09/15/21

Common Sense, Courage, Critical Thinking

Our Nation and society suffers from a horrendous shortage of three commodities:

Common sense — sound and prudent judgement based on a simple and practical assessment of facts.

Courage — the intellectual or moral strength to continue to act in the face of fear, danger, difficulty, and virulent opposition; and,

Critical thinking — the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information and data gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication in order to develop wise opinions and to make sound, fact/data-based decisions.

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11/20/17

Critical Thinking v Emotion (Feelings)

What exactly is critical thinking, Big Red Car?

Big Red Car here on a crisp Monday. Been gone to Savannah and New York City for my annual pilgrimage to celebrate somebody’s birthday, to see the Broadway shows, to eat decadent food, and to watch the NYC Veterans Day Parade. Missions accomplished.

On the plane back, I got to thinking about the issue of critical thinking. Somebody whose opinion I respect said that much of what is going on today is driven by a failure to think critically, accelerated by an intellectual laziness to simply follow one’s emotions.