Old 10-18-2007, 02:53 AM   #1
coberst
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Default Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism


The standard teacher/pupil teaching technique accentuates the importance of acquiring knowledge. The Socratic technique accentuates the importance of understanding and critical thinking. Being knowledgeable of a matter and understanding a matter are very different categories of comprehension.

I thought I might compare and contrast the professional journalist with the professional military officer in an attempt to focus upon the difference and importance of these two intellectual traits of comprehension.

What might be the ideal character traits of these two professions? It seems that the military officer should be smart, well trained, obedient, and brave. The journalist should be smart, well trained, critical thinking, and honest. The journalist must have well-developed intellectual character traits and be skillful in critical thinking. The military officer should be trained to act somewhat like an automaton in critical circumstances.

The officer’s behavior in each conceivable circumstance should follow precisely a well-established code of action. The officer is trained to follow well-established algorithms in every circumstance. Even those instances wherein the officer is authorized to deviate from standard procedure are clearly defined algorithms. The officer deviates from established behavior only when absolutely necessary and that ad hoc behavior should follow along prescribed avenues. The officer obeys all commands without critical analysis except in very unusual circumstances. Bravery and obedience are the two most desired character traits of a military officer.

The role of the journalist in wartime has evolved dramatically in the last 50 years. During WWII the journalist acted as cheerleader and propagandist. During the Vietnam War the journalist often played the role of critical analyst. While one can see some positive reasons for the cheerleader and propagandist I will assume that overall this is not a proper role for the journalist in a democracy. The ideal journalist must always be a critical analyst and communicate honestly to the reader the results of her investigation.

Since most people unconsciously seek opinion fortification rather than truth they become very agitated when they find news which does not fortify their opinion. Thus, most people have low opinions of journalists. Nevertheless, it is no doubt the ideal journalist who presents the facts fairly, accurately, and in a balanced manner. The ability ‘to connect the dots’ in each situation is of primary importance for the ideal journalist. Knowledge is important but understanding and critical thinking is more important.

We certainly want our military officers educated more in the didactic mode than in the Socratic mode whereas we would find that journalist educated in the Socratic mode would be the better journalist. The journalist must be able to recognize the prejudices of others as well as recognizing his/her own biases.

What might one say as regarding the contrasting importance of critical thinking and knowledge for a teacher, engineer, accountant, nurse, factory worker or secretary? With consideration we probably will find that knowledge is more important than critical thinking when analyzing the individual as a worker. The credentials that appear on most resumes are those testifying to a degree of knowledge by the job applicant. We do not even have a metric for understanding or critical thinking.

I think it is correct to assume that knowledge can be imparted by a teacher to an individual more quickly and efficiently using the standard technique whereas the Socratic technique, while developing understanding and critical thinking, is much less efficient in imparting knowledge. Here, as in everything else there is a trade off. In a set period of time more knowledge can be imparted using the standard mode.

The question then becomes: is it more important to have citizens with greater knowledge and less understanding and critical thinking or citizens with greater understanding and critical thinking and less knowledge?

I claim that democracy is more dependent upon the citizen who exemplifies more the characteristic of the ideal journalist than the ideal military officer.

Democracy will eventually live or die based upon the degree of sophistication for critical thinking and understanding by our citizens. Our schools and colleges have made some small attempt to teach Critical Thinking but adults cannot wait for the distant future when many of our citizens have learned Critical Thinking. Today’s adult must proceed with the effort to become a self-learner of Critical Thinking.

I think there are several levels of critical thinking, do you agree?

Do you think that the journalist or the military officer offers the best example for educating the citizens of a democracy?
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Old 10-18-2007, 03:24 AM   #2
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Default Re: Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

i know we're not supposed to say this kind of stuff, but:

I DISAGREE WITH COBERST'S EXISTENCE.
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Old 10-18-2007, 05:07 AM   #3
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Default Re: Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

You're just one big 'ol hasty generalisation aren't you Coberst. Why not exercise a little of that critical thinking you advocate so much, and actually be critical instead of relying so heavily on inductive logic that doesn't actually hold up to scrutiny.
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Old 10-18-2007, 11:50 PM   #4
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Default Re: Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

What is your point Coberst? There is blind unquestioned receipt of information and there is the critical method. Shouldn't the fact that both these things exist and have always existed indicate they can and will continue to exist? I would say both have purpose. The former gives stability. It is much like stare decisis. The latter brings change and thus is the only way to improvement.

Another consideration. Criticism can only happen when there are a variance of perspectives which clash. The building of knowledge, even of the dogmatic variety, grants a greater potential for criticism and thus improvement.
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Old 10-19-2007, 07:53 AM   #5
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My point is about the importance of a critical self-consciousness for all citizens in a democracy. We can learn a great deal about the nature of criticism from such a giant as Matthew Arnold. Most people think that to be critical is to be negative and to be negative is to be cool. Critical Thinking is not about being negative or about being cool.

Matthew Arnold was a critic and a social benefactor. In his view the creative artist, no matter how much of a genius, would cut a sorry figure without the critic to come to his aid. Before Arnold a literary critic cared only for the beauties and defects of works of art, but Arnold the critic chose to be the educator and guardian of public opinion and propagator of the best ideas.

