4 ms·

I studied "strategic communication" in college (a mix of PR, advertising, marketing, whatever) and I distinctly remember a mentor saying, "When you're selling a

I studied "strategic communication" in college (a mix of PR, advertising, marketing, whatever) and I distinctly remember a mentor saying, "When you're selling a drill, you're not selling a drill. You're selling the hole." The point is, people don't buy things for their own sake. They buy them for what they think the thing can do for them. Any car will get you to point B, but some people will go for a cheap, utilitarian car because they want to save money (or maybe the utilitarian aesthetic is their thing), while others will go for the flashy car for that feeling of sex appeal (even if women don't suddenly fall all over a new car owner, the feeling of confidence is a social benefit to the buyer, even if that's not worth the asking price). More generally, though, all communication has this sort of color to it. We see anti-privacy legislation being touted as protecting children and fighting crime. Small talk is not really about sports. So I don't think it's realistic to legislate persuasion. I would probably be behind making formal logic a part of public school curriculum, though, so people are better equipped to discern for themselves when persuasion they're exposed to is nonsense (among other benefits).

Siira 6y ago
Formal logic does not help with critical thinking that much. You need to teach Bayesian thinking, which seems a daunting task.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  I think explicit instruction is quite ineffective either way. What you need is teaching by immersion, through examples. Science should not be taught as a series of facts and formulas but as riddles, arguments, why do we think this or that, what does this or that experiment tell us. How could one misinterpret it? Let's try and present this information to influence the reader's thinking: half of you to one direction, half of you in the opposite. Simiarly in history class, can we weave the narrative to make country X look good in this ancient war? What political slogan could country B come up with to counter that narrative? What facts would you emphasize regarding the Black Plague as a communist or as a Catholic? In math, would you market a more fuel efficient car by telling the percentage difference in miles per gallon or liters per 100 km? These are obviously just some examples, but the point is that critical thinking is a cross-cutting concern and cannot be segregated into one class. It should be constantly invoked. Instead of listing fact X, explain how people figured it out. Why did people not see it before and what did they think instead? Was it universally accepted immediately or what were the criticisms? The thing is, though, this is extremely difficult to teach. You'd need extraordinary teachers with lots of background knowledge, since such debates and brainstorming can quickly go astray of the standard curriculum and quite easily end up in difficult and perhaps unknown territory. Perhaps you could do this with an Internet connected laptop and a projector, diving into Wikipedia rabbit holes in real time. But this would be different each year, and you'd have no way of ensuring a standard curriculum. If you don't make things required for the test, many students just won't listen, no matter how engaging the class may be. Such teachers would demand higher salaries to be competitive with places that can also make great use of the limited supply of critical thinkers. Maybe it's offensive but teachers as a demographic aren't that smart in most countries,since the requirements are pretty low to graduate and the social reputation of the profession is also quite low. But even if you find great teachers, it's even more difficult to test, as it's open ended, not objective and not standardizable.

Siira 6y ago

Formal logic does not help with critical thinking that much. You need to teach Bayesian thinking, which seems a daunting task.

bonoboTP 6y ago
I think explicit instruction is quite ineffective either way. What you need is teaching by immersion, through examples. Science should not be taught as a series of facts and formulas but as riddles, arguments, why do we think this or that, what does this or that experiment tell us. How could one misinterpret it? Let's try and present this information to influence the reader's thinking: half of you to one direction, half of you in the opposite. Simiarly in history class, can we weave the narrative to make country X look good in this ancient war? What political slogan could country B come up with to counter that narrative? What facts would you emphasize regarding the Black Plague as a communist or as a Catholic? In math, would you market a more fuel efficient car by telling the percentage difference in miles per gallon or liters per 100 km? These are obviously just some examples, but the point is that critical thinking is a cross-cutting concern and cannot be segregated into one class. It should be constantly invoked. Instead of listing fact X, explain how people figured it out. Why did people not see it before and what did they think instead? Was it universally accepted immediately or what were the criticisms? The thing is, though, this is extremely difficult to teach. You'd need extraordinary teachers with lots of background knowledge, since such debates and brainstorming can quickly go astray of the standard curriculum and quite easily end up in difficult and perhaps unknown territory. Perhaps you could do this with an Internet connected laptop and a projector, diving into Wikipedia rabbit holes in real time. But this would be different each year, and you'd have no way of ensuring a standard curriculum. If you don't make things required for the test, many students just won't listen, no matter how engaging the class may be. Such teachers would demand higher salaries to be competitive with places that can also make great use of the limited supply of critical thinkers. Maybe it's offensive but teachers as a demographic aren't that smart in most countries,since the requirements are pretty low to graduate and the social reputation of the profession is also quite low. But even if you find great teachers, it's even more difficult to test, as it's open ended, not objective and not standardizable.