25 Years Later - Who are we, who now remember September 11th, 2001?

Last year, the day before 9/11, Charlie Kirk was murdered by a transtifa enthusiast. Today, 25 years after September 11, 2001, the mayor of New York City is a communist muslim. Such indicators of what's been called a Red-Green Alliance, add still more urgency to the need to ask the question I've been asking for years: Who are we, who now remember September 11th, 2001?

If anyone thinks that's too provocative & divisive a manner for remembering what happened 25 years ago today, screw your notions of unity and healing, remember what was done to America 25 years ago, recognize what is being done to it today, and consider deeply what that should mean, and does mean to us as Americans, both today, and tomorrow - few things are more important for us to do right now.

[From 09/11/2024] Who are we, who now remember September 11th, 2001
In previous posts in remembrance of September 11th, 2001, I've noted that who we are as Americans, has been becoming less recognizable than the date we're remembering, and with the current election, that lack of recognition has been increasing between us, as speedily as that time in September has been receding from us into the past. The painful truth is that what has most unified Americans, before and after 9/11, has been our opposition to each other; a unity formed from our general ignorance of the history and ideas that made America possible 226 years before that awful day. As that is clearly still the case, and with an emphasis upon my continued sentiment of 'Screw healing, keep the wound raw - remember what was done to America, and what that should mean to us as Americans!', I'll repeat my post from 2021, followed by my 2018 remembrance of the events of September 11th, 2001:

[From 09/11/2021] What we've forgotten to remember
Something a little different to begin marking the 20th year since September 11th, 2001. My usual remembrance will be down below, but I'm not willing to pretend that our present circumstances don't matter in relation to it.

Two things we've forgotten about September 11th, 2001: the day before, and the day after, and the worst constant between them.

On the day before, I could take the kids to the airport, walk in and stroll on up to the gate with them to wait for their mom to come out of the plane. No TSA, or any of the other measures that have followed since the day after.

On the day after, there were flags flown everywhere you looked, everyone was thinking about America and what it meant to them, and to how we'd destroy those who did 9-11 to us.

Those aspects of the day before, and the day after, have all but vanished.

What has remained constant from the day before, and the day after September 11th, 2001, and every day from then to now, is the sense of political fury, recrimination, and partisan obstruction, directed towards 'the other side' - the day before, it was over the Bush v Gore election of 2000, the day after it was about the day before and what we did about it afterwards. From then to now, every imaginable excuse for partisan disagreement has been embraced by all sides. 

IOW, what it is that we are unified in as Americans, is our opposition to each other.

That's not a good sign.

What has remained far too constant from then to now, is that people have given too little thought to thinking about what is important about what America is, and what it depends upon.

20 years later, what's remained constant between the day before, and the day after, is not only our anger at the political opposition, but that people have given so little thought to understanding what it was that caused us to be attacked, as if it doesn't really matter what America is, and depends upon, in order to be America.

And the people who We The People have put in our government today exemplify our lack of understanding of who we are, who we should be, and why.

I've spent the last several weeks reading even further into what those that We The People have put in charge of our children's educations, which has in fact gone into educating the generation that has grown up since September 11, 2001, about who they are and why.

It's been a disgusting experience. But there's little mystery as to why so few care, or care to remember.

We have people in our schools and government today, that hate what America is and means, every bit as much as those who killed thousands of Americans on September 11th, 2001. And they were there long before September 11th, 2001, and they've only intensified their positions and numbers, since then.

Almost worse than that, we have many, many, more people in and out of our government, who care very little about that. In a nation founded upon a set of ideas, they don't think that those ideas matter much at all.

That's unacceptable. It should be noted that what can't continue, won't.

If you remember September 11th, 2001, and forget what you, and America, are, and what each requires - it doesn't much matter what you remember about this day, or any other.

The chaos surrounding our schools and education today, is an indication that people might be beginning to realize that it does matter what we know about who we are, and what America is and depends upon, and the importance of our taking care in putting the right people into our schools and government.

On September 11th, 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered. It is right and proper that we commemorate that. But for what happens to America to really matter, We The People, have to take the time to understand what it means to be Americans. 

It's up to us. It's up to you. And it's that which is needed for the memory of September 11th, to be as meaningful as it should be, to those living in America and should be Americans.

Make it matter. Make it worth remembering. Because it was and is most assuredly a day to remember. And now, back to then:

[From 09/11/2018] Remember, Remember the 11th of September
And now it is September 11th once again, and once again it is time to remember. We remember September 11th because of what happened upon September 11th, 2001. September 11th is not 'Patriot's Day', and it's damn sure not 'a day of service' (other than military service). September 11th, 2001 is a day to remember that the full brutality and destruction that man is capable of was deliberately visited upon America in New York City, Washington D.C. and Shanksville Pennsylvania. We should remember. We should reflect. Those responsible should have been and should be destroyed, and those whose negligence had enabled it, and those who excuse it, and those who minimize it, should be despised and reviled by all who remember. We must remember so that the horror of September 11th, 2001 is confined to the past and is not allowed to slip past us and out into another clear blue sky in the future.

Screw healing.

We should pick at the wound, keep it burning. Remember the parents on the plane heading in to strike the Towers, their child sitting next to them... remember the people in the Tower on the phone to 911, crying, scared, burning from the heat, and then screaming as the impossible happened, the tower collapsed beneath them into nothingness. Remember the wives, husbands, children, of those who just went to work that day, and had their lives and world stolen from them by islambie thugs.

Remember that no matter what idiot politician or educationista prattles... we are a people who have known, and still know freedom and liberty and law, a people who believe it is good to live a moral life and pursue our happiness where we see fit to choose to. Remember that there are alleged human beings who wish nothing more than to destroy that possibility.

Remember Sept. 11, 2001. Be angry, feel hatred, seek the destruction of those who seek yours. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do so, and remember that those who lost their lives, and those who have since given their lives in this cause, have hallowed this day far beyond and above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say today, but History - in reflection and action - will remember what happened, and it will take note of whether or not we remember. It will take note of whether or not we take note of those who had taken, and those who have given, the last full measure of devotion -- and it will judge whether or not we here are highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain; whether or not this nation, shall continue to give birth to, and stand up for and defend freedom, and it shall judge from that, whether or not government of the people by the people for the people, shall, or shall not perish from the earth.

And it will judge and act accordingly.

Remember September 11, 2001.

In remembering what happened on September 11th, 17 years ago, I've patched this post together from a number of memories and posts and comments I've made from then to now. Where they began, of course, was on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when my wife, who was a flight attendant with TWA, called me as I was driving into work on I-70, just passing through Earth City, to tell me a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.

I was thinking a Cessna, but she said it sounded like it was larger, the impact too large. I knew a plane had once hit the Empire State building on a stormy night, but she said the weather looked clear, how could that be possible? As we were talking, another jet hit the other tower.

That made it clear what was going on, we decided that she'd pick the boys up from school and bring them home.

I continued on into work, and news came that another plane had hit the Pentagon.

A blue streak of horror and animal fury blasted back at my radio as the news came that one of the towers was collapsing. As I walked into work, 7th floor of A.G. Edwards, people were crowded around the T.V. in the lobby and the second tower came down.

