Submitted 1 month ago by throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Critical thinking is a skill that requires teaching and practice. If children are not given that preparation they won’t have that skill in adulthood. That’s why authoritarian governments care so much about controlling and/or limiting access to proper education.
I think this USSR quote is a good answer:
We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.
(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
In any authoritarian system where indoctrination starts young you’ll probably have a fifth of the population that’s high on the coolaid or never questioned anything due to ideology or intelligence (or both). The rest know they’re lying, etc. And keep their mouths shut because they don’t want to go to Siberia or El Salvador.
Also applies to modern day Russia. Everyone knows the elections are fake, for example, but they keep their heads down.
Yeah, and just because you know they’re lying, doesn’t mean you know what the truth is, much less so how to prove it to someone else.
That’s not the point of the phrase — the statement refers to the true believers drinking poison unquestioningly, without entertaining the thought that it will kill them.
I know. What you have hit upon here is my obviously unsuccessful attempt at making these people look more ridiculous than the OG death cult.
You learn that truth is a dangerous luxery you can do without, as power dictates, and can do so for generations.
Propaganda, is a craft, it’s a whole world of tricks and manipulations. Not just censorship and positive stories about the leaders. It can get shockingly sophisticated. We usually only take note of the obvious and obtuse propaganda.
People aren’t dumb for believing it, it’s a whole field of figuring out how to convince people about things. Often if the propaganda doesn’t work on you, that’s because it’s not designed for you.
Yep. For example during the Soviet occupation here, the Colorado potato beetle got imported here somehow and given it doesn’t have any natural predators, it destroyed potatoes like crazy.
Well, guess what? According to Soviet propaganda it was intentionally done by Americans to destroy our “paradise” and our food.
Everything bad that happened was because the evil imperialists worked against our paradise.
The country being so poor it couldn’t afford enough toilet paper for its citizens? Westerners! All foreign fruit being very scarce and people standing in long lines to get it, while the ones in the back knew they probably aren’t getting any today? Also westerners’ fault.
Propaganda is not the usual over-the-top stories, it’s subtle. Would you today believe if someone told you that Americans have imported the Colorado potato beetle intentionally? And would you, if it was consistent with everything you’ve heard since you were a kid?
All foreign fruit being very scarce and people standing in long lines to get it, while the ones in the back knew they probably aren’t getting any today? Also westerners’ fault.
Do you know the history of the united fruit company? That one could be correct.
“Of course the Americans introduced the Colorado potato beetle! After all, where is Colorado? America! Check mate liberal”
For real though I hate those little fuckers. Every time I try and grow potatoes in a garden I get an infestation and it’s a pain to deal with in a small plot, can’t imagine how much of a nightmare they are on a proper field.
Critical thinking has to be taught in order for a person have it. And when you either restrict/limit education (for example, making it so that one needs a lot of money for proper schooling, thus barring lower classes from getting the education they need) or alter the education to become indoctrination. (These methods are most efficient combined!) It’s why authoritarian people and parties want to control and/or destroy education systems so bad.
Being a history nerd, I’ve been convinced that the vast majority of people can be tricked into believing nearly anything. No one is immune to propaganda, it’s just a matter of circumistances and the education you receive.
If you had grew up in a society where everyone told you that, say, pigs are a type of lizard, and your school taught you that pigs are lizards, all biologists were bribed or forced into saying pigs are lizards, and all the books you read and all the movies or shows you watched said pigs are lizards, chances are that you would believe pigs are lizards.
I’d also like to note that the above scenario would work especially well if you had never actually spent time with pigs. For example, it’s a lot easier to convince someone that gay people are evil if they don’t personally know any gay people.
I also think that often people know that, for example, elections are fraudulent, but they are too scared to say anything and thus act like they aren’t.
often people know that, for example, elections are fraudulent, but they are too scared to say anything
People might vaguely understand that elections don’t produce good outcomes or have systemic bias. That’s then condensed to „elections are rigged“, regardless of the facts and details.
