Why Critical Thinking is Dead - Peter Boghossian

Critical thinking is essential for aligning beliefs with reality, understanding others, and addressing the lack of trust in institutions and media, and it is crucial to promote critical thinking through conversations with influential people

Questions to inspire discussion

• Why is teaching critical thinking important?

  —Teaching critical thinking is important to prevent artificial confidence in incorrect beliefs and to challenge people's thinking.

• How can critical thinking be promoted?

  —Critical thinking can be promoted through conversations with influential people and by challenging individuals' unwillingness to change their minds based on evidence.

• What are the challenges in the educational system?

  —The educational system fails to teach critical thinking and is only somewhat effective at teaching skill sets like inference, evaluation, and explanation.

• What is the ideal critical thinker like?

  —The ideal critical thinker has a skill set that can be taught in about 20 hours, but the dispositions, such as being trustful of reason and willing to revise beliefs, are harder to cultivate.

• Why is critical thinking essential for society?

  —Critical thinking is essential for participation in society and can be taught through key concepts such as identifying fallacies and striving to believe more true things and fewer false things.

Key insights

• 🤔 The willingness to change one's mind based on evidence is crucial for critical thinking and open-mindedness.
• 🏛️ Educational institutions like Harvard are not fit for purpose if they are indoctrinating instead of educating.
• 🤔 Changing your mind on the basis of reason and evidence is a moral responsibility, not just a practical one.
• 😬 Being uncomfortable and having your opinion challenged is a necessary part of critical thinking and living an examined life.
• 😬 People are so attached to their beliefs that they can't change their opinion because it's not just their ideas that are under threat, it's their identity.
• 🤔 The core beliefs of this ideology are so idiotic that every disparity and outcome is due to the system, which is demonstrably false.
• 🔄 The ideology we are concerned about is explicitly designed to prevent discussion and engagement.
• 🎓 The meritocracy has been undermined in educational institutions, with systemic discrimination against Asians in Ivy League schools.

#Sociology #DEI #Identity #Woke

XMentions: @HPluckrose @peterboghossian @ConceptualJames @KonstantinKisin @HabitatsDigital

