Where Did All the Crap-Detectors Go?

There is a phrase young folk use that I really like. When someone is saying something that they know can't be true, something that sets off their crap-detector, they tell them "I'm calling bullshit on that!"

The term crap-detector might have been coined, and was certainly used, by Earnest Hemingway, writing about the qualities a good writer must have. My personal use of the term stretches back into my youth. Young folk should always be suspicious and I certainly was.

In my opinion, the purpose of a good education is to give young folks the ability to think critically and, especially, to think for themselves. As a parent, this was something I made sure both our children had.

These days a crap-detector is more important than ever, with so much nonsense on the internet and in the media, cleverly cloaked to seem plausible and factual. Some might think, because the big lie has made such a striking return in the past three years, that concern in the educational community about this is new, however, here is a good article from 2013, "The Art and Science of Crap Detection".

In the last few decades, educators in North America have been pressured to devote less time to encouraging critical thought by the introduction of standardized testing (a process of finding how well a student can regurgitate any form of nonsense put before them) by a series of neoliberal governments. Even when standardized tests include problem solving, the type of problem is predictable - designed so that students can be coached intensively. All of this coaching involves an emphasis on certain narrow skills. It does not involve development of the young person's critical thought processes.

There is little doubt that politicians and power brokers want, more than anything, to have a population that is easily led. A population taught to mindlessly regurgitate nonsense in order to pass a test is a perfect recipe for their ideal; a mindless and gullible electorate.

It seems to me that a trend in leadership for the mainstream political parties has been to select a front-person who can do the best distraction dance.

Some of these party leaders are quite amazing. Imagine a person who has had money and privilege all their life, who has openly stated their disdain for the poor in the past, managing to convince large groups of poor that in spite of the voting record of their party, they are "in it for the average working-class stiff". That sort of shell game works best on a populace that cannot manage, or be bothered, to know that the legislation being passed is almost exclusively designed to keep them poor and ignorant, and put more money into the hands of those who already have too much.

Can we find a way to move the focus of whole electorates to the truth of the bait-and-switch that is going on? Can anyone retune and set off the long neglected crap-detectors of whole nations?

I will not blindly trust information I find online. I will not ...