[coberst (OP)]

Critical Thinker Habitually Pulls Back the Curtain

I guess, for all of us, a meme that gives impetuous to much of our behavior is the “capitalism is good” meme. This meme, with its closest suburbs, probably represents a fundamental element of the dominant ideology of western culture.

This cluster of memes contains the wonderful “doing good by doing well” meme. This is the rascal that allows us to follow our imperialistic impulses. This meme allows us to invade Iraq under false pretenses, it allows us to open our borders to those who will work cheap, it allows for the “trickle down” economic theory, it allowed the Nineteenth Century imperialism practiced by our European cousins, etc.

Most of the memes we live by have never been examined by any of us. I suspect this one, in particular, needs to be placed on the table for close individual examination.

We saw the Nineteenth Century birth of a new economic entity, the corporation. A recent delivery of a new economic entity has occurred. This is the corporation-state. The new supranational corporation is here and on a fast freight. I suspect all these things happened too fast for a liberal democracy to encompass; so much for liberal democracy.

CT is about analyzing and understanding.

One thing I have learned about playing chess is that for almost every move there is a bad judgment a good judgment and a better judgment.  And I also learned that one pays a price for each bad judgment.

In life we are constantly making judgments.  There is an art and science for judgment making and it is called Critical Thinking.  Our schools and colleges have prepared us to make good judgments about special matters as it might pertain to our job but have done little to prepare us for the constant judgment making.  CT is about learning how to think.

[Evie]

One could argue that "training" in judgement-making is under the purview of one's parents or guardians, not schools. Unfortunately, many parents are under the impression that school should do everything for their children.

Most of the memes we live by have never been examined by any of us.

One should avoid blanket statements such as this in a cogent argument. It can serve to put others on the offensive (as many of us have examined the memes and social conventions by which we live) and show you to be too close-minded or arrogant to be reasoned with.

[Make it Lady]

Coberst, I am presuming that you live in the UK. If this is the case you are, as from September 2008 in England, incorrect. Every secondary school has to teach Global Citizenship throughout the curriculum. This includes Critical Thinking skills. This should help children to make those everyday decisions that could have consequences around the world. I know this to be true because I am currently training teachers in this field.
If you are interested google "oxfam" and "global citizenship" and you will get a good downloadable booklet on the topic. Happy reading.