Hannah Arendt on critical thinking and evil

There is a strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil. 

~ Hannah Arendt

Montesquieu on thinking

The less men think, the more they talk. 

~ Baron de Montesquieu

Jonathan Haidt on cancel culture

I'm a big fan of the philosopher John Stuart Mill who said, "He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that."  That is, in order to really understand anything we have to look at multiple perspectives, we have to have different viewpoints pushing against each other.  That's what we do in universities.  And that's what we've always done in my career as a professor, until around 2014-2015.  All of a sudden, it became much more hazardous to question.

If you questioned, if you even tweeted about a study that challenged the received wisdom on race, gender, transgender - there are a couple of sacred issues - if you even suggested there was another side, huge social sanctions would rain down on you on Twitter and other platforms.  And here's the key thing: When people feel even a little bit of intimidation, when they think, "if I speak up, terrible things are going to happen to me of unknown size" (it could be nothing, it could be a thousand tweets).  It's that little bit of intimidation - that's what makes people go silent.  And when critics go silent, the group gets stupid.

~ Jonathan Haidt, social psychiatrist, NYU Stern School of Business, "'Uniquely Stupid:' Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life," Amanpour and Company, 4:40 mark, April 18, 2022

Kevin Duffy on critics

Critics get a bad rap sometimes.  They're actually optimists who see room for improvement.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, March 6, 2022

Doug Casey on public schools

Schools do not teach critical thinking—if indeed they ever did—at least since Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum.  Critical thinking is the habit of questioning all assertions and examining everything that we think we know in the light of knowledge, logic, the scientific method, and your own research.  That doesn’t exist anymore in schools.  In fact, the government and the establishment don’t want schools to turn out critical thinkers and free thinkers.  To the contrary, they want obedient, indoctrinated serfs who will do as they’re told and act as cogs in the wheel.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey Reveals 3 Ways You Can Opt-Out of the Rising Insanity," Doug Casey's International Man, October 4, 2021

Tom Bernhardt on uncertainty and success

People naturally hate uncertainty, but the ability to deal with it is critical to success.  And it’s not just about business; it’s a pervasive attitude and discipline. 

The ability to say “I don’t know” or “it’s probably this, but might be that” is a vital component of critical thinking.  It’s also a prerequisite to having a constructive discussion with others, especially those having a different view. 

When people fall into a cognitive gravity well of certain belief, the intractability makes them unable to listen and evaluate contrary information and perspectives.  They become less than useless.  Unfortunately that’s where most people increasingly are these days.

~ Tom Bernhardt, September 29, 2021

Thomas Paine on critical thought and freedom

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. 

~ Thomas Paine, Reflections on Titles (1775)

Thomas Paine
1965-1968

Frederick Douglass on critical thinking and slavery

To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one.

~ Frederick Douglass

Tom DiLorenzo on how the Left makes an argument

When a business school professor (actually a lawyer hired to preach left-wing politics to business students) initiated a new course called “Critical Thinking” at my former university I asked her what academic discipline she would be drawing on – philosophy, logic, political philosophy, economics, etc. Her answer was “Oh none of that; we will just criticize people like you.” 

Talking with many of her students over the years I have learned that they were taught nothing about how to structure a criticism by using logic, facts, and theory. Instead, they are taught to condemn, slander, libel, denounce, and smear anyone who voices disagreements with any of the standard leftist platitudes that all college students are bombarded with and have been since elementary school. Ruthless criticism, in other words, just as Marx himself advocated.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Your Marxist Revolutionary Sons and Daughters," LewRockwell.com, October 16, 2020

George Orwell on indoctrination

These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments.

~ George Orwell, Animal Farm

Thomas Sowell on educating the younger generation

We're raising whole generations who regard facts as more or less optional. And they are being taught that it's important to have views, and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about. It's important to hear the opposite viewpoint and more important, to learn how to distinguish why viewpoint A and viewpoint B are different and which one has the most evidence or logic behind it. 

~ Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institute interview, 7:50 mark, posted on YouTube September 18, 2020

Paul Craig Roberts on the state of education and critical thinking in America

What we are dealing with is not only the brainwashing of white students as to the evil origin of their country and their inherited guilt, but also their inability to think rationally and to make an objective conclusion from evidence. This was once the purpose of education, but no more. Today students are taught that their emotions are what is true, and their emotions are manipulated by the lies that they are taught.

This perversity of education spells the end of the United States. The kind of people American education is producing are not capable of scientific thinking. The kind of education Americans receive today cannot produce scientists or engineers. We have the emotive generation, people trained to be guided by emotion.

~ Paul Craig Roberts, "What is a Fatal Dose of Fentanyl?," LewRockwell.com, July 10, 2020

Gary D. Barnett on the coronavirus hoax

All eyes are concentrated on a fraudulent virus pandemic, and that is exactly what the ruling elite that now control all thought and non-action of the herd desire. Tunnel vision and concentration on state-manufactured monsters does not allow for critical thought, nor does it allow for any sane decision-making by the general populace.

~ Gary D. Barnett, "The Long-Planned Second Wave of This Coronavirus is Now Going Into High Gear," LewRockwell.com, June 27, 2020

Kevin Duffy on planning for freedom

Your first line of defense is critical thinking and your last line of defense is guns, gold and God.  At the end of the day, if nothing else works, pray.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Expert Model" interview with David Forsyth, 24:30 mark, Your Freedom Adventure, June 26, 2020

Kevin Duffy on trusting authorities

If we want our country back, people are going to have to stop trusting the authorities - government officials, the media, so-called medical "experts." Your best defense is to develop critical thinking. Your last defense is to own a gun.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, June 4, 2020