Most people know little about most things. It’s difficult to even have good fundamentals about most things in our complex world. So people will defer to their personal experience and information seeped into their minds by osmosis/exposure.
Things like an economy or political system are extremely complex already and not fully understood even by experts.
There is deeply emotional resistance to the idea of topics being too complex for the average person to understand. The “experts” promote something that superficially contradicts our lived experience? They must be corrupt liars! Down with the experts!
The economy had, on balance, positive trends in 2024? We felt poorer, so economists should be lynched! /s
Feels scarily like America is moving towards something like China’s Great Leap Forward en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including "the purge of intellectuals, the surge of less-educated radicals… Mao was dismissive of technical experts and basic economic principles…
Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies… Mao did not retreat from his policies; instead, he blamed problems on bad implementation and “rightists” who opposed him…
…dozens of dams constructed in Zhumadian, Henan, during the Great Leap Forward collapsed in 1975 (under the influence of Typhoon Nina)… with estimates of its death toll ranging from tens of thousands to 240,000.
The failure of agricultural policies… suppressed the food supply… The shortage of supply clashed with an explosion in demand, leading to millions of deaths from severe famine.
Back in the 70s, I had one if those subversive high school English teachers - longish hair, no tie, wore bell bottoms, arranged the desks in his classroom in a circle, etc. His name was Mr. Clark.
Mr. Clark had an unusual teaching style that I really responded to. Much more Socratic, making us defend our ideas, but be willing to change our minds if someone had a better one. I liked his teaching so much, i took his classes 3 years in a row, including 2 Shakespeare classes.
It wasn’t until years after college, that i realized he wasnt really teaching us Shakespeare, he was teaching us to think, using Shakespeare as a vehicle. We were practicing Critical Thinking Skills every day for three years, without even realizing it.
It became so ingrained in me to question assertions and allegations without sources, and view everything subjectively before drawing a conclusion, that I found it very easy to resist propaganda. When Rush Limbaugh came on the radio in the late 80s, I was shocked that anyone was buying into his obvious bullshit, but my well-honed Critical Thinking Skills saw through his “logic” instantly.
At some point, I tried to look up Mr Clark, so I could thank him for being the most influential teacher in my life, but he had passed away about 5 years before. He literally taught me how to think.
Critical thinking is a skill, not an inborn gift. You may end up better at it than someone else by virtue of some as-yet-unknown genetic or epigenetic factor, but only if you both learn the skills and practice them.
Worse, even with learning and practice everyone fucks up at least a little. Even if the only place they fuck up is thinking that because they have the skill and practice that they can’t fuck up.
We’re all fucking meat bags filled with hormones and chemicals. That shit will override every bit of common sense and critical thinking that’s ever existed. Not every time, but eventually, and more than once in your life.
Propaganda is only propaganda if you aren’t part of the institution generating it. If you’re a random asshole in fascistan, or whatever, chances are that the propaganda is just noise, the same way commercials or waves crashing are. There’s no need to think critically if all you want to do is coast and get by.
So they “believe” it in roughly the same way that people believe if they work hard, they can achieve anything they want. Even if they know better, what’s the alternative? Seeing reality and still being stuck in the same place? Nah, even the ones that have practiced thoroughly aren’t fucking around most of the time. Why would they bother if they apply that critical thinking and realize nobody really gives a fuck as long as they aren’t too hungry, and the worst stuff is happening in some letter town? They wouldn’t. It’s too fucking depressing.
Also, you assume that critical thinking can overcome a lack of information. The “news” is always the news. If you have no other sources of data, critical thinking doesn’t apply until something contradicts that news. If you control what people see and hear, you control the people. There won’t be enough opposition to matter, if you’ve set up your regime right.
The average person has lots of critical thinking.
It’s just not a life hack to truth. You can critical think yourself into any conclusion. The average person uses critical thinking to reinforce their biased instead of challenge them.
Sorry but that is wrong. You are using the textbook definition of confirmation bias.
