Honestly it’s probably too late for many adults who have succumbed to the psychological manipulation tactics of politicians and the media.
If we want to save this country we need to start teaching children and young adults to recognize the signs of manipulative behavior in school.
This will of course be strongly opposed by the media, politicians, and advertisers, all of which rely on these tactics to make a profit.
and by the parents. At this point teaching signs of manipulative behavior and logic 101 like recognizing fallacies would be considered liberal endoctrination by the cultists.
Exactly. An entire cadre of parents and grandparents literally concocted a culture war out of thin air based on educators trying to teach their school-aged offspring to be more respectful and tolerant, and all they had to do was find a useful three letter acronym that would fit into a bullseye on a Fox News chyron. There is no remaining rock under which they won’t find liberal demons, unfortunately. Our last best hope is that through sheer cultural inertia and the widespread exposure of kids to people from different ethnicities, races, etc in online spaces, they’ll start to naturally pick up on the idea of diversity of thought and incrementally shed their parents’ hateful neuroses. It’s already kind of happening, and I sure hope it continues.
Another interesting dynamic is that boomers grew up during a time when SCOTUS helped usher in civil rights, abortion, affirmative action, etc. Their weird drift to the right can also be seen as a reaction to the issues that the judicial and political systems forced them to engage with. Gen Z is growing up in an era with a Republican Party completely untethered from reality and a SCOTUS dominated by hard-right cartoons, and I can’t help but think that over the next 10-15 years they’ll harden their stances to some degree in opposition to those factors.
Our last best hope is that through sheer cultural inertia and the widespread exposure of kids to people from different ethnicities, races, etc in online spaces, they’ll start to naturally pick up on the idea of diversity of thought and incrementally shed their parents’ hateful neuroses.
One can only hope.
But we already live in a good portion of the beginning, yet anti-semitism and race hate/discrimination is very well spewed everywhere you can look.
Maybe it’s the vocal minority but it’s the one most read and heard and so will stay in focus.
Exactly. As I said above, they were (and probably still are) explicitly against the teaching of critical thinking, which of course should involve teaching things like how to recognize logical fallacies.
Also it creates this weird sort of weird feedback loop of idiocy which is really hard to break. By that I mean, you cut funding for things like schools and libraries, and that naturally leads to a generation that’s less well educated than the one before, who will then vote for more dumb shit like cutting funding schools and libraries, which then makes the next generation even less well educated and so on.
And that in return will let the well educated rather stay in a regular job where more money can be made with a brain (STEM) than with their mouth (politics).
And when they are hired for their “professional” opinion and recommendation and recommend the inverse of wanted or expected, they will be ignored to hell and beyond or get their words twisted beyond any resemblance to it’s original.
The Republican Party in Texas already have had opposition to critical thinking as a plank in their platform. I suspect it is no accident. Cannot have too many critical thinkers out there, that will make it very hard to recruit people into their cult “party”.
And now you see why education gets less effective funding with each generation, and why gun hazard is apparently considered just part of being a teacher.
Honestly it’s probably too late for many adults who have succumbed to the psychological manipulation tactics of politicians and the media.
If we want to save this country we need to start teaching children and young adults to recognize the signs of manipulative behavior in school.
This will of course be strongly opposed by the media, politicians, and advertisers, all of which rely on these tactics to make a profit.
and by the parents. At this point teaching signs of manipulative behavior and logic 101 like recognizing fallacies would be considered liberal endoctrination by the cultists.
Exactly. An entire cadre of parents and grandparents literally concocted a culture war out of thin air based on educators trying to teach their school-aged offspring to be more respectful and tolerant, and all they had to do was find a useful three letter acronym that would fit into a bullseye on a Fox News chyron. There is no remaining rock under which they won’t find liberal demons, unfortunately. Our last best hope is that through sheer cultural inertia and the widespread exposure of kids to people from different ethnicities, races, etc in online spaces, they’ll start to naturally pick up on the idea of diversity of thought and incrementally shed their parents’ hateful neuroses. It’s already kind of happening, and I sure hope it continues.
Another interesting dynamic is that boomers grew up during a time when SCOTUS helped usher in civil rights, abortion, affirmative action, etc. Their weird drift to the right can also be seen as a reaction to the issues that the judicial and political systems forced them to engage with. Gen Z is growing up in an era with a Republican Party completely untethered from reality and a SCOTUS dominated by hard-right cartoons, and I can’t help but think that over the next 10-15 years they’ll harden their stances to some degree in opposition to those factors.
One can only hope.
But we already live in a good portion of the beginning, yet anti-semitism and race hate/discrimination is very well spewed everywhere you can look.
Maybe it’s the vocal minority but it’s the one most read and heard and so will stay in focus.
Exactly. As I said above, they were (and probably still are) explicitly against the teaching of critical thinking, which of course should involve teaching things like how to recognize logical fallacies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html
Which is exactly WHY republican politicians are trying to destroy libraries, school curriculum, etc. Uneducated people are easier to manipulate.
Also it creates this weird sort of weird feedback loop of idiocy which is really hard to break. By that I mean, you cut funding for things like schools and libraries, and that naturally leads to a generation that’s less well educated than the one before, who will then vote for more dumb shit like cutting funding schools and libraries, which then makes the next generation even less well educated and so on.
Generational wealth includes more than financial assets I suppose.
“See this estate of total bullshit? Someday, my child, it’ll all be yours.”
And that in return will let the well educated rather stay in a regular job where more money can be made with a brain (STEM) than with their mouth (politics).
And when they are hired for their “professional” opinion and recommendation and recommend the inverse of wanted or expected, they will be ignored to hell and beyond or get their words twisted beyond any resemblance to it’s original.
If you think STEM’s the only thing you need your brain for, maybe you’re not as smart as you think.
Otherwise, not wrong.
Best example of the top of my head.
Plenty of people in politics are very smart. Those people just tend to be on the policy side rather than the campaign side.
The Republican Party in Texas already have had opposition to critical thinking as a plank in their platform. I suspect it is no accident. Cannot have too many critical thinkers out there, that will make it very hard to recruit people into their
cult“party”.And now you see why education gets less effective funding with each generation, and why gun hazard is apparently considered just part of being a teacher.