tandempower

Certain people devote themselves, mostly via education, to critically questioning cultural assumptions, norms, and the corresponding biases. Those of us who become more aware of the problems of cultural conformity and thus more comfortable and positive regarding more independent judgment and action have a responsibility, imo, to reach out to others who may not have had the same privilege of educational access and/or access to more respectful social environments where independent thought and behavior is respected instead of ridiculed and otherwise undermined.

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Before the words Narcissistic, Egotistical, self absorbed, and grandiose come flying out please tell us who the more educated in social science, anthropology, political science and economics might your post be describing? What degrees and what studies would this person be attached to? From what I understand 27 percent of the population in the U.S. has a BA. That is 93.6 million people. 2 percent have a doctorate, which is 6.9 million. Who are you thinking of that needs to enlighten the rest of the population? Might we know for instance what liberal arts study has aided your understanding of the effects of car free living on happiness?

tandempower

Liberal arts is really just the practice of critical thinking. You have to learn to read and think critically about different perspectives. Then, you can reason in productive/constructive ways and formulate independent thoughts and conclusions instead of having to choose what to believe from other sources based on the status of the sources, which you assume you are capable of judging but don't really have any critical insight into besides whether it is a popular/reputable source or not.

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Let us cut to the chase, are you saying the more educated person that feels they have the privilege to be educated feel an obligation to inform all of the rest of the population because the reputable sources are somehow not informed? Please tell us what degree we should strive for to reach this state of enlightenment? I have to wonder how many other members in this forum have had to privilege of an education, even a education with a higher degree. Lets see what we may have learned from a elective related to a business management degree. Steps in critical thinking. So again who are you talking about that is more educated in these things than the rest of the forum?

tandempower

Whether or not it happens through formal education, everyone should reach a point in their intellectual development where they stop getting defensive and attacking others in discussions. Critical thinking need not have steps. It is about understanding, analysis, creativity, and clarity in communication. It's not a competition but rather a cooperative venture to arrive at common understandings that facilitate better judgment.

E.g. when you talk about people you have experience with in poor areas where LCF is common wanting cars, I listen and think about why that could be, what they might be thinking. After all, why would it be the case that someone like me who certainly didn't grow up rich by western standards would come to question the good of the automotive culture while someone who is seeing it as grass on the other side of the fence might imagine it to be greener? Is it because I am deluded as to the livability of LCF when it is a widespread reality or because they are deluded about the false promises of automotive utopianism? Reflecting on these questions requires questioning self and others, thinking analytically, identifying biases, etc. All that is what constitutes critical thinking. It is about going beyond the process of taking something you've heard/read to be true and repeating it without questioning/analyzing or thinking in more depth.

The ultimate failure of critical thinking can be found in people who don't realize that there are economic/business interests behind information, which is produced as little more than part of a marketing program for some product or economy. Many people are brought up to think like sales people all the time, promoting business interests and putting down people they see as obstructing those business interests. Once people get beyond the interest of pursuing interests, they can question interests and think more critically without the fear of undermining interests that they've always felt social pressure to protect or remain loyal to.

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You cannot get off the hook that easy. You list critical thinking, you list education and you list that as a basis for informing others. The critical thinking process has been charted and so can be relied on to reach a conclusion that can be shared. Skip some of the process and what is being practiced is not the critical thinking taught by the same education system. Can you keep redefining the process to support your position even in the face of the conclusions of other educated people.

In your response to ILTB who are you saying has reached the conclusions that need to be shared because they are educated and who are the ones with less education that need this insightful information? I want to know what makes the information we receive from whoever you are saying has thought about these things based on their education creditable? A who is the one delivering this information? B who are you saying are less educated? Make it less nebulous. Are you saying your vision of how things should be are the correct ones and how others think are incorrect?

tandempower

Apparently you can't see that the reasoning you exhibit in this post is anti-critical in itself. You want a system to deem something credible and valid instead of thinking things out for yourself based on the information you have until you reach a point of being satisfied with you own critical mind's ability to reach conviction. When you serve on a jury, whose authority tells you that the verdict you reach is correct? When your authority is supposed to be decisive, how do you rely on other authorities to decide?

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Dude on a jury you have to law to guide you and judge to instruct you and lawyers to point out the pros and cons. And that is not the point. The point is who are you saying is the more educated one making the decision to inform those deemed to be less educated. Your words not mine. Are you claiming you are the educated one who through your education has to reach out to others? Who are the others?

tandempower

Everyone should reach out with their enlightenment, whether it has been cultivated as part of formal education or otherwise. There are plenty of wise people who have developed their wisdom without formal education. You turn things I say into meaning things I don't mean in order to sow seeds of conflict. It's basically trolling for a fight/argument.