Critical thinking “is the process of analyzing available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to make sound conclusions or informed choices. It involves recognizing underlying assumptions, providing justifications for ideas and actions, evaluating these justifications through comparisons with varying perspectives, and assessing their rationality and potential consequences.”
All of that can be done, badly. Which is how people do it. See the discourse around any popular drama, people have the skills, they just use them in service of their own pre conceived notions.
I haven’t thought about it like that, but now that you’ve made me, it makes a lot of sense.
It’s bleak, but if you want to persuade a large number of people to think differently, you don’t challenge their worldview, you create new biases that they will then defend in their own.
See: trump’s constant repetition of blatant lies.
That’s not critical thinking at all. Critical thinking is process that questions assertions and sources, and approaches them subjectively. If it is ultimately just confirming your own bias, you haven’t used critical thinking.
But what if i started with something true?
Example I was raised being told the earth was round. After watching some flat earth debates i did learn a lot about old experiments the show the earth is round. All critical thinking could do os just re confirm my starting belief
This is a no true scottsman on critical thinking.
I’m going to copy my reply to Barney above.
We have all sorts of evidence for conflicting conclusions. Most of us do not have the time or resources get a lock on which evidence is truly trustworthy.
If you talk to a flat earther, or a dedicated follower of the oppossing political team, you will see they understand faulty sources, chains of logic, and deductive reasoning, they just only apply them in support of their position.
You can teach a person about bias in research or media and they will use that knowledge to discredit positions they don’t agree with.
You can say “that’s not critical thinking” and on one hand I agree, but teaching more thourough critical thinking skills won’t have the result we want: for people to make evidence based decisions about their life and society.
In my experience, Getting people to change their minds requires engaging their emotions. Decisions are made on the basis or shame, fear, anger, and more rarely, love, hope, and empathy.
The evidence needs to be there to support the emotion, but nobody ever changes their behavior on the strength of the evidence alone.
Something like host over half of all Americans cannot read above a 5th grade level. Almost a third are functionally illiterate.
It’s not that they don’t have critical thinking skills. It’s that the entire lower-90% have been badly nerfed such that it is increasingly difficult for anyone to get to a point where they can educate themselves without copious assistance.
And that’s exactly how Republicans prefer the population - uneducated, illiterate, ignorant and gullible. The better with which to scam them for their votes.
This can be controversial, but my opinion is that religious education normally is the opposite of critical thinking. If you teach the kids to accept beliefs just based on faith, you’re killing critical thinking.
It’s not religion that’s the problem but ideology and lazy thinking in general. How many people in the political parties we oppose just accept the lies being fed to them with no critical thought or investigation?
My point is that religious education trains the kids to believe things without verifying facts, even unbelievable fables. I’m just trying to point a potential source of what we know is a big problem.
True People saying “im from the government and here to help are the scariest words ever”. Aren’t really any different then people that drill a religious phrase into their kids.
People focus their energies on getting through the day for the most part of their lives. It is very hard for people to muster the time and energy to paying attention to politics, let alone ideologically political propaganda.
The vast majority flat ignore it entirely and remain in an apolitical state. This is a primary function of propaganda: insulating people from political action or thought that might alter the status quo.
Propaganda doesn’t necessarily need to convince people, but can instead attack the peoples ability to differentiate truth and lie by sowing mistrust about the most mundane and conventional things. When people stop believing their own eyes or following logic, they become easier to manipulate. A bit like gas-lighting, where you sort of turn the critical thinking against them, but on a large scale.
Seriously, if you are AWARE of propaganda, you are also aware that you have been influenced by it. Propaganda is pervasive in civilizations. It is simply manipulation. TV ads and guys trying to pick up chicks are everyday uses of propaganda.
I go on Reddit and come here and I nod along and I’m like yes, yes, and then I leave and sometimes it feels like coming up from being underwater. We are quite literally surrounded in propaganda. It has never been easier to disseminate opinions, especially when the majority of our communications (mine for sure) come via text on a screen. It is in every single facet of our lives.
