I am a big proponent of critical thinking. I talk about it fairly frequently here. Recently I encountered a new steemit user who indicated that "Voluntaryism does not require critical thinking" and I found this statement very disturbing on a number of levels. I tried to respond in a positive way stating that it was absolutely vital to it, and I tried to explain that they may not have been exposed to enough of what critical thinking actually encompasses. I was trying to be helpful, especially to a fellow proponent for voluntaryism. I obviously failed as they thought I was giving them an ad hominem attack though I never attacked their character. I wrote quite a few replies to them trying to clear this up. It bothered me. Many of you know who I am, what type of person I am. You know I don't attack a persons character. I can be brutally honest but I will not ad hominem attack someone. If I fail and do so I'd apologize and clarify. Which I did apologize to this person if they took it that way.
This lead me to a thought that I would have wanted to share with him. It is an illustration for why critical thinking is vital to any future ideologically based world whether Voluntaryism, Anarcho-Capitalism, or something else.
The biggest problem with organizations, systems, and governments in history is that ultimately they all are corrupted. Thus, any potential system you wish your descendants to have a better world and live under would need to be prepared to face the corruption.
Corruption usually begins when someone convinces you to give them power to act in your behalf. If they can repeat this process that power grows. As this process continues pretty soon it is those with more power that has been delegated to each other that offer favors, or block others. This is one common form of corruption.
A technique that massively accelerates the process of corruption can be propaganda.
Propaganda is using the media and other sources to manipulate and lead the minds of the masses in a desired direction.
This is very commonly done by using a form of fallacy that is identified in critical thinking as an Appeal to Emotion. They will convince the masses to act a certain way, be outraged at something, happy about something purely by playing to their emotions. An Appeal to Emotion is a logical fallacy and something people who regularly practice and quiz themselves on critical thinking would be far less susceptible to. In fact, they would likely notice the attempt for what it is.
Another common fallacy used in propaganda is an Appeal to Tradition. This is the "We always have done it this way, why should we change" type of statement. This is a logical fallacy. Because, you have done something in the past does not mean it is the best choice or even a wise choice. It could be, but tradition alone is not justification. This is something people who regularly exercise their critical thinking would see as an Appeal to Tradition and thus, be less susceptible to it.
Yet another very common fallacy and perhaps one of the more common is the Appeal to Authority. This is stating that something must be true because some WELL KNOWN person said it was true. No matter who the person is this is not how reason works. If they are speaking in a field of expertise of theirs then there may be a higher probability of it being correct, but it is not guaranteed to be correct. Often the appeal to authority will be used with an authority figure who has no expertise in the subject matter at all. Surprisingly this is a VERY effective logical fallacy. Many people will stop asking questions and just go along with it. A person who exercises and tries to get at critical thinking would be more likely to notice this and less likely to fall for it.
There is also a common technique of misdirection known as a Red herring. Rather than addressing the subject at hand let's talk about something extremely controversial that catches the attention. This can be deemed changing the subject, but really the red herring is when this is done simply to resist answering the question.
The study of critical thinking can be a life long pursuit. We cannot master it. We can only get better at it.
We are all going to make mistakes, but critical thinking teaches us how to discuss these mistakes without feeling the need to lash out and use the types of fallacies, and misdirections I was referring to above.
It seems rather obvious to me that if we push for a voluntaryist society of some kind in the future with no actual governance that critical thinking would be absolutely crucial for interaction between members of society. It would also be crucial in being aware and preventing the common paths to corruption. Without it I suspect that society would be very short lived.
This is true of any ideology. Ideologies can sound great on paper and when talking about them. That is until humans are applied to it and each of these individuals carries out their own paths. I don't see any of these as surviving without a population well versed in critical thinking.
So how does this tie into propaganda?
Propaganda is not about truth. It is about using techniques on a mass scale to manipulate the population.
I imagine that if the majority of the population were versed in critical thinking that this would be mostly ineffective.
The majority of propaganda that I see relies on the population not recognizing the logical fallacies, and things like red herrings for what they are. As long as we cannot recognize them they are very effective.
I watch the news and I see them flagrantly all over the place. It is very rare to find a piece of journalism these days that does not have some of these.
This is another post on why I believe critical thinking is so "critical", and why I have chosen it as one of my personal tasks to undertake. If I can make more people aware of critical thinking and inspire them to go research it, exercise it, and practice it on their own then hopefully I am doing something that can help the future. I am not telling you how you should think. I am pointing you at the tools that will help you forever do your own thinking.
