Tag Archive for: groupthink

What’s the Opposite of Critical Thinking?

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As you’ll see, there’s a LOT of this going on!

In my last commentary, I elaborated on a proposed definition of Critical Thinking. Although there were a few suggested refinements, I received no major objections. (If you have any, please put them in the comments below.)

Equally important is what Critical Thinking is NOT. Towards that end, in my most recent article, I outlined a brief layperson overview of some actions that would be considered the opposite of Critical Thinking:

People accepting what is currently politically correct, going along with consensus, deferring to experts, supporting the conclusions of computer programs, buying into one-sided presentations of facts, etc., etc.

I thought I would again test out the new version of Poe AI: Claude-3.5-Sonnet, to see what it had to say about that question — and the answer was rather good:

“The opposite of Critical Thinking could be described in several ways, depending on the context and specific aspects of Critical Thinking being considered. Some possible opposites or contrasts to Critical Thinking include:

  1. Uncritical Thinking: Accepting information or ideas without questioning or analyzing them.
  2. Gullibility: Being easily persuaded or deceived, lacking skepticism.
  3. Dogmatism: Adhering rigidly to preconceived notions or beliefs without considering alternative viewpoints.
  4. Emotional reasoning: Basing conclusions solely on feelings rather than logic and evidence.
  5. Impulsive Thinking: Making quick judgments without careful consideration of facts and consequences.
  6. Confirmation Bias: Seeking out only information that supports pre-existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.
  7. Groupthink: Conforming to popular opinion without individual critical analysis.
  8. Magical Thinking: Believing in unnatural causality or disregarding logic and evidence in favor of wishful thinking.
  9. Fallacious Reasoning: Relying on logical fallacies or invalid arguments to draw conclusions.
  10. Closed-mindedness: Refusing to consider new ideas or perspectives that challenge existing beliefs.

These behaviors and thought patterns represent various ways in which people might engage in non-critical thinking — essentially doing the opposite of what Critical Thinking entails.”

Yes, those are all bad intellectual habits that should be comprehensively and objectively discussed, (particularly when teaching Science in K-12 schools), so that they can be studiously avoided. However, in general, that is NOT happening (e.g., none of these ten items are covered in the NGSS)…

This is an enormous deficiency in our K-12 education system that needs to be properly fixed, yesterday!

©2024. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: One of the most important videos you can watch on Critical Thinking.

Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

Florida: Groupthink on the Sarasota County School Board

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school board compositI am always fascinated by how politicians, once elected, don’t do what they promised in order to get elected. Rather they become part of “the system”. They become influenced by bureaucrats, forget they represent their constituents and pass laws, rules, and regulations which harm their very constituents. They in effect become group thinkers.

Groupthink is an oxymoron. You see it is not about thinking, rather it is about the group (collective). Wikipedia has this definition of Groupthink:

A psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.

The Sarasota County School Board members, with one exception, suffers from groupthink. Because of this it has resulted in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcomes. One example is the misuse of tax dollars.

YourObserver.com staff in an op-ed stated:

It has been a month and a half, but many of you still will remember the cyclone that whirled about the Sarasota County School Board over its selection of a construction manager for the Suncoast Technical College’s North Port campus.

At the recommendation of Superintendent Lori White, the board voted 4-1 to bypass its selection committee and go with Willis Smith Construction.

The lone “no” vote came from Bridget Ziegler, the rookie board member who was elected last November.

The day after the vote, Ziegler, age 32, posted her rationale and comments on her Facebook page (see box).

Whoa.

At the April 21 School Board meeting, Ziegler’s fellow board members delivered to Ziegler what easily can be called a smackdown, chastising her for seven minutes for speaking out and not following the other members’ board protocol.

Talk about taking Ziegler to the woodshed. “Hey, missy, you need to learn a thing or two before you go spouting off.” That’s the way it comes across.

Among the disturbing comments came from board member Jane Goodwin: “I just hope in the future you’ll … consider that you have a loyalty to this board and … we represent the Sarasota County School Board …”

So what we have on the Sarasota County School Board is one thinker, Bridgette Ziegler, and four followers. The issue is that the Sarasota County School Board selected a vendor whose bid was $4.5 million higher than the lowest qualified vendor. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Shelby Web reported, “The board voted 4-1 to follow Superintendent Lori White’s advice to hire Willis A. Smith instead of A.D. Morgan Corp., which had said it could do the job for about $4.5 million less.”

Does this not appear to be a dysfunctional decision? Aren’t the board members supposed to be good stewards of the people’s property (tax dollars)?

Why do we see politicians at every level become group thinkers? 

Perhaps Frédéric Bastiat’s  who penned the seminal work The Law said it best. He pointed out that the relationship between the rulers and the ruled becomes distorted, and a sense of systemic injustice pervades the culture. Bastiat observed this in horror in his time, and it’s a good description of what happened at the Sarasota County School Board:

The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.

The collective must silence those who think – namely Bridgette Ziegler. However, I do not believe Ms. Ziegler will be silenced.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Artsy Magazine.