Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

Great Debates
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Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism
The standard teacher/pupil teaching technique accentuates the importance of acquiring knowledge. The Socratic technique accentuates the importance of understanding and critical thinking. Being knowledgeable of a matter and understanding a matter are very different categories of comprehension.

I thought I might compare and contrast the professional journalist with the professional military officer in an attempt to focus upon the difference and importance of these two intellectual traits of comprehension.

What might be the ideal character traits of these two professions? It seems that the military officer should be smart, well trained, obedient, and brave. The journalist should be smart, well trained, critical thinking, and honest. The journalist must have well-developed intellectual character traits and be skillful in critical thinking. The military officer should be trained to act somewhat like an automaton in critical circumstances.

The officer’s behavior in each conceivable circumstance should follow precisely a well-established code of action. The officer is trained to follow well-established algorithms in every circumstance. Even those instances wherein the officer is authorized to deviate from standard procedure are clearly defined algorithms. The officer deviates from established behavior only when absolutely necessary and that ad hoc behavior should follow along prescribed avenues. The officer obeys all commands without critical analysis except in very unusual circumstances. Bravery and obedience are the two most desired character traits of a military officer.

The role of the journalist in wartime has evolved dramatically in the last 50 years. During WWII the journalist acted as cheerleader and propagandist. During the Vietnam War the journalist often played the role of critical analyst. While one can see some positive reasons for the cheerleader and propagandist I will assume that overall this is not a proper role for the journalist in a democracy. The ideal journalist must always be a critical analyst and communicate honestly to the reader the results of her investigation.

Since most people unconsciously seek opinion fortification rather than truth they become very agitated when they find news which does not fortify their opinion. Thus, most people have low opinions of journalists. Nevertheless, it is no doubt the ideal journalist who presents the facts fairly, accurately, and in a balanced manner. The ability ‘to connect the dots’ in each situation is of primary importance for the ideal journalist. Knowledge is important but understanding and critical thinking is more important.

We certainly want our military officers educated more in the didactic mode than in the Socratic mode whereas we would find that journalist educated in the Socratic mode would be the better journalist. The journalist must be able to recognize the prejudices of others as well as recognizing his/her own biases.

What might one say as regarding the contrasting importance of critical thinking and knowledge for a teacher, engineer, accountant, nurse, factory worker or secretary? With consideration we probably will find that knowledge is more important than critical thinking when analyzing the individual as a worker. The credentials that appear on most resumes are those testifying to a degree of knowledge by the job applicant. We do not even have a metric for understanding or critical thinking.

I think it is correct to assume that knowledge can be imparted by a teacher to an individual more quickly and efficiently using the standard technique whereas the Socratic technique, while developing understanding and critical thinking, is much less efficient in imparting knowledge. Here, as in everything else there is a trade off. In a set period of time more knowledge can be imparted using the standard mode.

The question then becomes: is it more important to have citizens with greater knowledge and less understanding and critical thinking or citizens with greater understanding and critical thinking and less knowledge?

I claim that democracy is more dependent upon the citizen who exemplifies more the characteristic of the ideal journalist than the ideal military officer.

Democracy will eventually live or die based upon the degree of sophistication for critical thinking and understanding by our citizens. Our schools and colleges have made some small attempt to teach Critical Thinking but adults cannot wait for the distant future when many of our citizens have learned Critical Thinking. Today’s adult must proceed with the effort to become a self-learner of Critical Thinking.

I think there are several levels of critical thinking, do you agree?

Do you think that the journalist or the military officer offers the best example for educating the citizens of a democracy?

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http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=3921

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Mangetout, we’re aware that coberst is wandering around the internet pleading his case for his odd views of epistemology. As long as he is using his own words, not plagiarizing others’, and as long as he is engaging those who, for one odd reason or another, choose to debate him, here, he is not guilty of spamming or copyright infringement and is not in violation of our rules.

If his topics and arguments are genuinely interesting, posters should engage him for their own amusement. To the extent that his topics are not interesting or his arguments are flawed, other posters should simply ignore his posts.
Either way, his presence elsewhere on the internet is little more than a curious factoid that has no serious ramifications for his presence here.

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Sorry. It’s not so much the duplication, it’s just the impression that every one of these threads was generated by a few spins of the Wheel of Verbosity - there’s a certain random long-windedness about them that makes them look as if they’re arguing about something significant when they’re little more than meandering sermons about something quite mundane and obvious.