I went to my desk, one of the guys there was trying to get a hold of his son who worked in one of the World Trade Center towers. I turned to our project coordinator and told him I wouldn't be working that day, and headed for home.

I told the boys the obvious as we watched the news, that the world had just changed, we were at war, and nothing would be the same.

To those who want to think of this day as a time for healing or a day of service, Fuck You. We are not going back to the reflexive evasion of reality which is what made this day possible.

Political Correctness began its well deserved death that day ten years ago today, it may be a long, agonizingly slow death, fitting perhaps for the cancer that it is, but it was the beginning of the end of the view that it is in any way good or proper to pretend a lie can pretty up the truth.

The lie is nothing but darkest evil, and the light of Truth chases, confines and obliterates it... as we have, and will do, to those who did this evil – you are nothing, and to nothingness you will be returned.

And yet there are those who will shake their head and ask "How do you kill an idea?"

How do you kill an idea? If it is an idea that people are not open to discussing, an idea that will not tolerate reasonable alternatives, an idea that requires your death or your submission, then the answer to that question is a very simple one:

You cannot defeat an idea.

All you can do is make physically certain that those of the enemy who might survive a war with you, would live in constant fear and dread at the thought of that idea ever again being in their head, let alone upon their lips. You cannot defeat an idea, you can only make people determined to no longer entertain them, because of the memory of the war they fought with you over it, and the fear of the possibility of such a conflict ever happening again, is too painful to think about

How do you kill an idea? By killing its hosts, and causing everyone else to fear and dread the thought of thinking it.

Screw healing.

We should pick at the wound, keep it burning. Remember the parents on the plane heading in to strike the Towers, their child sitting next to them... remember the people in the Tower on the phone to 911, crying, scared, burning from the heat, and then screaming as the impossible happened, the tower collapsed beneath them into nothingness. Remember the wives, husbands, children, of those who just went to work that day, and had their lives and world stolen from them by islambie thugs.

Remember that no matter what idiot politician or educationista prattles... we are a people who have known, and still know freedom and liberty and law, a people who believe it is good to live a moral life and pursue our happiness where we see fit to choose to. Remember that there are alleged human beings who wish noting more than to destroy that possibility.

Remember Sept. 11, 2001. Be angry, feel hatred, seek the destruction of those who seek yours. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do so, and remember that those who lost their lives, and those who have since given their lives in this cause, have hallowed this day far beyond and above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say today, but it will remember what happened, and it will take note of whether or not we remember.

A proper foreign policy is "Mind your own business & we'll mind ours. Mess with us or ours, and we'll destroy you. Period."

Anything less, reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, etc., are concessions and only serve to enable those who wish us harm.

Perhaps more than anything else, remember that forgetting how and why the attacks of 9-11 were made possible, guarantees that its horrors will be revisited upon us, courtesy of our willful inability to recognize their approach, and the cost of that will be history rhyming itself once again, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limp up to explain it once more:

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Please, try to remember 9/11 as the lesson we won't have to learn once more.

Reality will not be denied, and Evil will not be turned aside because you choose to turn away from it. Deny that, and the Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return. Please. Just face the facts and learn the lesson so we don't have to learn it once more.

Bigger government requires smaller Americans

Dana Loesch reported on some news that was not welcome:

"...the Vice-President is shopping a draft plan to pay $9,000 per child of taxpayer dollars to families of married parents where the wife stays home..."

These people aren't simply pushing economic and social policies to help young families - economic policies are just the most effective means of coming up with schemes for duping We The People into enabling them to do what they want to do, to us, while calling it 'Conservative'.

But what's it conserving?

Pro-Regressive T.R./Wilson 'Conservatives'!

It's certainly not conserving the rights of the American people, which is neither new nor surprising, as those seeking bigger government require smaller Americans to impose it upon. And the more Big Government you accept, the smaller the range of actions that you can use your own judgement to take, becomes.

Government that isn't limited to upholding and defending the individual rights, property, and lives of its people from enemies foreign and domestic (See Article 1, Section 8), can only expand what they do care about - government power and grift - by reducing the scope of the American citizen's individual rights, property, and lives, and they are more than willing to sacrifice what is rightfully yours, to satisfy their lust for power and prestige.

Those who support these measures while calling themselves 'Conservative', are clearly not seeking to conserve the American Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and that understanding which made them possible. So again: what are they trying to conserve?

This is what should be conserved!

They're clearly not wanting to conserve James Madison's understanding of the constitution, though he would have recognized at least some part of their intentions, as almost from the very start there were politicians seeking to 'do good!' via other people’s money. I've mentioned several times before about James Madison, while still a congressman, getting ticked off at congress's attempt to spend the then princely sum of $15,000 on refugees, saying:

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

, and years later as President, he said in his Veto Message of March 3, 1817,

"...I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated. The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States..."

Neither do these 'Conservatives' of today, want anything to do with conserving what Thomas Jefferson understood about the purpose of government under our constitution, as he too warned that:

"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:388 "

Neither does it appear that today's 'conservatives' would want anything to do with conserving what President Franklin Pierce understood to be the purpose and scope of our system of government, as he said after vetoing an appropriation to assist the mentally ill,

"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity," adding, "To approve such spending would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."

The same goes for President Grover Cleveland, who famously vetoed numerous spending bills, while similarly saying,

"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution."

Today's 'Conservatives' truly do not want to conserve what originally made our form of government, really and truly a uniquely American one. What they do want to conserve, is what began to emerge a century after our Declaration of Independence was signed, and our Constitution was written and ratified, when, even though Article 1, Section 8, of our Constitution remained the same, those who desired to use government power to 'do good!' for 'the common good!', felt hampered by the understanding of those documents, and as I noted back in 2010, they wanted "change!". The first chip in the integrity of our Constitution, came, tellingly, in the same type of infrastructure bill that James Madison vetoed nearly a century earlier:

"...Something had changed, and Wilson was the first (to Teddy Roosevelt's frustration) to be able to truly capitalize upon it. This breach in understanding is clearly visible in how the Federal Road program had come to be, in view of an earlier SCOTUS ruling:

"In the 1907 case Wilson v. Shaw, the U.S. Supreme Court officially gave Congress the power "to construct interstate highways" under its constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce."

The SCOTUS 'gave' congress the power? Which Article of the constitution do you find that in? But that is the typical top-down view of pro-regressivism (and what lawyer and judge doesn't see themselves as being at the top?). In the SCOTUS decision which opened the way for these bills, Justice Brewer admiringly references a previous case favoring railroads, that asserted,

"It cannot at the present day be doubted that Congress, under the power to regulate commerce among the several states as well as to provide for postal accommodations and military exigencies, had authority to pass these laws."

Cannot be doubted? How is it that James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, not only doubted that congress had such power, but clearly expressed those reasons for them in his veto of just such a bill under the same guise? Something changed... what was it?"

This is the ugly falsehood of 'Progress' that today's 'Conservative' wants to conserve, holding that term up as a figleaf to cover their desire to regress society back to that point in the past - before The United States of America - when government's powers were not limited, and when those in power could do as they willed to do to their own people, for the 'common good'. These people are 'T.R./Wilson Conservatives', and they are seeking to conserve and call 'progress', the same bi-partisan assault that Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson launched against the original American understanding of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", just over a century ago.

