Adam Blatner

I suspect that many people who went to college and got exposed a little to critical thinking have not as yet learned what a radical bunch of ideas it involves, and how it applies to almost everything:
  – what the relationships between men and women should be about
  – how to parent or educate kids
  – what religion should be and should not be
  – what is and is not unfair in the realm of economics and politics
  – what of history is not just a little but rather very much biased?
  – just maybe might there be a better way to organize our politics?
      – could it be true that we really do need to revise our nation’s Constitution?
  – ditto our systems of justice and crime and punishment
  – ditto our laws regarding race, religion, taxes, inheritance, minorities, homosexuality, and the list goes on
  – what obligations might we have towards those who are not that good with words, language? Could it be that lawyers get away with too much on technicalities?
  – how much of advertising and political campaigns appeal to the nonrational?
     – do people yet know about the way a word is used, which words, semantics, have power?
     – or about the existence of logical and historical fallacies and illusions?
  – in science, how to be misleading with statistics? What are the tricks pharmaceutical industries who advertise their “new” medicines use? Or other supposedly above-it-all scientific reports?
… and no doubt I’ve left out a bunch of items.  I welcome your emailing me and suggesting things.

The Place of Non-Rationality

Lest I be misinterpreted, let me note that in its proper place where it adds juice, myth, love, joy to the world, I value the nonrational greatly. I play with fantasy in the sections on this website called Foolin’ Around or Zordak’s Journal. I prize my playful wackiness and enjoy it in others. But in religion and politics and other places when folks are trying to argue about the way it “really” is, I shift gears into critical thinking. “But is it so?” is my motto then.