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Although I should probably not bother, coberst is once again wrong from the beginning.

First off, the student-teacher reltionships accentuates nothing. Like any other relationship, it is only a form. The substance varies a great deal with the individuals and topic. In this case it either does or does not teach.

Halfway sensible. However, I have noticed that virtually no one is actually incapable of even untrained in critical thinking. It’s not something you learn or practice; it’s something you choose to do. Aside from which, democracy needs no critical thinking to survive, although it is nice.

Unfortunately, from here on out it becomes clear that you know nothing about the military. If you think the word “automaton” applies to officers, then you have the wrong concept in mind entirely.

Does not follow. People’s opinions of journalism did not largely change, regardless of the politics involved, until recently. And this seems to be pretty clearly part of increasing numbers of scandals involving the press, inclusing faked evidence, false sources, claiming nonexistence status under the law, and generally being gore-hounds hungry for pain, terror, and death to make $$ off of.

Here you have your history correct, if shallowly described. Second, you assume that cheerleading or propganda is dishonest. Journalists were being perfectly honest in describing the evil of our enemies in WW2, and the great victories acheived over them. They were also being perfectly honest in being hyper-critical of the PR-impaired military in Vietnam, although their interpretations were not neccessarily correct.

Honesty is almost irrelevant to journalism, because it cuts so many ways at once. You need to be honest, accurate and piercing, of course, but what you do beyond that decides the value of your journalism. Is it constantly critical just for the sake of criticism? Is it looking for negativity to sell, sell, sell? Is it actually looking at the important things or getting caught up in trivialities?

In any event, your posts here are, as usual, shallow and contain nothing of substance. However, I thank you for letting make a much more interesting and useful post than yours.

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smiling bandit

Making good judgments is an important and complex matter. There are bad judgments, good judgments, and better judgments. To make better judgments requires many kinds of knowledge, skills, and character traits all working together.

Our schools and colleges are beginning to teach these things but it is an effort that is just beginning and it is a difficult one to accomplish.

Just to give you an idea of what CT is about I have copied the following info from the Internet:

This info was taken from workbooks for classes K-12. This list is found in the following handbooks: Critical Thinking Handbook: k-3, Critical Thinking Handbook: 4-6, Critical Thinking Handbook: 6-9, Critical Thinking Handbook: High School.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/resources/TRK12-strategy-list.shtml

Continued on next post

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smiling bandit

. . .
Continued on next post

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smiling bandit

. . .

{This list is found in the following handbooks: Critical Thinking Handbook: k-3, Critical Thinking Handbook: 4-6, Critical Thinking Handbook: 6-9, Critical Thinking Handbook: High School.}

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The OP, translated: Rote learning is important, but so is critical thinking. Some jobs require one more than the other.

2 points:

1.) If your officers can’t think critically and adapt and mine can, my army wins.

2.) The socratic method is fine, but too often it degenerates into a game of “guess what’s in the professor’s head.”

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Tldr

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Dialogue+Dialectic=Dialogic

Under our normal cultural situation communication means to discourse, to exchange opinions with one another. It seems to me that there are opinions, considered opinions, and judgments. Opinions are a dime-a-dozen. Considered opinions, however, are opinions that have received a considerable degree of thought but have not received special study. A considered opinion starts out perhaps as tacit knowledge but receives sufficient intellectual attention to have become consciously organized in some fashion. Judgments are made within a process of study.

In dialogue, person ‘A’ may state a thesis and in return person ‘B’ does not respond with exactly the same meaning as does ‘A’. The meanings are generally similar but not identical; thus ‘A’ listening to ‘B’ perceives a disconnect between what she said and what ‘B’ replies. ‘A’ then has the opportunity to respond with this disconnect in mind, thereby creating a response that takes these matters into consideration; ‘A’ performs an operation known as a dialectic (a juxtaposition of opposed or contradictory ideas). And so the dialogical process proceeds.

A dialogical process is not one wherein individuals reason together in an attempt to make common, ideas that are already known to each individual. **”Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.” Dialogical reasoning together is an act of creation, of mutual understanding, of meaning.

