THE ART OF CRAP DETECTION

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Idealist thrive in their own little worlds because they ignore the facts that challenge their ideals. Using examples of different forms of government that have flaws creates relatability because we all know supporters who refuse to acknowledge mistakes or find ways to justify for the sake of keeping their ideal alive. “Patriotism” translates to devotion to one’s country yet Santha Rama Rau called it a dirty emotion because patriotic citizens seem to support their country and sing its praises yet forget the neglect, poverty and deaths that they’ve endured in their country. Those who are swayed by persuasive language used as a tool to manipulate them creates die hard supporters who pose a major threat because their BS radars are compromised. The comparison between an honored general in the US Army who cost an astronomical number of casualties in the Vietnam War to that of a Italian Mobster to prove a point that most will find a way to justify those deaths yet one thing remains true which is that murder is murder.

Ideologies are strengthened by effective communication by its supporters. The greater the number of believers the more it multiplies in severity that will potentially blow up a unprepped crap detector. Self-awareness is the first step to the enhancement of sensitivity to the facts so that you make clear minded comparisons. Asking intellectual questions that dig deeper helps break down these ideologies to the core so that you can differentiate the bullshit and distorted facts to concrete evidence. This type of thinking should be implemented early on in our curriculum. Rather than teaching ideals that the youth blindly follow the current curriculum should be altered to equip the kids with a different mentality that should be used when approaching a problem. Rather than self-serving ideas they need to know how to support their views with factual evidence in a clear manner vs emotionally driven that puts off bs vibrations like the Valdivia Earthquake. He makes a valid point that it will be near impossible to change the curriculum and attitudes in our present-day classrooms so that it can nurture critical thinkers because teachers are hardwired from their days in school to conform to ideals manufactured by popular culture and the media.

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Ideology thrives because people who choose to be ignorant to the facts but supportive of their ideals have broken crap detectors. The basis of success for society to fix their bs radars begin in the classroom but it seems that it would be extremely difficult to change because our youth are taught be educators who were never taught to think with intellectual depth. Our society filled with idealist broadcast their beliefs to whoever may listen to draw them in with their clever words that have no regard for concrete facts. The fact that we fail to prepare our youth to think critically for themselves is a tragedy that not many people are aware of because many are blinded by their own ideals. Trump supporters are dubbed as “Patriots” that are rising to make America great again by supporting this upstanding President who has belittled women, multiple sexual assault allegations and blatant disregard for the environment. His supporters will see no faults in his actions and will probably either compare him to Obama or give him credit for his business’s but at the end of the day their bs detectors are broken. The purpose of this assignment was to showcase the importance of critical thinking. How will we continue to improve our crap-detectors?