It was that Pro-Regressive attitude that Calvin Coolidge was calling out in his speech on the Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence, as:

 Choose progress,
over Pro-Regress!

"...About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers..."

These 'T.R./Wilson Conservatives' will cheer on whatever 'benefit' seems likely to lure the unwary into further eroding the Constitutional protections for our inalienable rights, in hopes of fully transforming the Rule of Law, into a Rule of Rules, and they intend to be the ones with the power to make up the rules that you will have to live by.

Don't fall for it.  Again.

'Critical Thinking' Fails its Socratic Paternity Test

If, as I contend, 'Critical Thinking' is and always has been a critical threat to sound reasoning (it has) - why did (do) otherwise intelligent people adopt and promote it? That's partly due to what we saw in the previous post, where its deceptive claims about what CT is and will 'do' for students, are furthered by the claim that 'Critical Thinking' is directly descended from what Socrates practiced at the dawn of Western philosophy. As has already been pointed out, these claims are clearly bogus, even on the basis of the title itself, as 'Critical Thinking' stretches no further back in time than to John Dewey in the 1890's (not actually using those words until 1910), and that the first book on 'Critical Thinking' wasn't published until 1941. But what needs to be better understood, which is the purpose of this post, is that worse than simply being technically incorrect about historic details (AKA: Lying), the substance and spirit of the claim is, at best, patently absurd.

Ironically (Socrates cheers), as their Socratic paternity claim is made to lull people into not thinking about what 'Critical Thinking' really is, if we subject 'Critical Thinking' itself to just the initial questions that Socrates might have begun with, it not only reveals itself to be a mismatch on the basis of its philosophical DNA, but it reveals how fundamentally incompatible that CT is to what Socrates was doing, and to why he was doing it, and so flat-out fails the Socratic paternity test.

At the dawn of moral philosophy some 2,500 years ago (can you feel Moses waving 'hi!' from across the sea?), Socrates had begun practicing his unique form of asking questions in a manner he called the Dialectic, to clarify the meaning of the words we use, and how to use them to better understand ourselves and the world around us. As Plato recounts it, his dialectical process began with asking someone a seemingly simple question about what had been claimed or repeated by them, and whether or not an obvious implication of that was something that they thought to be true. He'd continue questioning the answers given to his questions to reveal the extent and integrated nature of that knowledge (or lack of it), in the hopes that both the questioner and the person being questioned (and those of us participating in the dialog at home) would gain a better depth of understanding of what they did and did not know about what they had presumed to be so.

One thing that practicing his dialectical reasoning upon his fellow Athenians brought out into the open, was that those terms which Socrates' fellows' lives revolved around, in everything from the seemingly mundane, to the loftiest of sentiments, were so poorly understood by them, that their own words were leading themselves astray from what they expected they could secure by using them. Worse still, their lack of understanding was being used by those amongst them, the Sophists, who understood how to cultivate their confusion in order to disorder their minds into whichever state of passionate intensity or apathetic disregard, seemed to best serve the interests of a well-positioned few.

NOTE: You shouldn't read Plato to find 'answers' (that's a bad habit from 'Critical Thinking'), but to identify the questions, and how best to pursue understanding. 

One such dialog, the Euthyphro, is set where Socrates is waiting to be arraigned on the charges of impiety that he'd soon be executed for, and it recounts the conversation that followed from Socrates asking another fellow in 'the waiting room', about what he was there for. Euthyphro answered that he was there waiting to charge his father with 1st degree murder over the accidental death of a misbehaving fieldhand, because Euthyphro thought that would be the pious thing to do.

Socrates, a bit taken back by that, asked him what he meant by Piety? To which Euthyphro, as do most of Socrates' 'victims', replied with a surface level answer:

"Piety is giving an offering to the gods, or being respectful"

, and in typical fashion, Socrates began by clarifying what he'd asked, before launching into the dialog of further questioning the answers being given:

"You misunderstand me, you've given me examples of pious behavior, but I'm interested in what it is that Piety means..."

, and the dialogs get underway with Socrates attempting - oftentimes without succeeding - to clarify what the speaker actually meant by the words and terms they'd been carelessly using to think with.

Consider, for instance, Euthyphro charging his father with murder. His father had taken an action, and his slave died following it - that was an obvious and readily apparent fact. But whose action was it that caused the death, the father's or the slave's? And what was meant by 'Caused'? And was the action Just?

Without having questioned his way past the surface level of appearances, Euthyphro could not have the knowledge that only follows from examining the depths of context surrounding an issue, and acting 'as if' you already know what you haven't bothered to examine, causes consequences that cannot be good. Can justice be served by taking action against someone 'as if' you know what you haven't bothered to understand? Can such an action be pious? By disregarding the context of what happened, Euthyphro's pious action amounted to virtue signaling the pretense of it at his father's expense - how likely was it that (Zeus? Athena? The Furies?) would look kindly upon that?

By ignoring context, we butcher our grasp of causation into a materialistic "Cause & Effect" response, which is not adequate for gaining a sound understanding of an issue. Unfortunately for Euthyphro, Aristotle's study of Causation and the four causes which that revealed (final cause, efficient cause, formal cause, and material cause), was still several decades in the future, and Aquinas's 5th 'Exemplary cause', was still a thousand years beyond that. We, however, can benefit from what Euthyphro lacked... but how many of us do? As 'Critical Thinking' gives no consideration to such concerns, it helps to ensure that those numbers are few.

What the Socratic dialogs that Plato left us also demonstrate, is not only how little people often understand of what they're saying, but how angry they can become when made to face their own errors & ignorance - so much so that Socrates' was ultimately executed for refusing to stop practicing his dialectic of questioning upon the people of Athens.

What is critically important for us to understand still to this day, and perhaps especially today, is that it is as easy as it is unwise to behave as if we understand something, when the underlying meaning of the words we're using amounts to what 'everyone knows!', and without the context being clear to us, we truly cannot know what we are talking about.

The painful fact is that the real drama of history often ensues from those critical misunderstandings which result from the right questions having not been asked, or having been asked, were left unheeded. In fact, tragedians, comedians, and historians have long made their living by providing their audiences with an awareness of the context which the people 'on stage' lack, and without which they lead themselves into taking those unwise positions and actions that can only lead to disaster, while 'the audience' is left to experience the agony of knowing what could have been prevented if someone, anyone, would have simply asked one or two key questions that would have unraveled the entire awful turn of events.

But unlike an audience, we here in the present cannot know what might hinge upon what it is that we do not consider, or say, and we should learn from those dramatists that real knowledge is never isolated, and only (seemingly) ethically neutral in certain contexts. And we should also realize that the sophists of every age view those who ask and pursue questions as Socrates did, as threats to those whose interests are served by such matters not being common knowledge, and they view those who teach such lessons, as Socrates did, as being... unwelcome.

But being ignorant of important facts isn't nearly the problem that being ignorant of the need to ask relevant questions, is. The inclination to assume that we cannot know what is true, or that 'knowledge' is just a matter of recalling isolated facts, combine together with our willingness to accept 'obvious' facts and 'answers' that 'everyone knows!', to leave you forever 'just asking questions!' while never gaining an understanding of what an answer to them should be, which mainly benefits those who'd prefer they remain concealed by what 'everyone knows!'.

