Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, book by Charles Pierce

[cheapdate]

9. I've thought about "idiot America".

People may have a fundamental belief about truth that it is eternal and unchanging, or that it is perfect and attainable. They may believe that it is received from a higher source, or that it is derivable purely from logic removed from experience. Philosophically, such thought may be called Platonism, Scholasticism, or Rationalism.

Other people may believe that truth derives from, and is limited by experience and knowledge. Or as William James said, "truth happens when ideas are in agreement with reality." Such a belief holds that truth may be subject to revision as new knowledge is revealed. In this way of thinking, the idea of truth as eternal and unchanging is unsupportable; even if you arrived at perfect truth, you'd have no way to know it. This way of thinking may be called Empiricism, or it's younger cousin, Pragmatism.

Critical thinking involves the ability to criticize your own beliefs as harshly as your harshest critics.

Our educational institutions are getting worse, not better.

Public colleges and universities are turning out graduates with little interest or knowledge of the world. Our local state university announced that it will be dropping philosophy as a major due to the scarcity of funding. We're a no-income tax state (Tennessee) with an all-Republican state government.

Without a change of public opinion, it's going to continue to decline. We need greater appreciation of education with a commitment to investment in schools and universities. Vote Democrat.