Thinking for Ourselves: Have We Forgotten How?

Thinking for ourselves involves much more than telling. It sometimes requires some questions.

“Judge a man by his questions, rather than his answers.” — Voltaire

Greetings my fellow Americans! As a former long-time Information Technology professional, and as a child of God growing up through the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s (and still growing), I’ve experienced, and witnessed firsthand, both the benefits, and side-effects, of increased automation and the conveniences which that has afforded virtually everyone. The digital computer, in its various forms, has revolutionized, streamlined and eased our quest for knowledge in its various forms. What used to require warehouses and volumes of books and files, and considerable research and legwork to accumulate, compile and reference is now as close as our handheld computers (aka phones), where we can, depending on the topic of interest, find countless web sites and tomes of information, merely by searching for that topic by its name or the name of something (or someone) related to it.

And while some of that “information” may have its origins in centuries- or millennia-old sources which have been transcribed verbatim into the digital forms we largely enjoy today, most of what we can reference was authored by contemporaries who have injected their own modern-day worldviews into the electronic discourse. However, because it’s all available via the same searches, and equally convenient, it’s all generally granted the same levels of trust and veracity because it shows up on those searches.

Social media play a somewhat similar role in information-sharing, with a slight twist to lend even more to the second-, third-, etc., trust of the consumers of that information: Someone does the initial research and/or authoring, then posts their findings or assertions on a site which “shares” it with others. How much more trustworthy is information shared by someone you’ve come to know and trust, and shareable with even more others. Enter the “viral” social media post, which takes on an air of truth all its own as it’s shared and consumed by millions of knowledge-hungry, and sociability-seeking, humans who have gathered around the virtual global water-cooler to chat about the hot topics of the day.

Having worked in the IT world as long as I did, I witnessed, and was directly involved in, many innovations of data collection, production and consumption which, upon looking back, seemed to have undergone quite radical changes in my lifetime. I still remember having a shelf full of the World Book Encyclopedia in my childhood home, which I used many times, whether it was to complete a homework assignment for school or to find out more about something I had heard or read about elsewhere. Was World Book the most trustworthy source of such information? I don’t know, but at the time it’s what my parents made available, and by virtue became a trusted source for me. Even with that, I still found myself having to visit the school or local library whenever our home encyclopedia proved to be insufficient to research the topic at hand. Again, I trusted that my schools, the cities in which I lived, and the Library of Congress which officially sanctioned the publication of those materials for local distribution, would only authorize and house sources of information which were reputable and credible, and which I could reference myself without damaging my own reputation and credibility.

It took much more effort and time to find what I was looking for, especially if I had to leave my home, but this is what we all had available in terms of historical reference material (along with back editions of newspapers for more current events) in those days. As a 21^st-Century consumer of news and information, I personally do not wish to completely return to those days, though I do believe we need to rejuvenate our collective ability to distinguish reputable sources of information from the converse, as well as to more diligently scrutinize those which we have historically trusted, who may be relying on that relatively blind trust to subtly and subconsciously shift the mindset of its loyal consumers.

A seemingly increasing number of people appear to advocate censorship as a means of separating the trustworthy information wheat from the chaff, so that they and the others with whom they socialize, collaborate, or “co-exist” are only exposed to that which has been deemed appropriate. In other words, the trust we increasingly lack in the credibility of what we see and hear from relatively unknown sources needs to rather be invested in relatively unknown censors (in both the public and private sectors) who will do our critical thinking for us when deciding its appropriateness for public consumption.

I’m intending to launch an expose’ series of our Bill of Rights with my next article, and wanted to set that up with this one. Because while the issue of censorship goes to the heart of the First Amendment directly, the seemingly lost art of critical thinking about this, and other issues, as well as the abdication of individual responsibility for exercising and ensuring those rights, goes to the very heart of those Rights, and our Constitution. I look forward to unpacking that with you over the coming weeks.

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