A Critical Difference between philosophical reasoning and 'Critical Thinking'

We saw in the previous post, that when asked what 'Critical Thinking' is, CT'rs standard reply to parents and the public, was very much like that of Euthyphro's reply about what Piety is, with:

"Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement about what you read, hear, say, or write...."

, and with Socrates's response as an example, we can see that we should reply to those CT'rs:

"You misunderstand me, you've given me examples of 'Critical Thinking's behavior, but I'm interested in what it is that 'Critical Thinking' means..."

, but to be fair, as that is clearly not the kind of thinking that 'Critical Think'rs are familiar with, we, like Socrates, should clarify a little further about just what kind of reply it is that we're looking for, and why. When we feel ourselves being either stirred up into anger or lulled to sleep by another's words, as you feel their words taking ahold of you, you should do as he did and question the nature of the context that they're leading you into. Ask:

• What ends will the good or ill passions you're being led to feel, serve to excuse, distract you from, or accomplish?
• Is what is meant by the words being used to urge you on, going to have the same meaning when they're being applied?
• Who benefits most from the actions you're being led to take?

, and despite his famously protesting that he knew nothing, Socrates clearly understood the importance of knowing the meaning of the words you're thinking with. He knew how the overall context that those words are used in, could shift what is assumed to be meant by them, and he knew that it's only by asking and pursuing questions into that as yet shadowy context, that we can hope to understand whether the positions and actions that people are being led into taking, are of value or not, are true or false, or right or wrong, which are matters that shouldn't remain concealed through our ignorance of it.

Socrates referred to the practice of his dialectic, as Philosophy, 'the love of wisdom', and it was clear that he considered Philosophy to be - in a way that has been made nearly alien to our ears today - a deeply moral matter of consciously using our language to integrate our understanding of reality, so as to develop our knowledge of what is real & true and right & wrong to do, and without which we cannot know what it is that we're talking about.

Having a systematic approach to understanding what it was that Socrates's dialectical practice of philosophical reasoning meant and entailed, would have to wait for his philosophical son & grandson, Plato and Aristotle, to begin developing. But it was his persistent engagement of his fellows in those habits of inquiry (which (no surprise to him) would eventually cost him his life), that started the Grecco/Roman half of The West upon the path towards seeking an objective understanding of what is real & true, and right & wrong, and which, IMHO, was and is central to what enabled its Judeo/Christian counterpart to join together with it, in the forming of Western civilization.

Socrates starts opening a can of worms with a leading sophist, in The Gorgias: ...
SOCRATES: Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for I want to hear from him what is the nature of his art, and what it is which he professes and teaches; he may, as you (Chaerephon) suggest, defer the exhibition to some other time.
CALLICLES: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates; and indeed to answer questions is a part of his exhibition, for he was saying only just now, that any one in my house might put any question to him, and that he would answer.
SOCRATES: How fortunate! will you ask him, Chaerephon—?
CHAEREPHON: What shall I ask him?
SOCRATES: Ask him who he is...."

Socrates' opponents at the time, the Sophists, OTOH, were already well aware of the misunderstandings that the misuse of language could create, and rather than attempt to clarify what our words mean and how best to use them, they thrived upon that darker form of dialectical reasoning which cultivates the ignorance & errors that result from an absence of good questions being asked, and in fact depends upon utilizing ignorance and the ambiguities of language to conceal meaning. Their skill in the manipulation of that, was what the Sophists were sought out and rewarded for.

Sophistry requires the ability to get away with treating words and terms 'as if' their meaning is disintegrated from the rest of what you know, and that depends upon a widespread view of knowledge being seen as little more than the ability to recall what's useful in one moment, and to consider that completely irrelevant to the concerns of the next moment. That Pragmatic view of knowledge as essentially having 'meaning' in name only (another variant of Nominalism), is what enables the sort of language that we accept today in phrases such as 'Truth is an illusion' and 'Truth is what works', which is critical for spurring people into taking those positions and actions that serve a given narrative which they likely know less than nothing about (hello 'stay 6' apart for social distancing'!), for a 'common good' that primarily serves the interests of those that the sophists of the Ideological Observatories serve.

And so with that contrast between Socrates' Philosophical Reasoning, and that of Rhetorical Sophistry in mind, I hope you're recalling two of the primary contentions of the Critical Thinking crowd from the previous post, which are that:

1)“...a student attains 'higher order thinking' when he no longer believes in right or wrong"

, and that that assertion is dependent upon the view of 'knowledge' that Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives has been teaching to those who've been teaching our teachers since the 1950s, that 'knowledge' is only a matter of recalling "...previously learned material...", and as such, it:

2)"...represents the lowest level of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain."

, and if so, you should now recognize - if you are thinking reasonably rather than 'critically' - that both of these beliefs that are at the heart of 'Critical Thinking', are in full opposition to the deeply integrated knowledge and moral clarity of thought that Socrates was pursuing through his Dialectic.

And seeing now why the CT'rs reply to the question of what 'Critical Thinking' is, is so much like Euthyphro's, we can compare and contrast what Socrates' purpose of using his Dialectic to pursue Philosophy was, to the nature of the 'Critical Thinking' that our modern day sophists teach in our schools, and notice just how unlike that is to Socrates' method, which sought to understand and integrate our thinking, and to expand our knowledge in order to better do what Aristotle said in the opening of the Nichomachean Ethics:

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim ..."

In complete contrast to that, what the sophistry of 'Critical Thinking' aims at, is what is momentarily useful to ends that can only be unworthy, because they are achieved by diminishing the nature of our knowledge to a recalling of random facts as suitable 'answers', and with which CT'rs seek to bring about an attitude within a student's mind, that:

“...a student attains 'higher order thinking' when he no longer believes in right or wrong"

On that basis alone, any reasonable consideration of the evidence before us, shows that 'Critical Thinking' not only fully and completely fails the Socratic paternity test, but reveals that the claim could only have been made, in order to put you and your children under its power. You needn't fear that this failed paternity test will leave our 'Critical Thinkers' as philosophical orphans though, for since it was also the Sophists' primary interest to get people to act without considering whether such actions were 'right or wrong', and instead to just do 'what works', we have identified that our 'Critical Thinkers' philosophical pedigree truly lies with the Sophists.

The authentic intelligence that leads people out of the darkness of confusion and into seeking to see and do what is right, comes from turning your own attention towards actively identifying what is (Metaphysics), how you know it (through an epistemology of Causality and Logic), and what should be done in response to that (Ethics), and will reveal to you a depth of context in every aspect of your life, that can only be revealed by the light of what is real and true.

Because the Sophist's power - then and now - depends upon those manipulations of language that are only possible within a climate of subtle misunderstandings and meaningless 'knowledge', their 'Critical Thinking', like Euthyphro, blinds themselves into believing that they can see what they do not, and if we are not aware of their doing so, we put ourselves in peril.

To prevent the same old sophistry from becoming as fatal to us today, as it was to Socrates in his day, it is critical for us to stop mistaking the Artificial Intelligence of 'Critical Thinking', for the real thing, and we'll dig further into that, in the next post.

Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking

I've had enough experience over the years with the issue of criticizing 'Critical Thinking', to know that many of you are unlikely to become convinced anytime soon that 'Critical Thinking' is the problem which I understand it to be. But I'm less interested in persuading you about that, than in having you pursue some questions that are, oddly enough, rarely asked, and if you'll do that, give some consideration to what those questions reveal about what you'd assumed CT to be, and make an honest judgement about that, then whether or not you agree with my conclusions, I'll consider that a big success.

Richard Mitchell's "The Leaning Tower of Babel"

So, let's start with trying to get a grip on what most people think is meant by 'Critical Thinking', by considering how parents and academics might respond to the question:

• What is Critical Thinking, and what is it expected to do for students?

It's safe to say that if you ask most people what their expectations of 'Critical Thinking' is, and what they expect that it will do to help their, and their kids lives, they'll answer something like:

a - Learning 'Critical Thinking' will help my kid to think more clearly and logically about what they read and hear.
b - Being a 'Critical Thinker' will help my kid to see and do what is right, and better understand how to succeed in life.

Not surprisingly, most schools will reply similarly, though in academic language, that they expect 'the same':

a -"Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement about what you read, hear, say, or write...."
and b - it's "... about making reliable judgements based on reliable information."

What's interesting to note though, is that when the theorists of 'Critical Thinking' talk with each other about what 'Critical Thinking' is and does, the one thing they agree upon most, is that they don't agree upon what it is or does for students. Furthermore, the fact is that doubts about whether or not learning to be better able to "... question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement... is something that is being taught effectively by CT, have been raised almost from its inception.

So there's at least one discrepancy between what 'Critical Think'rs say to each other, and what they say to parents and the general public about what they think CT is and does.

That's interesting.

Something else that shouldn't be missed, is that there's a bit of ambiguity involved in their citing those 'features' of how to "...question, analyze, interpret..." to identify what 'Critical Thinking' is and does, as those are also what the Western understanding of the art of Reasoning has been identified with for thousands of years. And while those habits of mind which most people typically expect kids to learn from practicing 'Critical Thinking' - to "...question, analyze, interpret...", think logically, etc. - are the habits of mind that any decent education has sought to lead students to develop throughout those thousands of years - why speak 'as if' that would identify 'Critical Thinking' in particular?

it is confounding...

Are any of you Critical Thinkers out there now wondering how 'Critical Thinking' differs from Reasoning? And if not, does that mean that you think that 'Critical Thinking' and Reasoning are 'the same'? But... if they describe 'the same thing'... then why does 'Critical Thinking' even exist? Those of you who recall the previous post's warnings about the perils of reasoning with false premises and ambiguous terms, should be getting curiouser and curiouser. As Christine at The Palmerworm points out, when you are intentionally led "to mistake for another, to identify falsely", it's possible that you are being confounded... and those of you who're familiar with the activist uses of a 'Floating Signifier', should be slipping out of curiosity, and into alarm.

But sure, while the discrepancies we can see so far between these two sets of answers, don't seem to amount to being a deal breaker, they do at least indicate the need for us to ask a few more questions. We can come at this from a different angle by asking three more questions, beginning with one question about what you might be thinking that I'm thinking:

Are you suggesting that 'Critical Thinking' isn't equivalent to, or as old and valued as, a traditional approach to Reasoning is?

, followed by:

When did we first discover the wonders of 'Critical Thinking', and what are its innovations?

When and why did we begin calling for more of 'Critical Thinking'?

To answer question #1, Yes, I am. One reason why I speak of 'Critical Thinking' in such a critical manner, is because it is typically spoken of 'as if' it were something it is not, which leads people into a number of false assumptions about it, ranging from it having its origins coming from Socrates (which is untrue), to it coming from the Frankfort School of 'Critical Theory' (which is also untrue... but as we'll see, in many ways the reverse of that is more true).

When I criticize 'Critical Thinking', I'm not questioning the value of what most people believe CT means, I am questioning what it actually is and does. I'm pointing out that despite what CT promises, it not only has not lived up to those promises, but that there are good reasons to believe that CT is itself central to what has degraded our student's ability to develop those habits of mind that "...question, analyze, interpret..." which thoughtful judgement is dependent upon.

Do you think I go too far in that? Then answer me this, given that we can probably all agree that 'Critical Thinking' has been one of, if not the most popular products of the Education Industry since it first began to surface in the academic language of the 1950s, quickly rose into public awareness across the 1960s & 1970s, and then exploded into demand by schools across the nation over the 1980s,1990s and into the 2000s, has this thought ever occurred to you?:

• I marvel at how much more clear and consistent and sensible the general thinking and behavior of the American people has become, since we began teaching more and more of 'Critical Thinking', don't you?

I think that most people would hesitate to reply 'yes!' to that... and that the rest of us would burst out in bitter laughter at the suggestion.

And yet experience shows that people's reaction to that will amount to little more than a headshake & a grumble.

That's interesting too, isn't it?

And if you haven't asked such a question before, or having asked it, didn't get an adequate answer to it... is that a failure of 'Critical Thinking', or a result of it? What I am encouraging people to do here, is to consider these questions and to stop assuming that 'everyone knows!' what 'Critical Thinking' is 'all about', and also to consider instead how well it's lived up to delivering on any of the promises made in its name, and to wonder why that might be.

I'm asking these questions because the concerns that I have with 'Critical Thinking', are that what those academic theorists intend 'Critical Thinking' to do, has less to do with what most parents and others would see as improving their student's thinking, than with fundamentally changing their student's way of thinking, and that it does so in ways that most parents and others would neither expect nor approve of.

So yes, I am more than just suggesting that how the rising popularity of 'Critical Thinking' has tracked with a 'surprising' inability to think through such issues, and I'm cautioning that it has a lot more to do with causation, than correlation.

Intellectual Stolen Valor - Is 'Critical Thinking' what you've been led to think it is?
The answer to question #2 (2-When did we first discover the wonders of 'Critical Thinking', and what are its innovations?), isn't the easy answer that we're usually given, as the promoters of 'Critical Thinking' often speak of it 'as if' it were either a very modern 'discovery' which our poor 'critical thinking' deprived Founding Fathers had to make do without while framing, debating, and ratifying, our Constitution, or 'as if' our Founder's era knew about, engaged in, and may have even been masters of, but whose skills we've somehow lost the knack of since their time. If you assumed something like the latter, you might be forgiven for that error, as it is one that CT'rs are very keen on everyone thinking 'as if' it were so. For instance, the popular and 'authoritative' CT site, CT.org, opens its post on: "A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking", with this glowing line:

"The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates 2,500 years ago who discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge."

Sounds swell, doesn't it? Except for one teensy-weensy problem: in both fact and spirit, it is untrue. It's a Semantic Deception that's even more blatant than what was performed with 'epistemology' (if you're unaware, read that link). This entire narrative of theirs is one they've essentially plagiarized from, and misattributed to, intellectual history, and it amounts to the equivalent of a case of philosophical stolen valor.