Clips 

• 00:00 🧠 Teaching critical thinking is crucial as people tend to align beliefs based on moral reasons, leading to a lack of understanding and calibration of beliefs, and institutions have become ideological mills.
  • Teaching critical thinking is important because indoctrinating teachers can lead to artificial confidence in incorrect beliefs, and Street Epistemology videos have shown that people are generally open to being challenged on their thinking.
  • Students on college campuses are easily offended and tend to align their beliefs based on moral reasons rather than evidence, outsourcing their thinking to their tribe.
  • People with opposing views can understand and articulate each other's reasons for their beliefs, leading to better understanding and communication.
  • The speaker discusses the reasons why some people are unwilling to change their stance on abortion, and suggests that understanding the impact of abortion on women may help shift their perspective.
  • The speaker challenges the person's unwillingness to change their mind based on evidence, particularly in regards to abortion, and highlights the importance of being open to new evidence that challenges fundamental assumptions.
  • The educational system has failed to teach critical thinking, leading to a lack of understanding and calibration of beliefs, and institutions have become ideological mills.
• 09:57 🧠 Critical thinking is not effectively taught in the education system, but it is essential for participation in society and can be cultivated through key concepts and developing critical consciousness in students.
  • The education system fails to teach critical thinking and is only somewhat effective at teaching skill sets like inference, evaluation, and explanation.
  • The American Philosophical Association Deli report defines the ideal critical thinker as having a skill set that can be taught in about 20 hours, but the dispositions, such as being trustful of reason and willing to revise beliefs, are harder to cultivate.
  • The most important thing for critical thinking is the disposition, which cannot be tested but is essential for improving knowledge.
  • Critical thinking is essential for participation in society and can be taught through key concepts such as identifying fallacies and striving to believe more true things and fewer false things.
  • Teaching critical thinking in plain language and emphasizing the benefits of being less wrong is essential to combat the passive and active failures in education.
  • Widescale organizational capture in service to a dominant ideology has led to the promotion of a moral orthodoxy and the goal of educators is to develop critical consciousness in students to find oppression everywhere.
• 15:51 🤔 Educational institutions limit critical thinking and inflate confidence in beliefs without teaching the value of truth, leading to a lack of exposure to opposing viewpoints and a decline in the ability to defend ideas.
  • Educational institutions held hostage to ideology limit critical thinking and inflate confidence in beliefs without teaching the value of truth.
  • Understanding how we know what we know is the foundation for determining how we should live our lives and what moral principles to follow.
  • People from certain institutions have a bias against critical thinking exercises, as demonstrated by their refusal to engage in a thought experiment at a rally.
  • Students have not been trained to defend their ideas and lack the ability to argue or rebut opposing positions, coupled with the belief that dialogue perpetuates hierarchical power relations.
  • Most college students are not exposed to opposing viewpoints, leading to a lack of critical thinking and education in prestigious institutions.
  • Once you stop valuing what's true, any conclusion you forward becomes arbitrary and influenced by external forces, leading to a unraveling of world views when challenged.
• 23:32 🤔 Belonging to a tribe often leads people to align their beliefs with their community rather than reality, and it is important to trust reason and be open to revising beliefs.
  • Belonging to a tribe often outweighs the desire for truth, leading people to align their beliefs with their community rather than reality.
  • Church leaders and young individuals are so deeply ingrained in their beliefs that they are unlikely to question or challenge them, even when presented with alternative perspectives.
  • Changing your mind based on evidence and reason is morally responsible and promotes societal values, and it is important to trust reason and be open to revising beliefs.
  • Being uncomfortable and having your opinions challenged is a necessary part of critical thinking and examining your ideas.
  • We need to create cultures that value dialogue and discourse, where people are willing to engage in uncomfortable discussions without attaching their ideas to their identity, and without institutionalizing discomfort through bias response teams and diversity offices.
  • People have been taught to rely on others instead of being self-reliant and resilient, and the speaker wishes to discuss the genesis of this indoctrination in society.
• 32:02 🤔 The education system has shifted from truth-based education to indoctrination, leading to a lack of critical thinking and the need for alternative education structures.
  • The education system has shifted from truth-based education to indoctrination, and the only way to combat this is to either reform the existing institutions, which is difficult due to tenure, or build new ones.
  • The lack of competition in education has led to a generation of students who are not reflective, critical thinkers, and lack the necessary dispositions for economic prosperity.
  • The core beliefs of the ideology attacking tradition are idiotic, and the lack of critical thinking in education is leading to the sustained attack on Western values.
  • Kids are taught about oppression and systemic discrimination for moral reasons, but schools have become data factories focused on passing tests rather than educating, and the question is what to do about it.
  • Alternative education structures are necessary to combat the failures of the current education system, with progress being made in media but still a need for further development in educational systems and arenas.
  • The discourse has been hijacked, government intervention and inspectors are part of the corrupt system, and democracy isn't delivering the results people are voting for.
• 44:10 🤔 Critical thinking is essential for aligning ideas with reality, focusing on solutions, understanding others, and enduring discomfort, while also addressing the lack of trust in institutions and media.
  • In order to ensure that ideas align with reality, there needs to be a constant reinforcement of critical thinking, which can be achieved through Street Epistemology.
  • The speaker discusses the need to focus on solutions rather than just criticizing and highlights the importance of supporting alternative platforms like Give Send Go for crowdfunding.
  • Listen to and understand others before offering criticism, seek to understand rather than persuade, and do not let disruptive ideologies prevent civil dialogue.
  • The housing crisis causes wokeness because young people are locked out of a future, leading to nihilism and resentment, and society needs to rethink the idea of discomfort and understand the virtue of enduring discomfort to achieve something.
  • Being forthright and honest in speech will earn more respect than avoiding confrontation, and ideologies out of touch with reality can lead to impractical and damaging actions.
  • Can the current crisis be resolved without a major conflict, considering the lack of trust in institutions and media?
• 56:00 💀 Critical thinking is dead because people are too comfortable in their ideologies, leading to a lack of trust in institutions and a need for honest dialogue.
  • People don't trust Congress, but it doesn't affect them personally, leading to a breakdown in legitimacy and a lack of critical thinking.
  • People need to care enough to fix the problem of fragility and value resilience and discomfort for achievement without suffering terrible consequences.
  • Critical thinking is dead because people are too comfortable in their ideologies and only a catastrophe may shake them up.
  • Traditional philanthropists are withdrawing their donations, the United States is in a dire financial situation, and the speaker is embarrassed by the current political leadership.
  • People are not engaging in substantive questions, our educational institutions are suffering from ideological capture, and there is a lack of trust in institutions and a need for honest dialogue.
  • Critical thinking is dead, and there is a lack of honest conversation and evidence-based decision making in American society.
• 01:05:58 🤔 Media and individuals like Joe Rogan are countering cancel culture, but the younger generation is heavily influenced by social media, so promoting critical thinking through conversations with influential people is important.
  • Media organizations challenging narratives and individuals like Joe Rogan are powerful in countering cancel culture, with a significant and growing audience.
  • The speaker is concerned about the younger generation being heavily influenced by social media and believes that promoting critical thinking through conversations with influential people may help address the issue.
  • The speaker discusses the potential for a nuclear Armageddon and the preference for a quick death over a slow and painful one.
  • The focus should shift from discussing specific issues to engaging with and understanding people with whom we disagree, by listening better and asking better questions.
  • Pete discusses the appeal of work taking over academia and the susceptibility of certain personality types to this way of thinking.

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Duration: 1:11:0

Publication Date: 2024-08-27T22:24:33Z

WatchUrl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vW-hkMW-Q

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