Get Real! wrote:Or maybe you assume that by proving her wrong it’s gonna change her nationality and she’ll lose her love for Greece just because a bunch of crooked politicians screwed her country up.
For me the point of discussion is not to seek to 'defeat' an 'enemy' by any means fair or foul. For me the point of discussion is a means to seek to improve and develop my own ability for 'critical thinking'.
Get Real! wrote:It’ll never happen… Oracle will always be Greek no matter what, .....
People don’t change just because they get beat in a debate or two… I’ve noticed that if anything they get even more defensive!
To have love for one's country ,or a culture, does not require you to therefore have to suspend all effort to 'think critically'. Imo no one could seriously doubt Yanis Varoufakis' passionate love for Greece yet such passionate love for Greece does not require him to have to suspend his undoubted considerable ability to think critically. He routinely shows both passionate love for his country
and displays the highest levels of critical thinking.
The issue here is not that GiG lacks the ability to 'think critically' , because she is 'just a girl' or because she 'loves Greece so much' as you seem to suggest. The issue is that she systematically tries to use her undoubted intelligence to actively pervert the very fundamentals of critical thinking in herself and to relentlessly attack those who do not do so. Such wilful suspension of and attack on the act of 'critical thinking' in the name of 'loving ones country or culture' is in my view a root and requirement of extremism and should rightly be a cause for concern. For example GiG claiming that the reason, or probable reason or possible reason why Luxembourg does not appear on wikipedia's list of debtor nations by NIIP per capita is because they have not submitted figures, is not a 'mistake' on her part. She clearly has the intellectual capacity to know this is just not true. The decision to state something that she has every ability to know is simply not true is an active choice and represents not a lack of ability to think critical but an active assault on the very process of critical thinking. For me such behaviour demands challenge, not slack cutting.
Linda Elder wrote:Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They strive to improve the world in whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so. They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement. They embody the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living , because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.