How can I say that? Because "...its etymology..." is very traceable to a few scattered mentions by John Dewey and other supporters of 'Progressive Education' in the late 1890s to early 1900's, where Dewey described the need for a *new* method of thinking, as in 1910's "How We Think", which at the time he usually referred to as 'Reflective Thinking', and envisioned that what:

"...was needed, as

"...active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends." (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind..."

, keep your eye on that 'scientific attitude of mind' (and 'supposed form of knowledge'), we'll come back to these shortly. And although the motive theories behind CT had been gaining traction in 'Progressive Education' circles, the first serious treatment of 'Critical Thinking', didn't come until decades later when one of Dewey's followers, an obscure academic & management consultant from Teachers College, Columbia University, Edward M. Glaser, delivered his book 'Critical Thinking' to a preoccupied world in that somewhat less than ancient year of: 1941.

It's not as if the fine folks at CT.org don't already know this, they even mention it elsewhere on their site, but because they'd rather not openly say so and draw attention to the fact, they 'bury the lead' (AKA: Lie by omission and commission). One reason for that, might be the fact that the actual history of 'Critical Thinking', is rather brief, uninspiring, exceedingly boring, and riven by such failures that they feel the need to resort to the intellectual stolen valor of their claims, in order to 'get important things done'.

For a deep dive into the depths of the "that is this" tactic, you should cautiously read Derrida's 'Structure, Sign, and play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences', which lays out the strategy of deconstructionism (equivocate, mis-identify, and brazenly uphold the new error as being a valid point). It is pure toxic garbage, but it is revealing all the same.

BTW parents, does the inclination to pretentiously misrepresent another's history & achievements as being your own, sound like the traits you'd look for in someone being hired to clarify and improve the thinking of your child? The fact that CT'rs are resorting to an old Sophist's trick of equating this with that, and then pretending that is the 'same as' this (see Derrida's essay in sidebar), is not only pathetic, but is a level of 'creative thinking' (AKA: Lying) that most parents would also be unlikely to want to have experts instilling in their kids' minds (especially so if they are mindful that it was the Sophists who instigated the trial & death of Socrates).

So now, seeing that 'Critical Thinking' is a recent construct, are you curious about what innovations it has introduced into our habits of thinking? After all, as our schools advertise their ability to improve their students' 'Critical Thinking Skills', what are these new innovations that CT has added to our known knowledge of Thinkology? And how do they differ from the old and supposedly outmoded methods that 'mere reasoning' once advised on how to '...question, analyze, interpret...'? And why is it that CT still advertises itself by those same old traits of how to '...question, analyze, interpret...', instead of using its own marvelous new innovations to that?

Wizard of Oz, Dr of Thinkology

That isn't just interesting, it's odd, isn't it? I mean, when you want to distinguish one thing from another, do you highlight what both have in common, or do you point out how they differ? IOW, if you had a sports car to sell, you wouldn't say:

"This sports car is worth so much more than that sedan because it has the same engine and four wheels that sedan has but now I'm referring to those as being sporty!"

, would you? No, if you'd devised something that's better and more effective than something else, you'd focus on what sets your new thing apart from that old thing, and highlight what makes this, better than that, right?

OTOH, if for some reason, you'd rather avoid scrutiny, then the way you're going to sell that product is by acting 'as if' it was 'the same as' your competition's, but... that's it's less expensive, or easier to come by, or some such, right?

But if you're being told that it delivers those old tried and true steps, methods and expectations 'borrowed' from earlier philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Thomas Reid, etc., and you then noticed that it requires far more time, money, and resources to do the same thing that had always been done before, but now with worse results, and you found that your questions about that are met with "...nothing to see here, no need to concern yourself , just more expert thinkery in action, move along. All's well...", you could be forgiven for suspecting that what you're being sold 'as if' it were 'the same' thing, might be hiding something very, very, different, behind the appearances of sameness that you've been advised to just trust to the 'experts'.

If these were used car salesmen selling you a car with another car's Carfax history, you'd be concerned... but it's somehow ok behavior in those teaching your child how to think?

If 'Critical Think'rs did not come up with these 'features' of '...question, analyze, interpret...' - and they did not - or add new steps to them - and they have not - then why do they behave as if they had? What is this pretense intended (yes, intended) to conceal?

Having read through many a book and whitepaper on the subject, I can tell you that the poorly hidden secret of 'Critical Thinking's secret sauce is that it most definitely does differ from what came before, and they do not like to advertise the nature of what that difference is, because what it actually is, is an absence - a subtraction from rather than an addition to - our knowledge and understanding, and how to think with and about them.

If you are someone who sees themself as being open-minded and capable of 'questioning, analyzing, interpreting', then I'd think this would be something that you'd consider to be worth pursuing to an answer. Right?

The answer to #3 (3-When and why did we begin calling for more of 'Critical Thinking'?), requires a bit of a two-step reply, which begins with Glaser's book on 'Critical Thinking', as he and his fellow theorists of education realized that 'Critical Thinking' could be made out 'as if' it were a critical necessity for 'education' in the modern world. And with that claim being made by TWKB (Those Who Know Best), it became possible for them to achieve less than nothing right out in the open, by peddling their jargon terms of 'Critical Thinking Skills' and 'Higher-Order Thinking' as the innovations needed for gaining a 'scientific understanding' of any issue at all.

John Dewey & Co. and their 'labs' at Columbia's Teachers College had been building up to this for years, and Glaser's own efforts made extensive use of various studies to bolster those skills, and to warn of what hinders them, such as referenced on pg 47 of Maller and Lundeen's study on "Sources of Superstitious Beliefs", which describes how:

"...the researchers sought to determine the extent to which the home, books/media, school, church, friends, and personal experiences influence belief and disbelief in superstitions..."

, and in noting that superstitions are often described as 'false religions', they noted that:

"... it is not altogether surprising that what is considered religion by one may be considered superstition by another..."

Do you find yourself a bit suspicious as to how they went about clarifying that difference, or the reason for pointing it out? If not, how about after noting how Glaser repeatedly advocates that:

"...a scientific attitude is developed by a knowledge of scientific facts and varies directly with such knowledge...."

, even as he repeatedly has to admit that:

"...general science work seemed to have no effect in reducing superstitious beliefs..."

That's interesting.

Even more interesting, Glaser himself notes in the conclusion to his study, that 'Critical Thinking' didn't actually help students in their general thinking. As he puts it:

"...There is no reason to believe, for instance, that the students who gained significantly in critical thinking as measured by the tests are now appreciably more competent to make critical judgments of pieces of art, music, or literature...."[emphasis mine]

Yes, you read that right. Thomas Reid's quip comes to mind, that "Theories are the creatures of men, which nature seldom mimics". And while it's hard to imagine how any of this helps in selling the sizzle of the 'CT Sports Car', the fact is, that it has sold, and sold well. How?

The Great Chain of Epistemology;
Hierarchical Order of Knowledge

Glaser and his fellow 'Social Scientists' certainly didn't add anything new beyond their jargon in place of the old terms 'as if' they meant the same things as syllogisms, rhetoric, and the like. It's worth noting, however, that their new 'social science' terms have served to verbally divide the thousands of years of existing commentary on the subject of teaching and reasoning well, from what they've been advertising as this new method called 'Critical Thinking'. And yet they'd added nothing of substance to the practice or explanation and effectiveness of reasoning, or to logical thinking, or rhetoric, or even to the practice of science itself.

