A "message" is a piece of information. Keep in mind that information is more than just a plain fact, or a bit of data, or a single picture. Information has meaning, but what it means may be different depending on your background. One person may hear about a protestor getting beaten by a police officer and think, "Good, that punk got what he deserved." Another may hear the same story but think, "That officer belongs to the oppressive police state." It's the same story, but we can get any number of different messages from it. For most of us, the information doesn't teach us anything, it only reinforces our prejudices.
A "source" is someone who gives you a message. It may be a website, a magazine, a co-worker, a talking head on TV, or someone else. Most of them are passing along a message they got from somewhere else. The plain truth is that they all make some kind of change when they pass along that message. Some of them don't realize they're making the change, but some of them do.
To put it simply, critical thinking is what you do when you ask questions about messages and sources. Where did that source get that message? How has that source changed the message, and why did it choose to change it in that way? What was the message before they changed it? Perhaps most importantly, how is that source hoping to influence your thinking with that message?
Another way to look at it--we're now thinking about the process of thinking itself. Where do ideas come from? How do we make decisions? Why do we accept some messages as true and reject others as false, even before we have any evidence?
Here's a simple example. You see a defense lawyer on the news. He claims that his client is innocent. You probably don't believe him, but why? Because that's part of his job. He may know that his client is guilty, but he edits the message to include everything that favors his case and to leave out everything else. On the other side, the DA will edit the message in the opposite way, to make the defendant look guilty. In this oppositional framework, you get both sides of the story, so you have some idea of what each side is ignoring.
Here's a more complicated example. The Senate recently released a report on the CIA's use of "extraordinary rendition" and "enhanced interrogation." People outside the bureaucracy, without its propensity for doublespeak, would call those procedures "kidnapping" and "torture." Sensible people (and I include you, dear reader, among them) know that this is not a left vs. right issue but a human vs. inhuman one. The CIA itself concluded in 1989 that torture is counterproductive, that is, the information collected is false more often than not, and the costs outweight the benefits in the long run. For instance, the inevitable publicity eroded our standing in the global community and made it acceptable for the other side to torture our people in return. At the most basic level, torture as an instrument of policy violates the Golden Rule, which appears in some form in every major religion. As we all know, however, the torture happened without a real public debate.
What is the source here? Primarily, the Bush Administration. What is the message? After 9/11, torture is permissible in the defense of our country. Unfortunately, the opposing message was fragmented and muted.
Let's ask some questions. Since we know torture doesn't produce good intelligence, why do it? The only conclusion we can reach is that their goal was not to get intelligence. Their goal also ignored the repercussions abroad, so it must have been something domestic.
All right, what were the domestic goals of Bush and the other neoconservatives? The only one that fits is their use of emotional manipulation to mislead the public. If you get people frightened enough, they won't pay attention to the other things you're doing.
The real trouble is, it's working. A bare majority of Americans (according to a recent poll) believe that torture was justified. These people aren't thinking, they're reacting to emotions. If that weren't bad enough, many states are trying to ban the teaching of critical thought. Are you starting to see why?
One more example. The scientific community is almost unanimous in its opinion on climate change. The opponents are loud, but who are they, exactly? Pick one, doesn't matter who, I don't want to prejudice your choice. Do a little research on that person. Find out who paid for her research, who she works for, who she cites for her evidence. Who is the secondary source for your primary source? Once you have the secondary sources, do more research. I can guarantee you that you won't have to dig very far.
There's a market for this junk science, and there's only a handful of scientists willing to compromise themselves so thoroughly. One of your sources for climate-change denial will lead you to this group. Remember, though, that they're only passing along a message. They work for the oil industry, which has a vested interest in maintaining the market for fossil fuels. In other words, rather than invest in a solution for a problem, they want to convince you that there is no problem, so they can continue to maximize their profits. For them, spreading these lies is nothing but another marketing campaign.
Here's the bottom line of critical thinking. Ask yourself, who benefits? The lawyer collects a fee whether is client is guilty or not. The Bush White House used federal law to transfer wealth from people like us to the have-mores, and few people noticed. The oil companies are still making record profits, and renewable energy is still in its infancy. All Americans should be using critical thinking and raising their hands to object to these deceptive strategies. That's not happening.
Why? Think about it.
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