I don’t claim to be a philosopher, a profound thinker, or even all that well informed. But when I read blogs where people denigrate political figures with name calling, I usually tend to think those folks are ideologues, dedicated to a single purpose and unwilling to think of other perspectives.
I thought that when people vilified Clinton, who as a person has some explaining to do about his personal moral code, but as a political figure, knew how to compromise when needed, even on issues he wasn’t particularly fond of.
I really thought GW Bush was numskull, but after 9/11, I cut him some slack, and was not 100% behind some of his ideas…I personally thought the Iraq war was started on a bogus premise, and the while the initial execution could have been better, from a logistical standpoint the post “victory” period was totally screwed up by inadequate listening to the military, in favor of policy wonks that probably didn’t have a clue, since most of them never served a day in uniform. Be that it may, its water under the bridge.
Some folks now are apoplectic about Obama, and his hope change BS. Face it, he may in fact be evil, but I tend to side with the argument that he is probably the most incompetent leader in my lifetime, which means more than a half century.
His incompetence is obscured sometimes by the crowd around him, both Republican and Democrats. Ramming thru legislation that was not read does not speak well for a republic, because the very idea of a republic is that the elected represent the vox populi- the voice of the people. So have we Americans become, as one commentator put it, too stupid to know what we are doing? I have long held the view that the answer is yes.
From my experience over the last 30 years, there seems to be a dumbing down in this country.
Example: As a young woman, my first job out of college was teaching for the Department of Defense in Germany. I fully expected to be teaching children the basics of English, literature, and perhaps hand writing skills. I spent most of my tenure there teaching young soldiers these skills, because their commanders said they had such a deficit in reading and writing that they were incompetent at their jobs. They could not understand manuals that told them how to do their jobs, and their learning skills were all non-verbal, as in show me how to do it. Many were only able to stay in the military because they used comic book style field manual for weapons and machines that was pretty much all pictures and very little words, so they could at least master those skills.
I thought many of these young people were from impoverished areas with poor schools, but most were from big cities, like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York…how sad is that?
Going a step further down the politically incorrect path, many of the people I deal with today are from foreign countries, and have mastered none of the language skills required to be successful in a society.
I have a friend that is of Chinese ancestry, whose father was a professor at the local university. Yet she has taken me to restaurants in town where 3rd generation Americans barely speak English, let alone understand it. They routinely speak to her (and anyone else) in Chinese, which she really doesn’t speak, since her parents emphasized English to her and her siblings. Yet they can vote, because they too are citizens. I asked some of them recently, and most smiled and said they voted for Obama; same with the workers in the Mexican foods store I shop at sometimes.
How can the dull witted and linguistically challenged thrive in this country, when my some of my Swedish ancestors couldn’t? Well, because 130 years ago, if you didn’t learn to speak, read and write in English, your lot in life was pretty tough.
Our education system has pretty much continued to graduate people unable to effectively speak, read or write, and because of that, there is a concomitant deficit in critical thinking.
Several years ago a young woman working with me, who spoke pretty good English in spite of the fact that she would say things like “I have been this country 3 years only “
(She emigrated from China) would come back from project meetings and sigh. I asked her why the heavy sigh and she lamented that in this country “No one know how to be critically thinking!”
Critical thinking, then, becomes key to the assumption I am making, that only a fool would elect a fool, therefore, Obama being a fool, must have been elected by fools.
“Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe and do."
Assuming that critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do, a critical thinker:
1. Is open-minded and mindful of alternatives
2. Tries to be well-informed
3. Judges well the credibility of sources
4. Identifies conclusions, reasons, and assumptions
5. Judges well the quality of an argument, including the acceptability of its reasons, assumptions, and evidence
6. Can well develop and defend a reasonable position
7. Asks appropriate clarifying questions
8. Formulates plausible hypotheses; plans experiments well
9. Defines terms in a way appropriate for the context
10. Draws conclusions when warranted, but with caution
11. Integrates all items in this list when deciding what to believe or do
I applied these concepts to listening to candidate Obama, and quickly determined that he was using platitudes and unrealistic assumptions, especially budget assumptions, to promise the electorate what they wanted to hear. He had a vision- get elected President.
His secondary goal would then to do what is necessary to get re-elected President.
His goals are not necessarily my priorities, therefore I reject his goals, and vote for the candidate that most closely aligns with my beliefs, who effectively convinces me they understand the issues and have applied critical thinking to come to the position they hold.
It would seem that unfortunately for this country, that level of effort is not generally expended in voting. And we all suffer the consequences.
Hence we have a leader who has never been a leader, doesn’t have a understanding of leadership, and is not pre disposed to learning leadership.
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