Nothing.

But in being sold the spiel of improving students' ability to "...question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement...", what is being concealed is that their 'thinking skills' are not intended to improve the student's ability to reason well, but more narrowly to instruct the student in finding what is expected to be the correct answer, and the way that 'Critical Thinking' does that, is hidden in plain sight behind what it boasts to parents that it will provide their kids: Critical Thinking Skills. The operational use of 'skills' is first being applied to two very different approaches to thinking - one being the kind of reasoning in which a juror would deliberate over evidence for an accused person being found guilty or innocent, and the other with which a scientist might examine some materials and measure others to find and select what fits a given formula - and collapsing both under the narrower term of 'skills', which is more suited to the latter, results in the former being neglected, at best.

The students, in being instructed to treat all knowledge 'as if' it were a demonstrable fact or calculation of external references so as to find 'the right answer' (which, BTW, was Fichte's goal for Prussian 'education', to produce students who would accept the answers they were given without question), are being nudged away from developing the inner qualities of honesty, ethics and moral behavior, that are necessary for developing sound reasoning and practical wisdom.

That's where the second step in CT's success story comes in, with 'Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives', which helped enormously in making the very new and obviously flawed field of 'Critical Thinking', able to spread throughout our schools.

The sciency-ish set of booklets that comprise Bloom's Taxonomy, formed what's been lauded as the authoritative list of definitions and objectives for what every teacher has been directly or indirectly taught to teach from, since the 1950's, and was critical to the selling of 'Critical Thinking' to the world. One of those critical points defined Knowledge as:

"Knowledge is defined as the remembering of previously learned material... represents the lowest level of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain."

, and according to Bloom et all, knowledge doesn't imply understanding or deep meaning (as you'll see below, it definitely doesn't imply knowledge as being right or wrong), it's just facts conveniently strung together so as to be recalled when & where useful. In the new 'cognitive domain' of Bloom's Taxonomy, the sense of knowledge as once understood as being a depth of understanding that's valuable in the pursuit of wisdom, has been replaced with 'knowledge' as the 'lowest level' of 'learning outcomes' in 'the cognitive domain', where students will prove their 'knowledge' by scanning for and collecting as many of the useful facts that the social science experiment of 'education' calls for, which is what enabled the recall of facts to become what is measured in our 'testing'.

Bloom's views on these matters are very much drawn from the likes of John Dewey's ideas of 'Pragmatism', and operate under the modern presumption that metaphysics - what is - is either unknowable or does not exist (ahem), and that what matters is the 'epistemological' processing of 'facts' to find 'what works', readily fit so well with what our Teachers Colleges already taught in their practice of teaching teachers how to teach, that it quickly caught fire with modern notions of 'education' and 'went viral' worldwide. Even today, a quick search online will return thousands of references over the last seven decades, such as this one from The London School of Management Education (2019), saying that effectively developing:”

“...critical thinking skills is always a challenge to teach and deliver effectively to learners, and the best approach is to adopt the Bloom’s taxonomy as the basis of learning...”

, which all supports their efforts to teach, and teach, and teach, your kids the skills of 'higher-order thinking' that they insist is soOooo necessary to the success of 'Critical Thinking'.

Delivering less than zero, by means of the Thinking Skills of Semantic Deception

Dr. Benjamin Bloom should be remembered for writing books such as "Outcome-Based Education", and "Mastery Learning", each of which prompted a great deal of parental outrage, and many more rounds of productive 'Education Reform!'.

What reading through the booklets of Bloom's Taxonomy reveals, is not just that 'Critical Thinking' promises to deliver the 'higher-order thinking' skills - or 'HOTS', as they like to refer to them - (they do love their cutesy acronyms), or that they are difficult for them to deliver on. And what we should note here, is that parents and most other people's expectations of what these 'Critical Thinking Skills' are, is very likely not what these Educrats mean by them.

For instance, it seems unlikely that most people think that their suburban school district would teach their teachers that 'Critical Thinking' and 'HOTS' should be taught to mean, what I found was being emphasized in around 2020 by the "Santa Clara County Office of Education" (it's since been taken down or put behind its membership wall), which was (and likely still is) instructing their new teachers to teach their students 'Thinking Skills', according to this view from 'Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives'. Note: As you can see in the screenshot, the bold emphasis is mine, but the ellipsis are in the original, I have not edited its content:

How can lesson design move learners from knowledge acquisition that is concrete to one that is more abstract and creative? “Benjamin Bloom said, “...a student attains 'higher order thinking' when he no longer believes in right or wrong". In creating his taxonomy, Bloom highlighted a student’s ability to think more abstractly and demonstrate learning in ways that were sparked by creative thinking. Learning is more than recalling the right answer. It is applying learned content to new and different situations in ways that can “reorganize a child's thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.” This course will review Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and will expose the learner to different technology tools that can move students to higher orders of thinking."

Is "... no longer believes in right or wrong..." and "...reorganize a child's thoughts, attitudes, and feelings..." what you were thinking of when I originally asked what you expected 'Critical Thinking' to do for a child's thinking?

And now, as you use your 'Critical Thinking Skills' to read this with an open and analytical mind, to compare what I've shown you so far, to your original expectations, are some doubts beginning to arise in your mind? If you were to '...question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement...' further upon this, it seems to me that these are just a few fairly obvious questions that you should be asking yourself (and stewing upon):

• How do they intend to 'help' students to 'no longer believe' in Right & Wrong (spoiler alert: they mean that in both senses of the words, BTW, true/false & good/bad)?
• What is meant by 'reorganize their student's thoughts, attitudes, and feelings', and how do they go about doing that?
• What is meant by 'knowledge acquisition', and how does that differ from learning what is being studied?

Prior to our modern reforming of schooling (which, BTW, is in no way limited to public schooling), people sought an education to lead them out of the shadows of ignorance and confused misunderstanding, by learning what's rooted in an integrated understanding of what is real and true and right and wrong, and by aiming at identifying the good that all sound thinking aims at, the student was expected to be able to become a moral and self-governing individual capable of living a life worth living, in liberty with others.

Teaching students 'Critical Thinking Skills', OTOH, utilizes the student's mind 'as if' the purpose of an 'education' was to stock the shelves of the nation's human resources tool sheds, with a variety of tools and skills which TWKB have determined to be needed, at varying skill levels, for various tasks, as needed. Such 'Thinking Skills' do not reflect who a student is, but what actions they've been trained to perform for 'today's economy'. A sad 'side effect' of instilling 'thinking skills' in this way, is that in between having tasks to work on, the student's 'education' is of little or no use to them outside of the tasks which they've been made useful for, and so they're left to fill their 'off hours' with whatever distracting entertainments might keep their 'power tool' brain buzzing with between tasks.

Unlike traditional education which carefully revealed timeless truths to its students which they would find to be of value throughout their lives, to be 'educated' in modern times is to be suited only to the present moment, which necessarily means becoming useless in the next one ... which will then require your re-education ("Learn to code!"). Perhaps what it is that 'Critical Thinking Skills' are intended to move us 'beyond', is best summed up with the opening line of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics:

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim ..."

