What if I told you that there is something that eats away your critical thinking? Almost everybody falls for this because we are afraid loosing what we already hold dear as knowledge. Even worse, we often do not even understand that which we claim we know. What do we do instead? We munch upon what we already think we know in order to reaffirm its validity. In short, we commit intellectual suicide.
If you wonder why politically affiliated flag wavers are equally stubborn with their ideological positions, why religious fanatics support their own version of God or even why fans of a given football team go crazy just for that team, then the answer is one: Reaffirmation. The story we promise to say to ourselves is never real nor correct. Our memories are largely false. As long as the story confirms what we already believe, we are doing fine. Afterall, the news media outlets do this on a daily basis.
We are experts in presenting the argument for our position, but we rarely get to know the arguments against that very position.
The best way to conquer, what most of us come to call 'critical thinking' is something rather simple: Read about ideas you disagree with. The reason is also quite simple: People who we disagree with, tend to commit the same logical fallacy by reading only material that satisfies their point of view. If we systematically go through ideas we find our selves in the opposing side, we can easily deduct when and how the rhyme of thought went wrong. We will be able to spot logical fallacies on the drop of a hat. Additionally, we will also be able to detect the strongest counter argument in our favor.
This realisation leads to our second point and the reason why most people remain cognitively stagnant. If a person says something (good or bad) that doesn't mean that everything they are going to say thereafter will hold the same value as before. We keep forgetting that when one reads something, one should judge ideas, not people.
Ideas themselves need to be thought out rigorously and analysed objectively in order to establish their actual position.
Most of us reject a person's ideas just because they once said something we disagreed with. We immediately loose all trust, as if that person had been cursed. In the same way we often generalise ideas into "good" or "bad". For example if an economic shenanigan takes place, we will say "Aha! These are the results of capitalism". On the other hand, if something positive occurs on the same premises we won't say "Well, this is the result of capitalism".
We seem to lock ourselves into an ideological prison, with our stubborness guarding the keys.
If we let ourselves fall into the pit of narrative, the story-telling we adore so much, we start mouthing vague generalisations. Fables, that only make sense when they echo between our ears. We end up learning how to become fools towards others. This is what earns us the title of "stupid". It makes a huge difference to start a conversation with e.g. "The Coptic Christians of the 19th century in Libanon did something bad" instead of saying "Christians are bad". In the first case we are being objective about the place, time and a specific group of people that hold a given belief. In the second case we are encompassing billions of people across timespace that hold many different beliefs, most of which we are not even aware their exist.
Another example, would be a Muslim debating an atheist. The first would often claim that science created nuclear wars, thus, it cannot be trusted. The atheist on their behalf, would be eager to distinguish which scientists created neuclear weapons and under what political administrations. Often though, when the atheist judges the Muslin the same generalisation occures from their part. This is why many people today consider Mulsims, yes all 1.6 billion of them, terrorists. If that was true then none of us will be alive. The truth is that only 0,001% of muslims are terrorists. You have more chance dying walking down the street rather than from a muslism terrorist attack.
Science, Religion or Politics do not necessarily give us critical thinking. These topics are loaded guns. The beholder of knowledge always holds massive responsibility when adressing such complicated issues. If we do not know how to utilise them for our own good, then we end up shooting ourselveson the foot.
