www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050113.shtml
My assistant sorts the incoming mail into various categories, such as "cr itical mail," "fan mail," etc. It may be bombastic or vituperative or full of pop psychology , but it seldom presents a critical argument based on facts or logic. Too many people today act as if no one can honestly disagree with them. If you have a difference of opinion with them, you are considered to be not merely in error but in sin. You are a racist, a homophobe or whateve r the villain of the day happens to be. Disagreements are inevitable whenever there are human beings but we seem to be in an era when the art of disagreeing is vanishing. That is a hug e loss because out of disagreements have often come deeper understanding s than either side had before confronting each other's arguments. Even wacko ideas have led to progress, when dealt with critically, in te rms of logic and evidence. The medieval noti on of turning lead into gold -- alchemy -- led to chemistry, from which have come everything from a wide range of industrial products and consum er goods to more productive agriculture and life-saving drugs. Where an argument starts is far less important than where it finishes be cause the logic and evidence in between is crucial. Unfortunately, our e ducational system is not only failing to teach critical thinking, it is often itself a source of confused rhetoric and emotional venting in plac e of systematic reasoning. It is hard to think of a stronger argument for teaching people to examin e arguments critically than the tragic history of 20th century totalitar ianism and its horrors in peace and war. Dictators often gained total po wer over a whole nation by their ability to arouse emotions and evade th ought. Watch old newsreels of Hitler and watch the adoring and enraptured look on the faces in his audience. Then read what he said and see if it makes any sense whatever. Yet he convinced others -- and himself -- that he h ad a great message and a great mission. The same could be said of Lenin, of Mao, of Pol Pot, and of countless ot her despots, large and small, who brought devastation to the people they ruled. It is not even necessary to look solely at government leaders. C ult leader Jim Jones used the same ability to sway people's emotions and numb their brains to lead them ultimately to mass deaths in his Guiana compound. Instead of trying to propagandize children to hug trees and recycle garb age, our schools would be put to better use teaching them how to analyze and test what is said by people who advocate tree-hugging, recycling, a nd innumerable other causes across the political spectrum. The point is not to teach them correct conclusions but to teach them to be able to use their own minds to analyze the issues that will come up i n the years ahead, which may have nothing to do with recycling or any of the other issues of our time. Rational disagreement can be not only useful but stimulating. Many years ago, when my friend and colleague Walter Williams and I worked on the s ame research project, he and I kept up a running debate on the reasons w hy blacks excelled in some sports and were virtually non-existent in oth ers. Walter was convinced that the reasons were physical while I thought the reasons were social and economic. Walter would show me articles on physi ology from scholarly journals, using them as explanations of why blacks had so many top basketball players and few, if any, swimming champions. We never settled that issue but it provided lively debates and we may bo th have learned something. She read something of mine that she disagreed with and told a mutual friend. He in turn sugges ted that we get together for lunch and hash out our differences. Although we have now been married more than 20 years, we have still not completely settled our differences over that issue. There are a lot of reasons to be able to have rational discussions about things on which people disagree.
Applied Economics So much of our national political debate these days revolves around econo mic matters -- taxes, health care, even affirmative action and immigrati on policy -- that it is essential for every informed American to have a working knowledge of economics. Now the renowned conservative economist Thomas Sowell has made it possible for you to grasp quickly and easily t he economic elements of key public policies -- even if economics has alw ays seemed dry and forbidding in the past.
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