An Investment into the Future of Democracy

There is a question that concerned thinkers often ask about the condition of the United States. It goes, in some form or another, like this: “How do we protect our democracy from the ravages of an ignorant and heard-like populous who can be swayed by specious arguments and misguided rhetoric?” It is asked in chalk and with open ended gravity during government classes. It is muttered amongst thoughtful armature philosophers in emotional tones. Media philosophers ask it in ink. Talking heads ask it on the television. Who knows, maybe every concerned citizen asks it (in some form or another) whenever they butt heads with an opposing viewpoint.

Indeed, even those who spew specious arguments and defecate rhetoric tend to point to some straw man variation of their opponents position and say: “Look at the lies and ignorance!” So, I contend, most people would admit to a problem. The trouble is the word: “How?” How indeed?

I could point to a number of possible solutions that are either in the works or have been proposed:

- There is a movement to create websites that allow for voters to discover the actual positions of their candidates. This is certainly a big step forward as a far as keeping people voting to their interests, however, it still doesn’t correct for people (and I contend this is most of us) who actually have a flawed set of beliefs in the first place.

- Another possible solution is finding a way to limit negative media influence or, somehow, create a better and more informative media. This is even harder to do than inform voters. What would the legislation look like? How would you enforce something like this? What sort of standards would you put into place? Even if the issue could be resolved, I am not comfortable with the level of tinkering that would probably be necessary to bring such a change about.

My solution: Federally mandated teaching of Logic and Reasoning classes, starting at the grade school level.

The intended consequence of this position is to create a foundation of thoughtful children throughout the United States and thereby a populous of critical thinking adults. One possible collaborative effort to this solution is the eventual improving of the Public School system. I will not entertain that discussion here. I do think that Logic and Reasoning classes will improve educational problems in a small way, but radical changes still need to be made to the current model. I’ll leave that to people like John Taylor Gatto.

The question remains of how exactly to build a curriculum that would support this endeavor. Eric Maisel suggests having a “thinking module,” but his system lacks any particular testability. He proposes, essentially, that 45 minutes out of the school day should be used for idea conundrums that often have no clear answer. Teachers would posit questions that force the students to think about situations and issues in the world around them. This idea is better than nothing. That said, Maisel’s proposal would most likely be swept aside by the needs of teaching to various standardized tests. Failing that, it would be deemphasized and the program would loose moment from the sheer weight of other more concrete disciplines and classes.

I suggest logic and reasoning because it will need to be something that is considerably more concrete and structured than Maisel’s proposal. Logic has a long, and somewhat lost, tradition of almost mathematical reasoning structures. It involves knowing how logical structures work and also an understanding of different logical fallacies. Thus logic is teachable and testable.

There might be some challenge in coming up with a curriculum. However, a couple of curriculums already exist. CriticalThinking.org has a fairly detailed and what seems to be thorough system:

Kientergarden-3^rd Grade

4^th – 6^th Grade

7^th – 9^th Grade

High School

This is just one curriculum. There is also The Critical Thinking Co. No doubt with the Federal mandating of such teaching, many more methods and companies would appear on the market.

There do seem to be several potential objections to this proposal. The first is the aforementioned potential lack of testability, the second is a question of whether or not being taught to think will come with certain biases, and the final potential objection is the usual irritation at Federal Education Mandates.

The first objection concerning testability has, for the most part, been solved by the choice of a logic based study as opposed to Maisel’s “thinking module”. Certainly it will depend on the curriculum. Yet because logic is based, as stated above, on mathematics and general principles, it should not be hard at all to come up with standardized tests that cover logic.

The second objection concerning bias within the material should again be solved by the nature of choosing Logic over Maisel’s method. Maisel’s system runs the risk of asking children to ponder questions that would bring about objections from parents due to the potential conclusions. Depending on the school district, a critical thinking curriculum directed solely at asking questions could be seen to be some sort of brainwashing by “liberal” or “bible thumping” educators. (Depending, of course, on the objectors political biases.) A focus on logic as a discipline should remedy this objection as well. That is, to the extent that the curriculum can be focused on fairly basic, universally agreed upon subject matter, the more likely it will be to be accepted. Logic fulfills this need because it is based not on a subjective set of presuppositions, but rather a universally accepted set of constants that must be agreed upon to have any sort of rational debate. I would question the motives of anyone who opposes the teaching of basic logic.

This leads me to my third potential objection. Certainly their might be some who would oppose this as being some sort of unreasonable federal mandate. These people could, hopefully, be shamed into accepting the proposal if enough other people saw value in it. That is, the motives of those who opposed the teaching of logic classes could hopefully be questioned within the public forum.

There are a number of problems within the education system and a number of difficulties with our democratic process being driven by those who are misinformed. Starting a process whereby everyone has a chance to learn basic logic skills will be the first step to solving both these problems. I honestly don’t understand why it hasn’t been done yet.