Dialogic can happen only if both individuals wish to reason together in truth, in coherence, without prejudice, and without trying to influence each other.** Each must be prepared to “drop his old ideas and intentions. And be ready to go on to something different, when this is called for…Thus, if people are to cooperate (i.e., literally to ‘work together’) they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.”

“On Dialogue” written by “The late David Bohm, one of the greatest physicists and foremost thinkers this century, was Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Bohm is convinced that communication is breaking down as a result of the crude and insensitive manner in which it is transpiring. Communication is a concept with a common meaning that does not fit well with the concepts of dialogue, dialectic, and dialogic.

I claim that if we citizens do not learn to dialogue we cannot learn to live together in harmony sufficient to save the species.

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In other words, people should listen to each other when they converse.

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You should be in the bumper sticker business!!

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I think the OP could benefit from some critical writing skills over and above critical thinking.

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Doesn’t it bother you that all of your insights can be reduced to one or two sentence truisms without any loss of content?

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Although I am sure this must amaze you, I do not actually need grade school education plans to teach me critical thinking. I am sorry you wasted time by copying and pasting useless lesson plans.

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coberst, I just got done defending (however tepidly) your presence on the grounds that you are posting your own stuff.

If you are going to quote other sources–particularly to an extent that looks remarkably like crossing the line on fair use–you will need to provide specific citations (either links or page numbers in idfentified texts). You also need to be very explicit regarding which are your words and which are the quotations you are using from other sources.

And on further review, I have discovered that you were not merely sloppy in your attributions, but have violated the rules of the SDMB with some of your posts.

This is an official Warning to be much more careful with your quotes:
assigning correct attribution to exact text
and not violating fair use rules.

[ /Moderating ]

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I disagree. (I assume by “officer”, you are referring to the person who is tasked with implementing “the plan” in the face of the enemy. The dude/dudette who is ordering people to do this or that.)

No plan is going to be perfect, and the most succesfull leaders are the ones who understand the overall goal, who understand their own strengths and the enemies weaknesses, and who now how to improvise under pressure.

Example- IMO: Japanese Admiral Nagumo, Battle of Midway. Did not properly anticipate the American ambush, even though there were indications that things were not SOP in the Midway area during his approach.

After contact, when the American forces were sighted, he dithered. Also, he did not use his strengths as known against the Americans. (His aircraft’s longer range.)

After the disaster at 1030am (with three out of four of his attack carriers burning), he attacked an alerted, superior force. (Sure, that cost the USN the Yorktown, but it also ensured the destruction of Hiryu, which Japan could ill afford.) He should have regrouped with the supporting force, and pulled the Aleutian Force south.

But Nagumo “stuck to the plan” too rigidly in a couple minor, but key areas, and it cost him the battle.

Actually, there was lots of criticism (in the press) when things went wrong in WW2. War funding scandals were reported on, and lots of armchair quarterbacking occured after high casualty fights.

Example: USN Admiral Halsey gets lured north by the IJN carrier force during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, exposing the beachead forces to surface attack through the San Bernardino strait. The IJN carrier forces were essentially decoys. Halsey was criticised for being lured away. (Both rightly and wrongly, IMO.)

Admiral Nimitz, Admiral King, and the President were put under some pressure in by the press, with the goal of having Halsey replaced.

There’s nothing wrong with “cheerleading”, when the cause is “just”. Nor is there anything wrong with being critical, where warranted.

Isn’t that a failure of critical thinking?

Critical thinking, IMO, is flawed without access to the proper knowledge on the subject matter in order to reach a educated, well thought out conclusion on that subject, as well as what the proper “responce” should be.

You need both, ideally.

Well, to pick nits, those two professions have different reasons for being, though.

Well, in defence of bureaucracy, it’s easier to design a test to determine level of competancy in knowledge, than critical thinking. It’s also easier to find teachers who can teach rote, compared to critical thinkers. (There are a lot of mediocre teachers out there… I dunno if there is a big enough pool of teachers available to turn all of our kids into little philosophers.)

As I stated above, you need both to be able to have a citizenry able to reach informed opinions on a subject.

Another example: You can be a good critical thinker, but if you know nothing about buisness administration, governmental procedures, national level economy, and health care, reaching the best decision on the socialised health care versus free market (or some mixture in between) is difficult, at best.

It seems your overstating this slightly, as US democracy has been muddling along semi-ok for a couple hundred years…

I guess, sure. There are also limits on an individuals abilities to acheive perfection in thinking, too, based on raw genetically determined natural talents.