Cultural conformity is part of our base animal nature. It can have good and bad results, but another part of our nature is our ability to question things instead of just going with the flow, conforming to others in behavior and thought, etc. The problem we have with LCF is that cultural conformity is abused to solicit auto sales and promote infrastructure projects to boost certain people's revenues and income at the expense of others, and the environment. Some of us have gone beyond conformity and suffer the ridicule that comes with making choices that go against conformist norms like driving. If more people did that, the world would be a better place but fear reigns in many hearts and prevents people from questioning social-cultural norms that are bad in various ways yet serve certain business and economic interests.

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tandempower

It's not that hard to accuse someone of narcissism whenever you disagree with or hate their perspective in some way. It's a pretty uncritical application of the concept of narcissism.

Walter S

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tandempower

It requires questioning things. For example, when 'steps' are prescribed for 'critical thinking,' does that facilitate independent thought or does it lead people to depend on procedures, instructions, etc.? The whole purpose of critical thinking is to overcome structural authority and think more independently. When you make it into a structured method for people to adhere to, they should think critically about that and recognize the trap inherent in it.

Walter S

Rather than "depend on" a set of well thought out steps that have been carefully developed with rigorous peer reviewed logic over many years, you could also see the steps as a road map to intellectual development that follows a tried and true process designed to uncover logical fallacies in your thinking and facilitate the development of theories that can be accepted by others as well tested.

But you would obviously rather follow an informal process and IMO that's just for your intellectual enjoyment. You want to follow day dreaming adventures in your mind that are not constrained by a process that might limit the dimensions of your dream free flowing thru the universe. As to whether that results in any truths that apply with anything like the universal applicability in your fantasy, that's an entirely separate matter that probably includes a variety of unstated and unverified assumptions on your part.

In the end what TP calls "critical thinking" is much better described as the latest ramblings where TP again finds joy in radical departures from tradition expressed with childishly over simplified logic in an assumption of its universal applicability. What's so critical about that?

I cry BS. People are not buying cars because they fear non-conformity. They're buying cars because the car enables various pursuits including income and leisure following a well demonstrated model. I would agree that *some* people have cars for no good reason. There might be functional models they could be following but are not simply because it's not a routine they've witnessed or thought about seriously. OTOH I would NOT agree that such people are huge in number. If living car free is easy in your area then there are probably already examples to witness and follow.

tandempower

When you start thinking critically for yourself, you will understand. Until then, I guess you'll just keep ranting like this and ridiculing people like me who don't submit to your uncritical assumptions and agree with you.

Many many aspects of people's lives are guided by avoidance of non-conformity. When you start seeing conformity for what it is, a mindless/uncritical copycatting of others to avoid mindless judgment based on mindless cultural adherence, you gain the independence to do things that are perfectly good, just not considered normal.

One example that comes to mind is when I posted that carrying plastic shopping bags on handlebars works well if you are able to steer your bike without the bags getting caught in your spokes, etc. Do you realize how many nasty responses I got to that by people who just find it ugly and pathetic on the basis of normative aesthetic judgment? Yes, there is a mindless hate for people who 'look poor' because they/we use low-cost methods for doing things. But guess what? Sometimes those low-cost methods are effective and efficient and the people who are judging us aesthetically are just mindless conformists who are enslaving themselves to unnecessary economic pressures to avoid unjustified ridicule. You can call BS all you want, but I call BS on driving a car because you are conforming to an aesthetic model that expects you to show up everywhere in season-inappropriate clothing, looking like you haven't been outside all day.

prj71

That would be engineering. Not Liberal Arts.

cooker

Critical thinking is emphasized in all advanced fields of study and has its roots in the study of liberal arts, like philosophy, dating back at least to Socrates. At the University of Toronto, for example there are critical thinking courses for students in biology, philosophy, commerce, psychology, economics, literature, and multiple other fields, see eg. https://fas.calendar.utoronto.ca/sea...hinking?page=1 and yes, even engineering https://gradstudies.engineering.utoro...-Armstrong.pdf

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tandempower

Stop attacking me. I also talk about bike riding in this forum and you never question my method for doing that. Some people can think critically just like some can ride a bike. It takes practice. With bike riding you start by trying to roll without falling. With critical thinking you start by questioning received knowledge and trying to identify when things might be wrong, whether they're your ideas or others'.

What's uncritical is to focus on attacking someone else's ideas without thinking them through. What you generally do in discussions with me is to avoid constructive discussion by changing your point whenever I provide some meaningful response to something you said. Basically you just keep switching your criticism and avoid listening to what I have to say about it. How is that critical, constructive dialogue? answer: it's not; it's uncritical attack with no other purpose than to cut down someone you dislike because you oppose their ideas.

