Papantonio: The Death of Critical Thinking In America

[Pharaoh]

The right wing attack on education has done more than just make students a little less intelligent – it has completely dismantled a generation’s critical thinking abilities. And that’s exactly the kind of voter that the Republicans want.

America’s Lawyer Mike Papantonio talks about this with attorney Howard Nations.

[maddiemom]

1. The assault on critical thinking has concerned me for years.

As a teacher in English and reading, I always felt that critical thinking was of paramount importance. Many right wingers, especially those of extreme religious bent, increasingly feel that such thinking is dangerous "indoctrination." In other words teaching kids to think and reason for themselves is dangerous to their own religious indoctrination. The really frightening thing is that those of us who grew up during the "cold war" were taught that the difference between us and the Communists was our critical thinking versus their indoctrination.

[Pharaoh]

2. yes

it is part of the right wing plan to destroy public schools and university's ( University of Wisconsin defunded by 300 million_)

They don't want an educated populace that tends to understand the issues and vote democratic.......

[niyad]

3. as most of us have known for decades, you cannot control a population capable of critical

thinking.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

4. If you want proof of the dumbing down of America

Look no further than 'kids programming' from the 70s vs today:

Granted, this ran on PBS and intended to be educational, but compare it to the corporate-funded crap PBS runs today.

[panfluteman]

5. We Have Just Received the Most Shocking Proof of the Dumbing Down of America!

It came in the form of Senator Tom Cotton's remarks about Tehran being in danger of falling to the Iranians. And he graduated from Harvard!!!

There's no doubt about it - true democracy can't function adequately without critical thinking. Without it, you don't have active, engaged and responsible citizens; you have corporate robots and automatons.

And then you have conservative douchebag Republicans hiding behind their BS of, "well - America never was a democracy; it was created to be a Republic". That's the dumbest evasive smokescreen that I've ever heard. A republic IS a democracy - just one in which representatives are elected to represent the people, which is the only way a nation of our size can function. But that obvious point would be totally lost on someone who wasn't educated to think critically, with their God given reason intact, and not lobotomized.

[swilton]

6. One of the most subtle ways that

Last edited Mon Mar 16, 2015, 08:41 PM - Edit history (1)

critical thinking is discouraged and under attack is the way (both parties participate in this) that the technological sciences are put on a pedestal. Excellence in the social sciences, learning of foreign languages, the liberal arts, in general the humanities - the disciplines which stress the development of critical thinking is totally discouraged. Corporate scholarships abound in the hard sciences. Whenever a school has to come up with budget cuts, it's never in the biological/physical sciences but in the arts and languages. Academically, the US is at the bottom of the world on learning foreign languages and sadly, most furin students that I've talked to speak the Inglish language better than most Amerikuns. Similarly, they know more about Amerikun/world history.