critical thinking – Sommer Season all year

On Feb. 6, 2024, former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, sat down with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for an interview. If you haven’t seen the interview, you can watch it here: The Vladimir Putin Interview.

I (#blogger #blog #somseason #YA #authors) took the time to watch the full interview because I wanted to know Putin’s perspective on the war in the Ukraine. The interview was fascinating. Why would I watch this interview? Vladimir Putin is the enemy, isn’t he? If you listen to the Mainstream Media (MM), he is. Here is a sampling of headlines after the interview aired. Tucker Carlson faces media fury over Putin interview, Tucker Carlson faces new backlash over Putin interview after Navalny death, EU Bureaucrats Look to BAN Tucker Carlson Following CONTROVERSIAL Putin Interview, Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Was a TV Turn-Off for Russians, and Zelensky on Tucker Carlson interview with Putin: ‘2 hours of bulls‑‑‑’. For those who don’t know, bullshit refers to something worthless or deceptive. Watch how Tucker Carlson is mocked in this video.

If you believe the MM, Everybody hates Vladimir Putin according to CNN. Putin now among most hated world figures according to The Washington Post. Why does the MM want us to hate Putin so much? Why do they demonize or dehumanize Russia’s President? What are they afraid of? What don’t they want us to know? They did the same thing with former US president Donald Trump. They demonized Trump to manipulate us into hating him. Demonizing or dehumanizing is nothing new. The MM have always done it as shown by Welfare Queens and Scroungers: How Media Narratives Demonize the Poor, How Media Demonize Religious Minorities, and 3 Ways That Media Outlets Demonize Black Families, The article, The Media Must Stop Demonizing Immigrants explains that “dehumanization of whole groups of people for the purposes of attacking them in the United States and across the world is nothing new. As Isabel Wilkerson points out in her book Caste, the creation of a dominant caste depends upon the dehumanization of the other.”

It is now being reported that there was a Tucker Carlson assassination attempted in Russia. Reports say a native Russian was arrested for the attempted assassination of Tucker Carlson. The unsuccessful assassin was allegedly hired by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence who offered to pay the man $4,000. Why would the Ukraine want to stop the Carlson-Putin interview? The answer seems obvious to me. They wanted to prevent people from hearing Russia’s perspective on the war. It’s also why they demonize the Russian president as well. Maybe Putin has just cause to attack Ukraine.

MM, and governments, don’t want the general public to think for themselves. When I taught Social Studies, I tried to teach critical thinking, which is the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyze facts and information, to form a judgment or decide if something is right or wrong. I always taught that there are two sides to every story; that to make an informed decision, you need to listen to and understand both differing perspectives.

This was especially true when I taught my students how to write position papers. I emphasized the importance that a position paper needed an analysis of both sides of the subject matter and the main point is to address both aspects of the argument. Any guide to writing position papers will tell you this. Why does the MM only focus on one side of an argument?

The latest buzz words used by governments and MM is ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation,’ as shown in the articles, The real ‘fake news’: how to spot misinformation and disinformation online, and Fake News, Big Lies: How Did We Get Here and Where Are We Going? Disinformation, as defined by the UK government, is the deliberate creation and/or sharing of false information in order to mislead, and misinformation is the act of sharing information without realizing it’s wrong. Is the MM feeding us disinformation to mislead us? Seems like it to me. Why else would they demonize and dehumanize Tucker Carlson and President Putin? They constantly inundate us with the plight of Ukraine, saying we—the Western World—need to defend Ukrainian independence. They never tell us Russia’s perspective on Ukraine, at least not that I am aware of.

As I understand it, back in 2022, Putin recognized the “independence and sovereignty” of the two eastern Ukraine provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, and ordered Russian peacekeepers to protect them. Justin Trudeau sums up the rhetoric of the MM when he strongly condemned Russia’s recognition of ‘independent states’ in Ukraine as a “blatant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and international law.” That was the only point of view we were given, at least here in Canada and the USA. What is wrong with hearing Russia’s side? Why is the MM trying to prevent us from hearing the Russian side? Is there more to the story? Are they hiding something? To quote Heather Vogel Frederick, “There’s always more to the story.” Listen to Putin in the interview and decide for yourself if he is the horrible person the MM maintain he is. Give yourself permission to think for yourself instead of the MM doing the thinking for you.

I find it interesting that Canada’s prime minister claims Conspiracy theorists threaten mainstream media. As the article, The Mainstream Media Are Dying of Self-Inflicted Wounds says, they are doing it to themselves. The article says just 7 percent of Americans have “a great deal” of trust and confidence in the media. It is interesting that Journalists now lecture us, contributing to the lack of trust in media. This article sites a poll that was commissioned by the Canada’s federal government saying that just 32.5% trust the media in Canada. The article goes on to say, “As traditional media outlets continue to lose audience share, it might be worth asking why people are tuning us out or losing trust. Far too often, it’s that people think we have an agenda…” The article speaks truth when it says the problem is journalists are lecturing the public instead of informing them. Is their agenda to manipulate us into believing one point of view?

We are no longer being informed, we are being misled, manipulated, and propagandized. MM news outlets have an agenda; the agenda to get the public to believe a certain narrative. It doesn’t want you to know both sides of the story. They only want you to hear their biased side or their narrative. They want to tell you what to think. This is bullying (#bullying, #antibullying) in my view! The MM wants to “bully” you into believing their narrative regarding an event. It is time we got back to thinking critically for ourselves, and that means listening to both points of views. I am grateful to Tucker Carlson for giving me Putin’s view of the war in Ukraine because I sure didn’t get it from the western media.

