Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The decline of critical thinking

Street signs pointing to lies and truth
3D_generator/Getty Images

Radwell is the author of “American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nationand serves on the Business Council at Business for America. This is the sixth entry in a 10-part series on the American schism in 2024.

In last week’s article, I expounded upon the fall of American journalism and explained why the media industry, as currently incentivized, is provoking and exacerbating a healthy chunk of the American schism by intensifying polarization. Within the predominant business model, today’s media industry has relegated the pursuit of truth to the back burner. In its place, a significant portion of the industry today relentlessly deploys sensationalism as its principal tactic to attract clicks and eyeballs.

Moreover, this “journalistic approach” is intermingled with the dissemination of carefully tailored yet quite distorted narratives to best coddle consumers within the shelter of their own information bubbles.


In accordance with this line of thinking, the solution space to the “media problem” can best be demarcated by the necessity to create better incentives for profitable media business models that once again put the pursuit of truth at the center of the value hierarchy. This is undoubtedly a challenge given a stubborn reality, namely that the lion’s share of the media industry has become reliant on advertising as the sole profit engine. Further, with the command of artificial intelligence and advanced advertising targeting capabilities, consumers have been relegated to pushing buttons while entrapped in our individual Skinner boxes, an enclosure in which an animal pushes a lever to get its reward. How many of us today get our anticipated adrenaline reward when mouse clicks or phone taps become our lever? Digital advertising has effectively become a mechanistic behavior modification tool.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

But this perspective represents at best half the overall problem – the share of the pie related to the supply side of the media industry. What about the demand side? Why don’t enough American consumers insist on more accountable journalism? Shouldn’t a larger portion of viewership or readership demand more factual information? With the exception of a few national print newspapers, why do we as consumers tolerate sensational entertainment masquerading as news today, particularly after transcending centuries of yellow journalism via the curation of an ethical profession in more recent history?

And herein lies the other half of the problem – the slow decline of critical thinking in a population where too many consumers get lost in a sea of noise, and abandon the pursuit of truth altogether. With waning ability to evaluate sources of information, consumers too often today fail to seek out alternative viewpoints; instead they swallow hook, line and sinker what their favorite political hack or elected official spouts out.

Simply stated, critical thinking is sound thinking built on top of our fundamental human capacities of observation and reason. But rigorous thinking requires making choices about what sources to pursue for information and using reason and judgment to weigh the invariably conflicting data coming from different fronts. Today, ironically perhaps, we have turned this type of thinking on its proverbial head: As opposed to using facts and reason to arrive at a point of view, the opinion comes first, followed by a quest for whatever alternative facts might support it.

In previous generations, critical thinking was the very foundation of education. In more recent decades, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education has effectively crowded out not only civics classes but the pursuit of inquiry in the gamut of social sciences where students of yesteryear learned to grapple with complex issues relating to the body populace and society. In previous times, high school debate clubs were common and classes specifically designed around critical thinking were the norm. In these contexts, a typical assignment entailed students developing an argument for one side of an issue, complete with supporting data within a logical framework, and then subsequently making the case for the counter argument, with the same meticulousness. These types of learning environments fostered the assiduous development of empirical and rational skills which were not only nice to have but which in fact provide the foundation for a democratic republic.

Lest we forget that it was the French Enlighteners, like Diderot and Condorcet, who outlined the explicit educational needs upon which a representative democracy rests. These requirements were unambiguously developed in response to the domination of the church-mandated educational curriculum of previous centuries. Within the framework of the day, the ecclesiastics who provided instruction had scant ability or desire to cultivate the empirical and rational skills of the secular realm, core values of the Enlightenment. In writing the 1792 French Constitution (before the Reign of Terror in which he gave up his life), Condorcet delineated an entire set of educational programs that were to be mandated for provision by the state to all citizens of all classes. Abandoning such may provide the fuel for firebrands and manipulators, and usually proceeds down the path toward autocracy.

Once again, history can act as a salve for our wounds, if only we would apply it.

Read More

Dictionary entry for "democracy"
Lobro78.Getty Images

Paving the path forward to strengthening democracy

Kristina Becvar and David L. Nevins, co-publishers of The Fulcrum, announced recently that effective Jan. 1, Hugo Balta, The Fulcrum’s director of solutions journalism and DEI initiatives, will serve as executive editor. What follows is a message from Balta about his new responsibility.

In the aftermath of this year’s contentious presidential election, it is imperative to heal a democracy fractured by polarization, emphasizing the importance of dialogue, accountability, and inclusive and transparent governance.

Journalism plays a pivotal role in upholding democratic values and ensuring the health of democratic systems. As our country faces complex challenges, the significance of a free and independent press becomes increasingly evident.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hugo Balta

The Fulcrum's new executive editor: Hugo Balta

As co-publishers of The Fulcrum, we are proud to announce that, effective Jan. 1, Hugo Balta, The Fulcrum’s director of solutions journalism and DEI initiatives, will serve as executive editor.

Hugo is an award-winning, 30-year multimedia journalism veteran with multiple market and platform experience, including leadership positions in NBC, Telemundo, ABC, CBS, and PBS, among other storied news networks. A nationally recognized diversity in journalism advocate, he is the recipient of the 2024 Cecilia Vaisman Award from Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Hugo is the only person to serve twice as president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Hugo and his family live in Chicago.

Keep ReadingShow less
Cell phone showing logos of Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Microsfot
Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Big Tech is suppressing industrial liberty

This is the second entry in “Big Tech and Democracy,” a series designed to assist American citizens in understanding the impact technology is having — and will have — on our democracy. The series explores the benefits and risks that lie ahead and offers possible solutions.

Industrial liberty — once a cornerstone of American antitrust policy — has faded into obscurity in the shadow of Big Tech’s overwhelming dominance. In short, industrial liberty refers to your ability to use and benefit from your skills, your knowledge and your passion. It manifests as entrepreneurs and small-business owners, through patents and innovations, and as everyday folks finding good work every day. This erosion of this specific sort of liberty not only undermines the principles of competition but also stifles the aspirational spirit that has for so long distinguished the American public.

Keep ReadingShow less
People standing outside the Capitol

Dozens of members of Congress have had their likeness used in nonconsensual intimate imagery, otherwise known as deepfake porn. The majority of those impacted are women.

Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

AI enters Congress: Sexually explicit deepfakes target women lawmakers

Originally published by The 19th.

More than two dozen members of Congress have been the victims of sexually explicit deepfakes — and an overwhelming majority of those impacted are women, according to a new study that spotlights the stark gender disparity in this technology and the evolving risks for women’s participation in politics and other forms of civic engagement.

Keep ReadingShow less