I know Americans lack critical thinking skills, but surely they didn't just learn about the concept of masks in 2020

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I know Americans lack critical thinking skills

    Americans and Westoids in general loooooove to talk shit about East Asian education systems and how they don't "teach critical thinking". Not only do Westoids lack critical thinking skills, but they think they are the best critical thinkers on the fucking planet.

    Most anti-maskers I've seen or met are always incredibly self confident about their vaunted "critical thinking" skills.

      • FuckYourselfEndless [ze/hir]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Not even that. Their definition is just circular. If they think it it must be critical thinking because critical thinking is good snd they're good therefore all their thoughts must be critical thought. You can't find an outspoken conservative who will say "I don't know" about something rather than bullshit you.

      • Changeling [it/its]
        ·
        2 years ago

        We live in a cult-based society and “critical thinking” is a standin for the fact that neoliberal capital allows you to criticize them in ways that make them more money. It’s not about having a skillset. It’s about having a “Freedom”

        • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          While I agree with both the cult-based society argument and the "neoliberal capital commodifies our criticism of them" argument too, I don't think the way reactionaries tend to use the term "critical thinking" is linked to either of those, at least from what I've seen.

          I think it's more like what the other reply said, that the term of is used by capital-R rationals who think "I am a critical thinker, therefore all my thoughts are critical thinking and therefore I am the arbiter of objective truth and reason."

          I have not seen it used much in a systemic context.

          • Changeling [it/its]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Oh yeah I don’t think they consciously mean it that way. It’s more like the reason for the distortion is that need to extol the freedoms of capitalism while still artificially limiting thought. I think the Rationalist movement is a cultural outgrowth of these more systemic methods of capitalist information control.

    • SerLava [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I still remember the moment in like 7th grade when I realized my teachers had been repeating over and over again for 4 or 5 years that they were teaching us critical thinking and none of them had ever elaborated or even explained what that means

    • VILenin [he/him]M
      ·
      2 years ago

      It’s not so much the “thinking” part as it is the “critical” part. Literally nothing more than spiteful contrarianism

      • Goblinmancer [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        :freeze-peach: I think we should not rebuild the burnt down school.