Critical Analytical Thinking is Mandatory to Find Truth in the Sea of Propaganda

by

       M. Richard Maxson

      Media overlords and governments, with their own agendas, take words out of context and with the use exaggeration or omission push their progressive propaganda as fact. Corporations using their “entertainment channels” disguised as news, such as MSNBC and CNN, roll out slanted pablum for the masses 24/7 to push THEIR point of view. That’s why in today’s world, with information being downgraded to sound bites seconds long, more than ever, critical analytical thinking is imperative to find truth. It is not just out there for harvesting, no, truth in the twenty-first century is elusive at best and the quest for real truth has become hard work.

      Rene Descartes is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern philosophy and critical thinking. Rationalism is the idea “that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge.” The term 'rationalist' is used to refer to free thinkers, ones not led by majority opinion. He stated, “As regards any subject we propose to investigate, we must inquire not what other people have thought, or what we ourselves conjecture, but what we can clearly and manifestly perceive by intuition or deduce with certainty for there is no other way of acquiring knowledge.” The methods used in critical analytical thinking cut like a knife through modern day so-called news and information. These should be mastered and when they are, every time you pick up on a story whether in print or video, you will see things in a different light. That light is truth.

 

• What is the main argument or line of reasoning and is the line of reasoning clear? Note any statements from the text which strengthen its line of reasoning or prove the argument. What statements, if any, undermine the argument? (To recognize propaganda, view information from outside your country’s media sphere. Ed.)

• What hidden agendas might the writer or speaker have that might make you question the contents or conclusions of the message? Consider what they might hope to gain through writing this piece. What information might be missing that could paint a different picture? (Take the opposite position to obtain a full view of the subject. Ed.)

• What kinds of evidence or examples does the writer use? How reliable and useful is this evidence? Does it really support the argument? Is the evidence strong enough? Is the data up-to-date? Does the text use reliable sources? What are these? What makes you think they are or are not reliable? (Does it use evidence from a neutral source or only one side of the discussion? Ed.)

• Do you think there may be any bias in the text? Are the statistics used give a true and full picture? Does their writing reflect a political viewpoint? Who might disagree? (Are there any non-biased confirming statistics? Ed.)

     

      “If, after we have recognized Intuitively a number of simple truths, we wish to draw any inference from them, it is useful to run them over in a continuous and uninterrupted act of thought, to reflect upon their relations to one another, and to grasp together distinctly a number of these propositions so far as is possible at the same time for this is a way of making our knowledge much more certain, and of greatly increasing the power of the mind.” - Rene Descatres