 |
"This curmudgeon fellow
really annoys me." |
As I get older, I've learned to (usually) bite my tongue when this happens, but it's nearly every day I hear someone say (or read it posted online) something that only a sucker would repeat. The list of these offenses is as long as my arm, and getting longer every day, but they all have the same root cause: a complete and utter lack of critical thinking skills. The Public Miseducation System has been nearly a complete success. Virtually nobody can think any more. Nobody even
tries to think, because they believe that they are "thinking" when they regurgitate whatever it is they read online, or saw on television, or heard on the radio. This is not a left vs. right issue; it's not Republican vs. Democrat. It's a complete inability of the vast majority of people in this culture to
think, to question their own assumptions, to "trust but verify" no matter the source. It's the result of intellectual laziness coupled with a subtle kind of arrogance: laziness, because most people will simply not lift a finger to verify the veracity of a "fact" they've been fed; arrogance, because, despite the knowledge that they haven't done so, most people believe they have actually thought through their beliefs and practices.
I often find myself guilty of the same crime. I will realize that something I have heretofore accepted unquestioningly may or may not be the truth. I've taken to reading a lot of stuff that I completely disagree with, in the interest of actually proving to myself that I know what I believe and have considered the opposing viewpoints. My own pursuit of truth has cost me personally, but one thing my parents instilled in me from the earliest age was that truth is its own reward, and the cost of truth is irrelevant.
Truth has an enemy: the sucker.
