at that . . .
Coupled with this:
And act like it’s this . . .
That you have not developed the capacity understand matters of complexity beyond your current comprehension — doesn’t mean they don’t make sense. And there is no measure for how preposterous it is that people who can’t even get the self-evident straight:
Have the bottomless gall to belittle me on making correlations in 3 dimensions while you wallow in one.
Wooden-headedness, said Tuchman, was finally — “the refusal to benefit from experience.”
— Russ Hoyle
The Refusal to Benefit from Experience
[T]here could be no country that makes less use of the accumulated experience of those who have served it – none that is more frivolously neglectful and improvident of these assets – than the United States of America.
— George F. Kennan, Around the Cragged Hill
Look around!
