A most excellent post. Thanks for writing it.

re: #7 BigPapa

…Not only do I appreciate LGF and Charles, there are some posters here that have challenged my thinking.

[…]

I’m not blaming conservatism or the GOP for this, it’s mostly my fault for allowing the comfort of self affirmation to supplant critical thinking. Most people believe the BS not because it’s such awesome BS, but because they want to believe it.

I do blame the GOP for specific campaigns of propaganda that history will be unkind to.

THIS. This is the key to all of it. We humans get lazy. Critical thinking involves examining ourselves—honestly taking stock of our beliefs, prejudices, intentions, personal shortcomings—and taking note of where we may have gone wrong. That’s hard and often unpleasant work and our egos will fight us every step of the way.

The ego is proud, vain. It would much rather gaze into a magic mirror that reflects a flawless countenance than one which reflects the blemishes of reality. Propagandists of every stripe know this only too well; as a matter of fact, they count on it.

You know that anonymous quote I have in my profile? (The world is divided into people who think they are right.) It’s like that. Like we’re all walking around holding up our won little magic hand mirrors that tell us we’re right, and the only other people who’re right are the ones who have the same mirrors we do.

If someone walks up with another mirror and we see ourselves reflected badly in it, we howl: “That’s a trick mirror! Everything is distorted—you lie!” Maybe. Then again maybe it’s not all distorted, maybe some of what others are trying to show us is true. Uncomfortable, that.

I realized probably 25 years ago that how I viewed the world, what I thought I knew, what seemed like obvious facts, were not. Not even close. A quarter of a century later, I’m still struggling with my “self”, my ego. It’s a very clever & persistent little wanker…it never sleeps and it knows me oh so well, knows exactly what I want to hear. So, yeah, like many others, that’s why I’m here. Critical thinking skills—keep them honed to a razor sharp point. As long as LGF remains a good whetting stone, I’ll stick around.