Smith nails the pathology: we didn’t raise critical thinkers, we trained pattern-spotters. Today’s students aren’t reasoning toward conclusions; they’re retrieving preloaded verdicts on cue. Racism, oppression, power—these aren’t argued, they’re reflexes. Like a Rorschach test, the ink blot never changes; only the approved answer does. That’s why Socratic questioning short-circuits the system—there’s nothing underneath the slogan. Education used to teach how to think; now it teaches what to see. When belief precedes evidence and doubt is treated as heresy, discourse collapses. You can’t debate a catechism. You can only expose it.
Excellent article & I think your use of ‘gut feeling’ explains much of what fuels this thinking. It is much closer to believing a religious dictum so one is not declaired a heretic & burned at the stake. When emotion is not tempered by intellect & wisdom ( which IMHO is the combination of intellect, emotion & experience) one can be convinced of anything including ‘we must join c comet Halle-Bopp by committing suicide’. Shows my age, but I’ve been watching such behaviors since I was young & the older I get, the more I am aghast at the ‘reach out c your feelings, Luke’ approach of the L. An emotional animal is one who can be fooled to charge off a cliff c the heard.
Never in doubt, and never right.
These kids are in a leaderless cult. Dogma is their language. Grievance is their religion.
Smith nails the pathology: we didn’t raise critical thinkers, we trained pattern-spotters. Today’s students aren’t reasoning toward conclusions; they’re retrieving preloaded verdicts on cue. Racism, oppression, power—these aren’t argued, they’re reflexes. Like a Rorschach test, the ink blot never changes; only the approved answer does. That’s why Socratic questioning short-circuits the system—there’s nothing underneath the slogan. Education used to teach how to think; now it teaches what to see. When belief precedes evidence and doubt is treated as heresy, discourse collapses. You can’t debate a catechism. You can only expose it.
Excellent comment
Excellent article & I think your use of ‘gut feeling’ explains much of what fuels this thinking. It is much closer to believing a religious dictum so one is not declaired a heretic & burned at the stake. When emotion is not tempered by intellect & wisdom ( which IMHO is the combination of intellect, emotion & experience) one can be convinced of anything including ‘we must join c comet Halle-Bopp by committing suicide’. Shows my age, but I’ve been watching such behaviors since I was young & the older I get, the more I am aghast at the ‘reach out c your feelings, Luke’ approach of the L. An emotional animal is one who can be fooled to charge off a cliff c the heard.