Guest view: An armed citizenry of critical thinkers

Lou Matz
Lou Matz is a community columnist for the Stockton Record.

Among the different groups of students recognized at Lincoln High School’s recent graduation were those going into the military to protect our country against foreign threats. As we applauded them for their future service, I could not but think how every American citizen can provide an equally important service to protect the U.S. from one of its most imminent domestic threats: a lack of critical thinking.  

The lack of critical thinking is frequently on display, but it has been most apparent in our current political culture, where facts and well-supported theories have been politicized, impervious to objective evidence and logical reasoning. For example, despite the most secure national election in U.S. history, 53% of Republicans still believe that Trump really won the election, and 47 states in response have introduced or passed legislation to restrict the sacred political right to vote. And despite the evidence of their safety, the 20 states with the highest rate of at least one vaccine dose voted for Biden, while 19 of the 21 states with the lowest rates voted for Trump. 

Our democracy and civic life are in serious trouble if the citizenry cannot transcend its biased emotions, fanciful thinking, and political and religious tribalisms to exercise critical thinking skills and value them as essential to our domestic security and well-being. In fact, critical thinking should be viewed as an ethical obligation since how we reason and how we form our beliefs often directly affect or impact others through our words and actions. In this way, citizens should guard their thinking by improving on how to distinguish good arguments from bogus ones, just as the military guards our national security.  

One way to improve critical thinking skills is to recognize common false forms of reasoning and hold others accountable for these distortions. Here are some types of illogical reasoning that I find to be prevalent in our political culture as well as in columns and letters in The Record.  

Assertions: People often only assert a claim to be true without giving any reasoning. Assertion is no argument but stands in need of one. Any claim or belief can be asserted, but justified beliefs require plausible evidence and reasons.  

Confirmation bias: This is the tendency to focus only on evidence that confirms one’s beliefs or wishes and ignore or minimize contrary evidence. Critical thinkers honestly acknowledge reasons and evidence against their beliefs, and they are willing to change their minds based on where evidence and logical reasoning lead. This takes intellectual and emotional courage, as much as any display of “physical” courage.  

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Logical inconsistency: One’s beliefs should be logically consistent. Sometimes this inconsistency is hypocrisy. Conservatives cannot simultaneously support the rule of law and order and refuse to condemn the Capitol insurrection, or object to “socialist” policies yet not also condemn governmental subsidies. 

False dilemma: This is the assumption that there are only two alternatives when in fact logically there are more. For example, one often hears conservatives argue that policymakers must choose between having governmental assistance programs or self-reliance and individual responsibility, but both are possible at the same time.  

Slippery slope: This is the usually bogus argument, and fear tactic, that some legal restriction or new initiative will inevitably lead to dire consequences, when there is no evidence for this potential. For example, opponents of gun control often assert that any restrictions are the first step to taking away all gun ownership, or opponents of honestly teaching about our nation’s racist history, such as in the 1619 Project, will lead to a hatred of our country.   

False equivalence: Just because events have similarities does not mean they are equivalent. Many conservatives argue that the Jan. 6 Capitol “protest” was no different than Black Lives Matter “protests.” But these are not the same because of the motivation and context of protests. BLM protests were in reaction to violations of civil rights and racism; the Capitol protest was in support of lies about the 2020 presidential election. And storming the Capitol was a literal and symbolic insurrection against the U.S. government, unlike breaking into stores or state buildings.  

These are merely some of the false forms of reasoning that too often pretend to pass as legitimate reasoning in our political culture. It takes practice to learn about logical reasoning and, just as importantly, to resist strong personal emotions and social forces to become more honest and impartial critical thinkers. An armed citizenry of critical thinkers is an urgent moral imperative.  

Lou Matz is an aging basketball player and professor of philosophy at University of the Pacific.