-------

I want to develop your mind. I want you to learn a skill that will help you understand what political doublespeak is all about.

That skill is called critical thinking.

It can help you in your career by finding new ways to do business and improve teamwork. It can help you in life by improving your decision making skills and formulate goals. It will help you spot manipulation of the populace by the media and politicians.

To start with, you need the correct attitude. You have to want it. It takes mental power. Just by reading this far I think you have it in you to train your mind.

You must also have the following characteristics, which are a high level of motivation, intellectual humility, open minded but also having skepticism, and to be a free thinker.

Img Source

Intellectual Humility

This means that when you form an opinion on a subject you must be prepared to examine all the evidence FOR and AGAINST it. Many times an important matter cannot be boiled down to a simple yes or no, or black and white. Often a subject is a shade of grey, especially if it complex. Sometimes you can’t come to a conclusion with the data or time available, so saying that you don’t know is best.

Skepticism and an Open Mind

These two go hand in hand, as being too much of a skeptic will leave you doubting everything and too open minded will lead you to gullibility. You must examine the issue from many different viewpoints, and rationally look for the bad and the good points of each side. The most important thing is getting to the truth of the matter. To do this use facts backed up by reliable sources and reasoning. You must be able to accept that your initial opinion of the matter might be flawed.

A Free Thinker

To become a critical thinker, you must have an independent mind. You cannot adopt a position because the majority believe it, or because of social pressures. For most people, this is the most difficult characteristic to realize. It can take some people a lot of effort to overcome their current opinions to complete an objective investigation of the subject.

High Motivation

Most important of all, a critical thinker cannot be lazy. To think critically is not easy, you must have the motivation to look at all the data from multiple sides. You must question everything so as to have as much essential knowledge as possible. You must have the curiosity to expand your understanding above all, at times even digging into discomforting subjects.
Img Source

Questions to ask yourself to help you think critically are:

IS IT CLEAR – Elaborate, Examples, Illustrate, Can you express it in another way?

IS IT ACCURATE – Is it true? How can you check the statement to see if it is factual?

IS IT PRECISE – Details? Specifics?

IS IT RELEVANT – How does it relate to the issue? How it is connected?

HOW DEEP DID YOU LOOK – Are you taking all the issues into discussion? Did you answer all complexities?

HOW BROAD DID YOU LOOK – Look at it from all angles. Brainstorm an angle you may have missed.

IS IT LOGICAL – Does it make sense? Does everything follow everything else?

WERE YOU FAIR – Did you leave personal bias out? We naturally view things from our own perspective.

Obstructions to Critical Thinking

There are four main categories that stop most people from being able to think logically and critically: human limitations, language, faulty logic, and psychological traps. @logic made an awesome post about some of these faulty arguments click HERE to see expanded examples.
Img Source

Human Limitations

Physical and Emotional – Stress, fatigue, drugs affect the ability to think clearly

Confirmation Bias – Looking for only what you agree with, ignoring data that contradicts

Testimonial Evidence – Using stories as fact even though stories are easily inaccurate and biased

Personal Prejudice – Unique lives and experiences create personal bias, you must remain objective

False Memories – Over time our memories tend to ‘fill in the gaps’ with things that didn’t really happen

Language Use

Doublespeak/Jargon – Using technical terms to make simple things complex or small matters seem great

Meaningless Comparison – Making things appear related but aren’t

Assuring Expressions – Used to disarm from questioning the truth of an argument

Ambiguity – Using words that have more than one meaning in an attempt to confuse

False Implications – Clear and concise but misleads

Emotive Content – Using words to achieve feelings about the matter to bias others

Faulty Logic

Pragmatic Fallacy – Saying it is true because it works, even though the outcome is not proven linked

Slippery Slope – Assuming that a chain of events will occur, but having no proof

Inappropriate Comparison – Using irrelevant similarities

Arguing from Ignorance – Saying something is true because it hasn’t been proven false

Apophenia – Viewing unrelated facts as being connected to each other

False analogy – Using illogical analogies as proof

Psychological Traps

Red Herring – Evade the issue by diverting attention to an irrelevant one

Poisoned Well – Create a prejudice against the other viewpoint so they are not perceived fairly

Ad Hominem Fallacy – Criticizing the person, not the argument itself

False Dilemma – Also known as either/or, restrict any further alternatives from consideration

Bandwagon – Popularity of the belief is enough of a reason to accept it

Emotional Appeals – Using emotions over facts since emotion influences far more people than logic

Img Source
Folks, it seems that every day we are exposed to an enormous amount of bullshit that hurts our ability to think rationally and logically. Sometimes we create the impediment ourselves by our own human limitations. Other times it is an assault on the truth from a source that wants to conceal what they are really doing.

Think about the obstructions to our critical thought I just listed. Can you think of times that something I listed has happened?

I can, especially under the Psychological Traps sections. Red herrings, Poisoned Well, Ad hominem, Bandwagon, Emotional Appeals, False Dilemmas, to me those are the easiest to see and I see them all around. It saddens me to see people fall for such clear and basic manipulations. And those are just the obvious ones, many more are hidden!

I don’t claim to be the best critical thinker, but I try to call it when I see it. Critical thinking is one way you can avoid being manipulated by whatever source wants to control your mind.

Source: When we hit certain career milestones in my profession we are given an opportunity to attend personal development classes. I was going through the notes I had taken while at this course a few years back and decided to write this up, as I thought it would be useful. This post has been an expansion of my notes and memories of the course.