Most people haven't a clue how to think for themselves or how

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

to ask questions or research anything to find out stuff.

I run across this all the time, not only on the interwebs but in ordinary life. Even people who ought to know better, who are reasonably intelligent and well educated. They just accept whatever some authority tells them.

The problem goes back to schools and churches. Both of them teach people to accept whatever they are told. Not to question anything. To believe. Believe. Believe. Churches are generally worse than schools, but both are at fault.

And then people leave school and get a job, and on the job they're told to follow orders, do the work, don't question the bosses.

It's a self-perpetuating cycle. This is also why the things we call conspiracy theory are so popular. Those "theories" masquerade as questioning authority, but they do no such thing. They feed a lot of untruths, ill-thought-out questions with dubious answers, and seem to offer a relief from the conventional wisdom. But those who buy into such conspiracy theories are as bereft of independent thinking as anyone deep in the grips of a cult.

And so, the Trump supporters. They thought they were exercising some sort of independent thought. They bought the various lies about Hillary Clinton. Or they were already pre-disposed to not vote for a women, especially not for her. (And anyone here who doesn't understand the baggage she brought into the election, and why she was a genuinely bad choice is likewise not thinking very hard, but I digress.) Or they were Democrats who thought they'd show their independence by voting for some third party candidate. Those third party voters likewise didn't think it through. And the defiant voters who went to the Trump camp truly deserve whatever happens. Alas, the rest of us don't.

(This OP is taken in part from a posting in another thread here. Another poster suggested I make it an OP, and here it is.)

[wasupaloopa]

1. check this out: What Is Enlightenment? 1784 essay by the philosopher Immanuel Kant

What Is Enlightenment?
Immanuel Kant 1

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.

Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use--or rather abuse--of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds.

more: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html

[procon]

2. Basic critical thinking skills can be learned.

Its a useful skillset to develop that intellectual curiosity, but it does require a bit of user effort. Many people are unable to get past their own biases and find it difficult to objectively question ideas and assumptions that challenge their cherished beliefs, so when they are confronted by those uncomfortable facts it's easy to just fall back on the status quo.