There's really something to say about the Dunning-Kruger effect: I'm constantly fighting to overcome it, and because of it, I'm not even sure how successful I am to that end. I keep going on about the importance of critical thought, but because of the above, I don't think I'm even very particularly good at it: those notions of self-doubt ground into me through my entire childhood plague still my every thought process (albeit, today, to a lesser degree), and that probably causes me to miss options and certainly to doubt outcomes (second-checking), and that lengthens what should be a 'normal' thought process enormously. Re-routing around early-life indoctrination ('programming') is a long process and takes sometimes decades of work.
And I got into it in the worst possible way: something happened to me in early life that 'flipped the switch' for autonomous thought... but I only can speak for my own mind, so perhaps this happens to everyone, and it eventually gets ground out of them. Anyhow, it seemed early on in life essential to my (subconscious idea of) survival that I understand everything happening around me; if something (I was told to do/imitate) didn't make any sense, I simply couldn't do it. What made things even more confusing was the obvious evidence (that no-one seemed able to see) that the 'ideal' goal of 'simply obeying' was a stressful, unsatisfactory, unhappy, and unfulfilled life. And the goals everyone was striving to 'fulfil' were almost never their own.
And when presented with an 'example' to follow, I soon found that the very act of questioning was enough to destroy, interrupt, 'poison' what was supposed to be a 'normal' social process. Yet not only did I not understand this, I had no answer for it (once one knows enough to question, how can one not question (especially things obviously questionable)?). That was a divide that I was never able to overcome, and one I only recently began to understand.
The root of that difference is in the 'survival' I mentioned earlier. It sounds strange and almost cliché said like that, but that is actually how our subconscious works: every decision we make is rooted in, and depends upon, that survival instinct.
And there is a 'switch'. How does one 'survive'? Whether we are familiar with our environment or not, we have the options of a) learning about everything that environment contains, and making our own decisions about what's good and bad in it, or, b), should we observe others already 'surviving' in that environment, imitating them (based on their overall healthiness and happiness).
But again, to one that has always taken the second option, the first option does not even exist... or, at least, it would most likely not come to their mind as a choice of action.
And therein lies the divide. To one that relies on imitating others for survival, any deviation from the (group) 'survival model' is 'different', and this can even mean 'danger'. So questioning the survival model is, in itself, already enough for a survive-through-imitation-er (have to think up a term for this) to 'out-group' anyone doing it... and once out-grouped, a person so deemed will probably always be mistrusted at a deepest level... unless of course they make some display of total submission. And this 'same or not' pattern-matching comparison (that the non-critical-thinker seems condemned to), too, is a 'switch'.
So how is one to negotiate with one who knows (or cares) not to reason, but only to imitate?
The thing with people able to make their own value judgments (think critically) is that they're persuaded that everyone else can think critically, too. Yet to find the answer to the above question, they have only to think back to the time (probably their childhood) when they couldn't think critically, or were still new it... and this is a hard thing for some to do.
Convincing someone who survives through imitation to deviate from their 'chosen' (often 'programmed' by others) behaviour pattern is almost an exercise in manipulation: either we have to convince them that an option 'outside' their comfort zone (programming) was a) their idea, or that b) everyone else in their 'in-group' has already opted for it (making it look like they are 'behind' or 'different', and this would make them even eager to adopt the new model (to conform)). And if one needs evidence of this and evidence that some, if not many, are already aware of it, one has only to look at almost any and all advertising.
Even more maddening, since the survive-through-imitator can/will not judge the value of anything for themselves, is the fact that they will continue to refuse to change their minds even when buried in evidence; when one knows not to judge the value of something, how can the value of that evidence be determined? In short, it can't (and all that is left/that 'registers' is the 'default' comparison (to an existing survival programming/model)).
Ridicule doesn't work, either, unless their 'in group' somehow joins in against the targeted... but, again, any critical thinker with any moral values would hesitate to resort to that sort of manipulation.
(side note: therein lies a point of irony in, the sheer disingenuousity of those who deem themselves 'masters (programmers) of morals': if one doesn't measure the value of anything, no moral judgements are even possible, making those 'moral lessons', to those who lack the will/ability to understand them for themselves, nothing but dictate to imitate (or else!), so it's hard to believe the gall of those who call that sort of dictate-serving carrot-and-stick (or else!) manipulation 'morals'?).
And what to do in face of this sort of divide? There is a frustration to both sides of it: the survive-through-imitation-er feels frustration in not being able to get the critical thinker to simply conform (and, subconsciously, sees the same's behaviour as even a danger (to survival)), and the critical thinker feels frustration at the former's inability and unwillingness to reason, and apparent dishonesty.
And when communication doesn't work to overcome this divide, what remains? Yes: violence. Overcoming/squashing this (primal!) urge depends upon the duress of the situation and/or the education/programming of both parties, but the critical thinker has the distinct advantage of being able to rein in their emotional responses, whereas the non-critical-thinker has only their fear (strength comparison, strength in numbers, 'thou shalt not' (or else!) programming, etc.) to hold them back.
If that's not enough, even the concept of honesty seems lost on one with no value judgement abilities of their own: if the only means of determining value is comparison, then, in any given situation, only the options comparable (beneficial) to the survival model will be considered (and everything else, especially things countering or questioning the same, rejected). To the critical thinker, who quite often is used to assessing the maximum available elements in any situation before making a decision, this looks like 'cherrypicking' to the extreme, but they have to understand that, to the non-critical-thinker, the concept of 'cherrypicking' can't even exist.
So, to 'work' with a non-critical-thinker, only is it necessary for critical thinkers to mask their thought processes (which would (subconsciously, even) trigger an alarm in their interlocuteur), it is necessary to avoid all attempts at reason and ridicule. But since the critical thinker will almost certainly fail at one or all of these challenges, and will certainly become 'out-grouped', the only means remaining is a long, arduous, one-on-one building of trust (acceptance as a 'reliable survival model') before even lessons of (how to) reason can even begin to set in.
Oh, the genius of the immoral those who set up the world this way: once set into motion, the survive-through-imitation machine perpetuates, almost immutably, itself, and its masters (the shepherds) have only to program the in-group survival-model 'leaders' (sheep-dogs) to propagate change through the rest of the imitation-or-else society (sheep).
That has been the model almost since humanity began to gather in greater numbers; it has worked thus far because our inability to communicate over long distances has contained 'packages' of humans into managable, isolated 'in-groups'. Yet it is becomong increasingly hard to maintain these, and it will soon become necessary to cut a dictate-able (survive-through-imitation) group from any other (competing group) influence entirely... and it's hard to imagine that those who would opt for this could ever become a world majority (at least, in the near future).
So, how does a critical thinker survive in a non-critically-thinking world (if they are not already an immoral part of the sheep-dependant 'shepherd' clan)?
Find your own autonomous as-away-from-public-as-possible means of survival, keep your cool, and have patience.