And so I talk to my brother and he always tries to get me to think more, he’s a smart guy. He says things like “Who benefits the most” from whatever, opinion I’ve talked to him about, and so frequently it goes back to corporations. I don’t want to get overtly political, but personally the best way I try to think about things is linearly: this thing we are talking about, trace it to its logical end point and origin. And then feel helpless again.
It’s so nice of you to tell us what would you do and how you’d behave in an hypothetical situation that you have never been nurtured and raised on, and how good you’d do facing it under your current morals and mental framework that may or may not be available during that situation
Good times, critical thinking was had by all
Intelligent people in those countries do realize though…
The thing about propaganda that’s often overlooked is the fact that it isn’t just about controlling what people think - it’s about controlling what people think other people think.
Completely agree.
People are tribal - they tend to conform to what the group thinks and does. We’re also primed with strong us vs. them tendencies, that is you want your team to win whatever happens.
As you say, if you believe that (for example) your friends and neighbours think democrats are radical socialists out to destroy American life, it would be highly dangerous to vote democrat let alone be on team democrat.
Do you believe in religion? Do you believe in any home remedies? Do you eat the same foods you grew up with?
It’s a very rare person that questions literally everything and logically analyzes why they think what they think.
As someone who has always done this, this has been a very hard lesson to learn. It doesn’t make sense to me how you can go through life and NOT do that. Like… Fuck dude… I just feel like everyone is so fucking DUMB. Like I don’t want to be narcissistic and shit but Jesus people … Maybe try a little!!!
eat the same foods as you grew up with
That’s unfair. Food has a subjective component, so naturally most people who enjoyed their childhoods will rate the foods of their youth higher than others might.
I more meant the choice to be an omnivore or vegetarian or vegan or carnivore. Most people don’t question why they do what they do.
Questioning beliefs takes a lot of time and courage. Very few people do it.
What does eating the same foods you grew up with have to do with it?
i try all new things even bugs, but some foods I grew up with are delicious
That is fantastic. I’m glad you like them.
The difference here, presumably, is that you’ve thought about what you eat and continue to do so knowing full well what that means, whatever it means. But~ not everybody thinks about it. Some people are carried forward through life just by the sheer momentum of their childhood.
And I say some people, but really, everybody is in some way or another. It takes active effort to change your course in life.
For example, no idea what your diet is like: if you eat a lot of junk food, do you know how much sugar you’re consuming? Have you ever thought about whether that’s a good thing?
Did you choose to eat meat? What’s your logic? Which animals? Would you eat dog?
I think the real problem is, people don’t know how to manage their emotions, and they end up swaying them left and right.
Stop thinking with with your gut, take a pause to analyze your body response to emotions. Are you sweating? Are you afraid or is it actually warm? If you’re afraid, what specifically do you fear? Etc.
Propaganda, echo chambers, peer pressure, and even vicious cycles of self-pity, anger, sadness…will have a weaker hold on you.
Feel, but don’t forget to think.
There is no greater enemy to logic, common sense and critical thinking than religion. Religion punishes skepticism and logic. In many places you can still be killed for blasphemy. When children discover Santa isn’t real, this should be an opportunity for them to break free of the gaslighting of their family religion, instead many parents double down on the gaslighting. When people are too brainwashed to accept something as simple as “fairy tale creatures are not real” their brains become mush. What would you say if I told you, yesterday on my way home I crossed a footbridge and I saw a man walking on the water. Not only that, the man was a zombie. I saw him raise another man from the dead. We should probably be getting ready for a zombie apocalypse? You would immediately think i was either insane or making some kind of joke. And if you didn’t, I would ask you to give me all your money for my new church.
I am gonna take a biased and unsubstantiated leap in logic here but no. Not because most people are incapable of critical thinking but because it is intentionally not encouraged by western education. Critical thinking is something that has to be taught to people and most people have never had a reason to learn it. All they need to know is how to go to work.
Decision fatigue is a real thing. Ask anyone who sat through three tests in one day; even if you have studied the material, it’s hard to focus after a while. It’s easy to fill our day with minutia that distracts us from the impostant issues.