Lately, I (#blogger #blog #somseason #YA #authors) have been involved in several discussions with people regarding truth. It typically begins with a question like: How do you know what to believe on social media and in the news? It’s not easy.

One of the definitions in the Cambridge English Dictionary is: “Truth is the real facts about a situation, event, or person.” That same dictionary defines a fact as “something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof is given.” What people are really wanting to know is: How do we determine what are the real facts of a situation, event, or person, and what’s the proof? I am going to attempt to answer that question.

I have come to realize that we humans are programmed, manipulated, brainwashed (you pick the word) to believe what we are told. Most people believe what the Mainstream Media (MM) is telling them. Most believe what our leaders and governments tell them. I have even heard people proclaim, “Our leaders/governments would never lie to us.” We believe if “doctor” is in front of a name, or a person has a doctorate degree, then they are telling us the truth. We think, “They’re a doctor, it must be true.” We believe everything our spiritual leaders tell us. I once heard a person say (paraphrased): “Tell me what I need to do to obtain my salvation, and I will do it.” Organized religions have indoctrinated us to think a certain way and believe what they tell us without questioning, often using fear to do so. Comedian, George Carlin, once said: “I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.” He’s right. MM is constantly proclaiming “Experts say” (see Experts say). As soon as it is labelled “expert” we think: “It must the true if experts say it.” Rarely are we told who these experts are. When statistics are given from some study, we think the stats make it true.

Debate.org deliberates on the question: Are we being brainwashed as a society? Here is an excerpt.

…in my society, the United States, I think we’ve been being brainwashed for a long time, and still are. We’ve just never been encouraged to think critically about things. We’re always told/taught what to think, rather than how to think, which I consider tantamount to brainwashing.

We’re encouraged in schools to stand in reverence and pledge allegiance to the flag before we’re even taught why we owe our allegiance to it in the first place… We’re taught early on in our schooling that certain drugs are bad (marijuana, LSD, psylosybin, etc.) but are not told why they are bad, and nary a word is said of the harms of socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, oxycotin, or even pharmaceutical drugs that are often used in excess for recreational purposes, like children’s cough syrup. Even in the media, we’re often presented with a biased view of events, and they are often put through an ideological filter, and rather than presenting only facts; the opinions of the reporter are reported along with it.

The debater said, “We’ve just never been encouraged to think critically about things.” He or she is absolutely correct. I always tried to teach my students to think critically, but it was a difficult battle. Students typically resist thinking critically. Sadly, their only concern is what is on the test. Over my teaching career, I’ve heard many a student say: “Just tell me what I need to know for the test.” People, like my students, are programmed NOT to think for themselves. Instead, they are told what to think and tested on it.

The Buddha—also known as Siddhartha Gautama—(circa 450 BCE) an individual whose teachings form the basis of Buddhism allegedly said:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Now that is good, sound advice. Just because someone—even if they have credentials—said it, doesn’t make it true. We must think for ourselves and come to our own truth. If we believe everything we’re told, then we are being unknowingly bullied (#bullying #antibullying). If ever there was a time in human history to think critically, it is now! There is much misinformation being told.

We are robots. We are programmed, manipulated, or mind-controlled to just believe whatever someone tells us; especially if they are seen as an authority figure. I experienced that as a teacher. My students, for the most part, would believe anything I told them. A colleague of mine once told his students that packaged wieners were dug out of a landfill site after being in there for 100 years, and the wieners were still edible. This teacher was “pulling their leg,” of course, but the students completely believed the teacher. The reality is, we humans tend to believe what we are told, even if we think we don’t.

So how does a person think critically? When you are critically thinking, you are asking: What is my truth? You are tapping into what is yours, what feels right to you, and deciphering what is somebody else’s. Whenever we are told something—whether it be the news, a YouTube video, another person—you can digest the information by thinking critically. That can be done using these three steps.

Recognize that you are hearing or seeing a message.
Understand the message. This message means… This doesn’t mean the message is true.
Observe and start asking questions about the information you’ve received. Dive deeper and peel back the layers of the message. Ask yourself: Does this feel right to me? Does this make sense? Could this be true, or could this be false? Is there more to this message or information? Where did this information come from? What is the source of this message?

Ask yourself: Does the source have an agenda or goal? All media messages have goals, which can affect the information presented. For example, Coca-Cola claimed its Vitaminwater brand could promote healthy joints and reduce the risk of eye disease, among other health benefits. Such claims are aimed at selling a product and are likely partially true or maybe not true at all. Some publications aim to rally readers around a particular issue, like climate change, and so may present a skewed view of the science.

Instead, feel the message; feel the resonance of the message; feel the message’s energy. Does the energy of the message resonate with you? As Albert Einstein once said:

“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

Thinking critically means stepping out of right or wrong, good or bad, or true and false and using your intuition to feel the energy of the information you are receiving. Cambridge English Dictionary defines intuition as: “(knowledge from) an ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than facts.” Have you ever gotten a “vibe” from someone or something? Have you had a feeling that I’m unsafe, I’m in danger, or felt that something was a bad idea? I have. That is your intuition. Now use those same intuitive feelings to determine if a message you’re receiving is your truth. If it feels right, then it is your truth. If it feels incorrect, then it is someone else’s.

Start critically thinking for yourself. That is what I am doing. Not everyone likes it, as they want to debate me and prove me wrong. I will no longer allow bullies to manipulate me to think a certain way. I am stepping into my sovereignty and thinking for myself. I encourage you to do the same. That doesn’t mean I’ll disrespect their truth.