Cultural and critical values seem to be synonymous for Arnold. Scott James, comparing him to Aristotle, says that where Aristotle analyses the work of art, Arnold analyses the role of the critic. The one gives us the principles which govern the making of a poem, the other the principles by which the best poems should be selected and made known. Aristotle's critic owes allegiance to the artist, but Arnold's critic has a duty to society.

To Arnold poetry itself was the criticism of life: 'The criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty', and in his seminal essay The Study of Poetry' 1888) he says that poetry alone can be our sustenance and stay in an era where religious beliefs are fast losing their hold. He claims that poetry is superior to philosophy, science, and religion. Religion attaches its emotion to supposed facts, and the supposed facts are failing it, but poetry attaches its emotion to ideas and ideas are infallible. And science, in his view is incomplete without poetry. He endorses Wordsworth's view that 'poetry is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science', adding 'What is a countenance without its expression?' and calls poetry 'the breath and finer spirit of knowledge'.

As a critic Arnold is essentially a moralist, and has very definite ideas about what poetry should and should not be. Poetry of revolt against moral ideas, he says, is poetry of revolt against life, and poetry of indifference to moral ideas is poetry of indifference to life.

Arnold even censored his own collection on moral grounds. He omitted the poem Empedocles on Etna from his volume of 1853, whereas he had included it in his collection of 1852. The reason he advances, in the Preface to his Poems of 1853 is not that the poem is too subjective, with its Hamlet-like introspection, or that it was a deviation from his classical ideals, but that the poem is too depressing in its subject matter, and would leave the reader hopeless and crushed. There is nothing in it in the way of hope or optimism, and such a poem could prove to be neither instructive nor of any delight to the reader.

Aristotle says that poetry is superior to History since it bears the stamp of high seriousness and truth. If truth and seriousness are wanting in the subject matter of a poem, so will the true poetic stamp of diction and movement be found wanting in its style and manner. Hence the two, the nobility of subject matter, and the superiority of style and manner, are proportional and cannot occur independently.

Arnold took up Aristotle's view, asserting that true greatness in poetry is given by the truth and seriousness of its subject matter, and by the high diction and movement in its style and manner, and although indebted to Joshua Reynolds for the expression 'grand style', Arnold gave it a new meaning when he used it in his lecture On Translating Homer (1861):

I think it will be found that that the grand style arises in poetry when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with a severity a serious subject.

According to Arnold, Homer is the best model of a simple grand style, while Milton is the best model of severe grand style. Dante, however, is an example of both.

Even Chaucer, in Arnold's view, in spite of his virtues such as benignity, largeness, and spontaneity, lacks seriousness. Burns too lacks sufficient seriousness, because he was hypocritical in that while he adopted a moral stance in some of his poems, in his private life he flouted morality.
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Old 10-19-2007, 07:59 AM   #6
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Default Re: Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

I think the reason you are disliked so much is you are stating things rather than debating. I think you would be liked much more if you made your subjects more debatable.
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Old 10-19-2007, 02:45 PM   #7
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Default Re: Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

Quote:
Originally Posted by coberst View Post
ESSAY.
coberst, do you really need to make things this complicated? we're not worried about what other people like Arnold, or Scott James, or Aristotle, or Joshua Reynolds, or Chaucer think about this subject, we're worried about what YOU think about the subject.
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Old 10-19-2007, 03:48 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by foilman8805 View Post
coberst, do you really need to make things this complicated? we're not worried about what other people like Arnold, or Scott James, or Aristotle, or Joshua Reynolds, or Chaucer think about this subject, we're worried about what YOU think about the subject.
And therein is the problem. If a person wishes to learn a new domain of knowledge s/he should find the best spoksperson as a guide and not depend on the opinion of some passing individual. I just wish to make the reader conscious of important ideas so the s/he can go to the books and learn and perhaps even understand.
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Old 10-19-2007, 04:04 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by coberst View Post
And therein is the problem. If a person wishes to learn a new domain of knowledge s/he should find the best spoksperson as a guide and not depend on the opinion of some passing individual.
one man's spokesperson is another man's passing individual, and you, my friend, are a passing individual.
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Old 10-19-2007, 04:49 PM   #10
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Default Re: Democracy, Critical Thinking, & Journalism

Quote:
Originally Posted by coberst View Post
And therein is the problem. If a person wishes to learn a new domain of knowledge s/he should find the best spoksperson as a guide and not depend on the opinion of some passing individual. I just wish to make the reader conscious of important ideas so the s/he can go to the books and learn and perhaps even understand.
Then please explain why you are constantly throwing your opinion at people? Stop referring to your own life then, stop referring to your own experiences.

Simply post direct quotations from the individuals you seem to think are better spokespeople for the concepts.

If you are going to include your own opinion, then be prepared to discuss it directly, debate it directly and defend it directly, or get out of this debate and discussion forum.

We aren't here to be quoted at, we're here to -discuss-

Somehow you keep missing this point.
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