I don’t think it has to be one or the other. You can do both.

Also, don’t forget. Each individual citizen is going to have their own unique way of learning that best suites them.

For example: I work in the technical/electronics field. I learn best with hands-on type of learning. Others can pick that stuff up just by reading it out of a manual (the lucky bastages).

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mlees

For Socrates a necessary component of wisdom is to comprehend what one is ignorant of.

Am I wise? Do I know what I am ignorant of? I certainly know that I am ignorant of astronomy and psychology. There are many things about which it is obvious to me that I am ignorant of. Are there things about which I am not even aware of my ignorance? Are there matters about which I think I am knowledgeable of but which I am, in fact, ignorant of?

When I ask myself these questions I become conscious of a great number of things about which I am ignorant. Does this mean I am like Socrates in this matter? I do not think so. **Socrates is speaking about two types of ignorance about which most people are unconscious of.

I think that Socrates is speaking of our ‘burden of illusion’. People are unconscious of the superficiality of much that they think they know and they are unconscious of a vast domain of knowledge that is hidden from the non critical thinker.**

The uncritical mind has no means for discovering these illusions. CT (Critical Thinking) is the keystone for discovering these illusions. The Catch-22 here is how can one develop a critical mind when they are deluded into thinking they have a critical mind?

When our educational system has not taught our citizens how to think critically how can our citizens ever pull themselves out of this deep hole of illusion?

How can I know ‘what I think I know’ but which I really do not know? How can I learn what are my illusions?

I think that the kaleidoscope might be an appropriate visual metaphor for attitude. With each turn, while the core matter (intuition?) remains the same, the presentation changes. The changing pattern is our only correspondence with the intuition (core matter?).

We display an attitude toward most any subject. An attitude cannot be described explicitly but is a notion, which is an inference, based upon behavior. We are all inclined to behave consistently to a situation and this behavior is attributed to our attitude. Our attitudes and the quality of such attitudes are judged based on observed behavior.

Britannica specifies that attitude is “a predisposition to classify objects and events and to react to them with some degree of evaluative consistency.”

If I consult my inner self I cannot focus upon an attitude but can infer such an attitude based on behavior.

If I wish to become conscious of my intuition I can through observation of behavior describe the attitude, which, in turn, allows me to ascertain the nature of my intuition.

When a mother tells her son “you must change your attitude”. The son cannot change the attitude but the son must change his intuition from which the inferred attitude emanates. This does become a bit convoluted but in essence when we wish to change an attitude we are saying that our intuition must be modified.

The point of all of this is that it is the intuition we wish to understand and our attitudes are a means to discover the profile of our intuition.

Attitudes are email from the intuition. I think email is an appropriate word because the attitude is reasonably clear and the source is mysterious and at the present unknowable.

The attitude directs the behavior. The public and I can observe the behavior and from that gain insight as to the attitude. Under attitudes one might create the categories of values, interests, sentiments, beliefs, predisposition’s, irrational tendencies, taste, knowledge, certainties etc.

The public from my behavior can infer attitudes. The question is how do I use the attitudes as a vehicle for making conscious to me the nature of my intuition? The answer is that through solitude and concentration I can focus my conscious intellect and develop inferences as the structure of my intuition.

Solitude becomes the catalysis for developing insight into the nature of intuition. This insight may provide a pattern from which further inferences can be drawn thereby making other aspects of the intuition accessible to the conscious intellect.

Solitude is not meant to be sensor deprivation, which can lead to hallucinations. Solitude and perhaps a modification of normal environment can facilitate the faculty of imagination.

Solitude creates a mood that enhances the faculty of imagination, which becomes the driving force for conscious action. The faculties of imagination and reason set the human species off from our non-human ancestors. Imagination as a force for human discontent is therefore the force for human advancement. Human flexibility motivated by the discontent of imagination has provided the impetuous for human material advancement.

Goya said that fantasy united with reason “is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.” Fantasy, the child of imagination, plus reason has produced all the scientific and humanistic and artistic accomplishments. It can also help us comprehend what are our illusions.

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Your last post has absolutely nothing to do with what mlees posted.

Your praise of dialog is pretty ironic, seeing as you have no interest in actually communicating with anyone else.