“Think twice? I don’t even thinks once.”
I find way too many people talking about “common sense” as if that was even a thing. It frustrates me to no end.
“common sense”
A set of assumptions(usually false) acquired before age 12.
I’m wondering how you are measuring “common sense” that arrives at “usually false.” Are you ignoring obviously common sense things, like “the sky is up” – since that’s just common sense?
No, the average person does not have critical thinking. You are correct.
Do you believe the propaganda in your own country? What a painfully ignorant comment
I was idly thinking about this the other day, how absolutely lonely it must be in say North Korea, where if you’re caught by the regime to be thinking the wrong thing you’ll get killed. I’d know its bullshit, but I’d be terrified of speaking out or asking questions, incase the person I’m speaking to is an agent of the state, or will suspect me of being an agent and inform the authorities incase I’m testing them.
It must be awful not knowing who’s a secret police, who’s a gullible rube for buying the propaganda and who’s just hiding behind forced conformity.
I don’t think many of them will believe the propaganda, but I bet the ones who do will be the happiest. Or least miserable I guess.
I thought you were talking about the US a moment there
Do you believe that your media isn’t propaganda? Just because it seems less extreme doesn’t mean you’ve not been duped too.
The concept of “the average person” is a good example of the type of crass generalisation that propagndists often use.
Many of the United States have removed teaching critical thinking from their curriculum.
I’d be very skepical and deduce that there is censorshop going on and the offical news could be exaggerated or entirely falsified
After you realise you are a hostage, what’s the “good” response, in your opinion? Protest and get surpressed? Start a partisan group, and be afraid for your life 24/7? Join the surpressors for small benefits for your and yours, at the peril of others?
Teach your children to be skeptical of the authorities, and be vigilent of propaganda.
I grew up in DDR. That act in itself is punishable. In mandatory state school teachers, there was a lot “to the benefit of the group” communist propaganda. Teachers would get benefits if they succesfully got children to tell on their family, or their friends. The children who did so were lauded.
Do you think your 8 year old kid would not tell his best friend what you talked about?
I think your imagination fails to understand the magnitute of surpressing a state can and will do. It’s not just the state, and bad guys in it. It’s everywhere. 1-in-3 people were informants to the stasi. Je stärker der Sozialismus, desto sicherer der Frieden.
A lot of people don’t think. But a lot of people do think critically, and they just think differently from you or me.
If we believe nobody thinks critically, how can we even begin to effect change?
the_q@lemm.ee 1 month ago
No one, including you, is immune to propaganda.
devx00@infosec.pub 1 month ago
I try and explain this to people all the time but many don’t want to believe it.
There are 2 types of people in this world; those who are influenced by propaganda, and those who don’t know they are influenced by propaganda.
over_clox@lemmy.world 1 month ago
There’s a third type. People like me see the propaganda everywhere, get a sad laugh out of it every time, and go about my day dodging rain drops and replacing alternators.
IDGAF
dontbelasagne@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Most of hollywood is propaganda. It relies on getting revenue from other sources. If you’ve ever bought a star wars action figure or a marvel funko pop, you’ve fallen for the propaganda. Hollywood isn’t producing art for art’s sake. They’re producing commercials for merchandise.
throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
libra00@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I find the right balance (for me) to be actively seeking out conversations that challenge my beliefs and worldview, being open to being wrong, and developing a good bullshit detector. I guess growing up during the Cold War helped instill in me a fair amount of distrust for authority of any kind helped. Even still I believed the propaganda about the US being a beacon of freedom and democracy until I was exposed to the truth of the matter, but still, I sought out counter-narratives and listened to the weight of evidence and was willing to admit to being wrong and changing my views, so… shrug
kambusha@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Up until recently, I thought carrots were good for seeing in the dark. It’s something my mother told me over and over as a kid. I never bothered to research it - I liked carrots after all.
capital_sniff@lemmy.world 1 month ago
How would a carrot help with seeing in the dark? All my carrots emit zero light not even a faint glow.