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I gave you every opportunity to explain the above highlighted quotes and tell us how much your education was superior to ours and thus gave you insight we didn't have into what makes for a healthy Happy society and culture. You couldn't or wouldn't do so. You have not indicated what education you might have that exceeded anyone else in this forum. You simply expect us to believe it is true because you say so. As my social science professor would have said show us the reason and process.


Several others not just me have linked studies, sites and people rejecting your assumptions that you assure us would come to pass if only they had the information or experience you suggest will make them want to make less money. And yet you aren't gaining traction. People aren't willing to pay for your advice like they are Walters programing. Don't you see a pattern here? You even forget the rejection of your premise in your first poll in this forum, Making less and living in a poor section of town to be car free "or" on the better side of town and have to drive. You and you alone were living in the poor section. Has anything changes since then. What did you learn from that poll?


I don't know you so the only thing I have to dislike is your ideas. You aren't on my social radar screen to like or dislike. The only thing we have in common is the nation we live in. It is just that you have never expressed an idea I found the least bit tempting to try. But that post where you made reference to your education giving you insight beyond what the rest of us could understand so you were compelled to share with us what your access to education had that ours did not. I found that offensive.


So experience and action seem to trump your thinking almost every time. I can tell by the posts you make there is no way you are happier with your life than I am. I am not sure you ride as much as I do either.

tandempower

You might not have noticed, but I also don't post about how superior my cycling or LCF abilities are. You may also have noticed that someone like Machka, who posts about rides that are far beyond my level, doesn't talk about how superior she is as a cyclist. Even you, whose military abilities are far beyond me, don't talk about how superior you are in that regard. So what I really think you're doing by inviting me to brag about my education is to stick my neck out to have it chopped off when I act like an arrogant fool who's in it to prove my superiority. I am against superiorism and I'm against you baiting me or anyone else into it. If you can't or don't want to grasp things I say about critical thinking or anything else, that's your business. I just don't see why you have to get in my face about such things all the time.

I'm not interested in having any educational competitions. Anyone whose education is worth anything doesn't make status competition the purpose of education. The purpose is to think critical and have constructive discussions that could lead to further enlightenment for everyone involved. You clearly don't have any interest in using education in this way, though; since your primary objective seems to be to challenge others to prove their education is superior to yours. What you do here is aggressive and rude and I don't see why the mods let you get away with it in thread after thread.

So what? There is something to cite against anything you want to argue with.

I learned that people don't agree with me on that point. What I've learned beyond that, however, is that you have made it your personal crusade to harass me about practically anything I say or think because you so deeply hate my economic-lite perspective. It seems that as far as you are concerned, economic-heavy is the only acceptable choice and you knight yourself as the police to harass anyone who dares to have a different perspective.

I find a great deal of what you say offensive, but I don't think that matters to you in the least.

If you are so happy, why do you find it necessary to engage in such hostility and competition toward me or anyone else. Why can't you just be happy and express your views in a non-combative way? Are aggression and fighting so essential to your sense of self-worth that you have to approach every communication with me like a battle tactic?

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tandempower

Let me make it very clear that you twist my meanings to fit your own aggressive view that if someone is educated and they have thoughts and ideas they want to share, that automatically implies that they view themselves as superior to others and are condescending. This is your projection that you put on me in order to pick a fight. Yes, I am education. Yes, part of my education was to think critically and promote critical thinking in others. Yes, I think it is good to discuss things publicly for the benefit of anyone interested in reading. Does any of this have anything to do with me viewing myself as superior to anyone else? No. In my view, no one is perfect and I'm no exception; so I am much less concerned about rating my strengths and weaknesses relative to others as I am in trying to find ways to do good in the world. Now you're going to start attacking me that I do no good, but can't you just realize you and I see things in very different ways and you can't understand my perspective because it interferes with you believing yours is superior? Of course we all want security and peace-of-mind, etc. But if you have to bribe corrupt people who are spending money destroying the environment to get it, you might start questioning how much support you want to provide those people in order to get what they are selling.

As I've said many times, there are things I am willing to work for but they are not things that are profitable. E.g. you can't develop more eco-friendly buildings and infrastructure if people aren't going to want to live and work in them because they are too high, or because the ground floor is treed/forested. All I can do is put out a beacon by mentioning the idea now and then and maybe one day people will realize it's worth going upstairs to shop in order to keep the ground treed/forested, just like maybe one day people will realize it's worth biking and walking predominantly in order to minimize the amount of pavement between the trees. These are the future that I'm willing to work toward and it doesn't matter to me that there is a cultural status quo that biases people against reform. You keep wanting me to accept and submit to other peoples' view because there are more of them than there are of me, but all that matters to me is looking at how something is built and thinking of a way to reduce its footprint so more soil can be brought back to life. That is why I LCF, among all my other reasons.

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