, which was the view that was prevalent in our Founders era, and was very much rooted in a concern for understanding what is real and true, and is unquestionably concerned with what is right and wrong, and that is entirely opposed by what Bloom's Taxonomy has been teaching our teachers to teach our kids to 'rise above' for decades.

'Critical Thinking' in action: “I think our reverence for the truth might have become a bit of a distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done.”
— Katherine Maher (NPR CEO)

Because these differences between what had traditionally been considered to be sound reasoning, and 'Critical Thinking', are distinctions that make a critical difference, they go unmentioned when CT'rs are selling CT's skills to parents and the general public to confound their understanding with "Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement about what you read, hear, say, or write...."

Under the guise of teaching kids 'thinking skills' to "...question, analyze, interpret..." the world 'as if' 'Critical Thinking' were the 'same as' reasoning, students are being taught what was never intended to lead them into becoming good, moral, ethical persons, and instead focuses them on acquiring some level of 'Conflict Resolution Skills' which views 'truth' as a relative and malleable means of calculating utilitarian bargains in which the 'ends justify the means', and it does so under the implicit presumption that it would be wrong to teach the importance of developing a child's ethical judgment of what is real and true and right and wrong.

The harsh reality is that through the power of being trained in 'Critical Thinking Skills' which view knowledge as "...the lowest level of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain...", a person's depth of understanding is easily satisfied at the surface level of ideological appearances, which severs them from having any deeper concern for what is real and true and right and wrong. By their own efforts to skillfully calculate a pragmatic answer, rather than by seeking first to understand and respond appropriately to what it is that's being contemplated, they are metaphysically decapitating themselves from within their own mind, by removing the metaphysical point and purpose of reasoning well from their conscious awareness and intent.

That subtraction of the student's metaphysical awareness is 'Critical Thinking's primary innovation, and it has enabled the pro-regressive desire to develop demoralized human resources (just what do you think "... no longer believes in right or wrong..." means?!), who are stocked with whatever calculative tools and 'people skills' that the experts of TWKB deem to be needed most at that particular point in time.

Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left:

Especially if your own schooling was all about building up your 'thinking skills', this cannot be pleasant to hear, and even harder to accept, but as you're beginning to see for yourself, if you pay attention to what the purveyors of 'Critical Thinking' say when discussing what they intend 'Critical Thinking' to accomplish, they'll tell you in their own words, that these are the ideals that they intend to transform you and your kids with.

Do yourself a favor, don't just try to 'keep an open mind', and perhaps above all don't try to 'wake up!', as if you've been asleep all along - you have not been asleep, and the contrivance of that excuse is unworthy of the mind of man (hi Marx!). What you do need to do, is to turn the light of your own attention towards actively taking notice of what is (Metaphysics), how you know it (through an epistemology of Causality and Logic), and what should be done in response to that (Ethics), and you'll soon see the darkness being rolled back by the light of what is real and true. There is a great deal that you will begin to take notice of as you continue to "...question, analyze, interpret..." from that perspective, and despite what our educators think of you (and humanity), because you are a human being, you are able to see, recognize, understand, and correct the errors of men.

What is 'Critical' to your Thinking?
So now as you compare what you'd assumed CT to be, to what you're now beginning to see it involves, never forget that what you assume that the Pro-Regressive Left (and Right) mean by something, as even how to '...question, analyze, interpret...' is often the sheep's clothing that's being used to smuggle in a wolf that's contrary to your expectations, and they do so because of their pragmatic belief that truth is just 'what works' for the moment, and they see themselves as TWKB (Those Who Know Best) who should have the power to determine what it 'works' for.

See: "Beneath Sheep's Clothing"

That's especially the case when you see the word 'Critical' placed before the word 'Thinking', for while you might think that 'Critical' simply implies an important point to question & consider in what you are thinking about, if that were the case, there'd be no need for the 'Critical' to be prefixed to 'Thinking', as that is what 'thinking' is:

thinking noun
the activity of using your mind to consider something:
do some thinking I'll have to do some thinking about how best to arrange the books.

, but those of a Progressive, Socialist, Marxist, Hegelian, Kantian, Rousseauian, Cartesian, Hobbesian bent of mind (or just Pro-Regressive for short), do not mean for you to simply consider something from different angles, what they mean by 'Critical', is for you to engage you in the causeless doubt (hi Descartes!) that isn't intended to raise questions, but, as how the skeptic puffs himself up in his own eyes while tearing down what others behold and revere, it encourages you to presume to 'just know' that there are alternate or hidden 'answers' to be dwelt upon, without any actual cause or evidence for suspecting them - what Samuel Silva calls 'the affirmation of the No' - and that sense of 'Critical' is perhaps best expressed by Marx's exhortation to a:

Fissiparous, in CS Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress, is a "...process of infinite fracturing, unceasingly dividing..."

"... ruthless criticism of all that exists..."

, so as to undermine and destroy the foundations of the West in general and of America in particular, and to bring our houses to ruin.

It's critical to note that adding 'Critical' to your 'Thinking', is not done to better understand what is true, the 'Critical' is put there to operate upon your 'Thinking', in much the same way as 'Social' is used in 'Social Justice' to dilute & destroy the traditional western understanding of 'Justice' that's concerned with individual instances of right and wrong, in favor of using power to enforce those popular presumptions and prejudices, which TWKB calculate that they can get away with at the moment, by presenting them as being 'what works'. Both instances are intentional assaults upon the metaphysical 'Imago Dei' of man as a being created in the image of God, which they seek to replace with social constructs that give TWKB the power to reshape society in their own image.

The first step a person takes down the road of 'Critical Thinking Skills' in seeking 'answers' to poorly understood questions, is already leading them away from attending to what is, how you know it, and what you should do about that and why (buh-bye Aristotle), and 'Critical Thinking' does so because its HOTS are not intended to, or interested in, enhancing the ethical reasoning, or the sense of morality, or even the accuracy of a person's thinking, they exist to put the purposes of power at the center of your attention, as with the NPR CEO quoted above, so as to dispense with 'truth' as a "...distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done". That is the purpose of 'Critical Thinking', and that is how 'Critical Thinking' seeks to "...reorganize a child's thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.." and move them 'beyond' concerns for 'right or wrong', which leaves them, you, and the rest of 'We The People' wandering around as metaphysically decapitated beings, not just dazed and confused about what is real and true, but arguing with each other over the ideal way to churn society in their brave new world of Ideology (see previous post).

The Root and the Fruit

In the coming posts we'll dive deeper into what we've just scratched the surface of here, in what 'Critical Thinking' follows from, seeks, triggers and accomplishes, but as its 'Skills' have been spread throughout our schools, it should be no surprise to us today that generations of people drilled in 'Critical Thinking Skills', should show an ever diminishing ability to think well, behave virtuously, morally, honestly, or purposefully.

And finally, I should add, with the reactions in mind that many of us have on first learning about the nature of 'Critical Thinking', it's best to not forget that one of the leading reasons why we find ourselves in our current circumstances today, is because of all of the bipartisan 'School Reform!' we've engaged in over the last century. To borrow a phrase from a radical activist: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house!”.

It's best to just get your kids out of our schools, and redirect their attention and concerns towards what is real and true, so that they can have a chance to get a decent education.