I've been expounding my ideas on how critical thought can benefit society since more than two decades now, and the fact that I stop at that in my altercations may suggest that I found that to be an end-all explanation, but this has never been the case: aside from my usual social awkwardness, my difficulty in relating those ideas came from a halting, hesitating thought, almost knowledge, that there was more to it than that.
Indeed, critical thought can be used just as well for constructive reasoning as it can be for a reality-dissecting selective rationalisation: in a situation where one is confronted with an element or situation of reality that is outside one's sphere of experience, there is something very deep-rooted in us motivating which tool we choose to affront it.
It's not about Intelligence, it's about Responsibility.
My awkward "Hunter in the Forest" analogy was almost there. What I was trying to convey was the hunter's option of either a) exploiting his young charges' reliance upon them, or b) transmitting to them knowledge enough to allow them to survive on their own, but there's one more step: even with all the hunter's knowledge transmitted, the young charges have to accept the responsibility for their own survival. If they don't, they will perhaps become talented imitators, but they will still be relying upon the Hunter to decide what is good or bad for the party's survival. That is the real line that divides today's society, and the world is a very different place for those who have accepted the responsibility of interpreting reality for themselves, and those who haven't.
Prelude: Survival by Imitation
Of course our first years before our brains are developed enough to create, adapt to, or even comprend any concept are spent in fog of sense-related empirical experiences. What we do eventually begin to understand is a behavioural path around these sensations: touching something hot results in pain, closeness with another human results in warmth, etc., and the complexity of this 'behavioural map' will increase with age.
When we are old enough to look beyond our self-absorbed world of senses to other humans, our first interactions seem to be around comparing our behaviour patterns to those of others in order to determine what they do to attain or avoid the sensations we know: how do they get to the sensations of warmth, sweetness, etc. that we so desire, and what do they do to avoid the sensations of loneliness (aka 'helplessness') we so fear?
From there we tend to begin to recognise the behaviour of those who most care and provide for us as 'successful', or something to imitate if we hope to attain they same trappings as they, again the same in others our main care-givers defer to, and again to those who display a widely-accepted 'higher' social status: imitating this behaviour would seem, without thought, the easiest path to (clan) 'acceptance' and comfort.
Around adolescence, our brains undergo a neural reorganisation or 'remapping' process that neuroscientists call 'pruning'. The form this remapping takes probably depends on which path we have chosen/we were trained to take.
It's important to note at this point that thought patterns in the human brain are actual, physical things: those neural pathways we develop are axion-to-dendrite neural connections, 'reinforced' over time (if they are used often enough) with a myelin sheathing that isolates them from other synapses, thus strengthening their signal. Whichever path we choose in life, changing from it takes actual, physical work: in order to change our ways, we have to construct and strengthen new neural connections before we can 'forget' the old ones (as, if unused, that myelin sheathing will thin with time, and eventually the connection may fade or 'break' altogether).
But to accomplish this, a brain has to be able and willing to 'correct' the inefficient and inaccurate concepts of reality it had until then, and before even that can happen, one has to be willing to understand and accept the faults in their ways: but how would this be possible if one survives simply by comparison to behaviour patterns in their given group, instead of understanding and dealing with reality itself?
Those who have accepted the burden of Responsibility of making Value Judgements (thus the responsibility of their own survival) for themselves...
I can't read minds, but the ease of which one who has decided to use their own judgement to interpret the world around them faces things must depend on their level of preparedness: to one transitioning before they are equipped with all the knowledge tools required for their survival, the world must be a scary and confusing place.* In any case, once we begin to rely on these tools to make value judgements for ourselves about all that we see around us, our brain will test any new experience against its existing collection of tools and information, and if an adjustment or an addition is required, it will 'remap' existing neural networks accordingly, and this can be described as neuroplasticity.
The most important word to extract from the above is test, that is to say, a real examination of any claim, object, or situation, to see how it fits into our brain's so-far-constructed map of reality. In all this, the latter word is most important: the more the content of our brain matches reality, the better the chances of our survival. And this should be the goal of any honest hunter/parent/teacher passing their knowledge unto younger generations: they should expect that, not only will the teacher's charges be testing the teacher's claims against reality, but that this testing will be a test of the teacher themselves.
The teacher should have no problem with this, if they have indeed understood and accepted the burden of self-determination and self-governance: should the student find demonstrable fault with their body of knowledge about the world around them, they should be commended, as, again, a demonstrably accurate map of reality is of benefit to all.**
It is only here that critical thought comes into play: most of our brain runs in the 'routines' learned thus far through imitation and empirical experience, but the prefrontal cortex, our centre of critical thought, is there to 'correct' these routines should they prove to be inadequate. In short, think of a computer and a programmer: the computer runs its repetitive automated tasks, and the programmer is there to correct the code should it prove faulty, or if a more efficient routine is found.
And here it is the programmer who takes it upon themselves to deem the efficiency of any other code suggestion or idea (imagination comes into play, here too, and that, too, requires critical thought), in testing it against reality and noting the results. Of course, even here the critical thinker may lend bias towards their former behaviour patterns (routines), but quite often they end up adopting the better solution in the end.
So, for one who has transitioned to a mode where they take decision-making responsibilities upon themselves (to their own 'risk and peril'), the world becomes a very different place: gone (or at least diminished) are the notions of 'same as successful = best', as, to the contrary of following such models thoughtlessly (aka 'blindly'), every idea, fact or societal status claim becomes a proposition to be considered and tested by the critical thinker. An Anne Rice novel can be just as much a source of ideas and information as any religious book, as it is the idea or claim that is being tested, not the person (supposedly) presenting it, unlike their 'imitation' years of before. Of course the quality and continuity of the information passed will reflect upon the quality of the source, but even the worst humans have to be given credit where credit is due, if one of their discoveries reveals a yet-not-understood facet of reality that is of benefit to greater society. But, again, this acceptance of an idea from a 'bad person' is not a blanket, blind acceptance of every claim made by that source.
Diminished or gone, too, are notions of social coercion and rejection: "The Joneses already have two cars, why do they need a third one? That person who insulted me (for not having three cars): well, they're partly right, but not for the reasons they think." In short, such social displays and interactions no longer have the emotional magnetism that they had before the transition to autonomous thought.
This is a rather black-and-white depiction. I'm sure that quite often the transition takes time (it did for me: unable to understand the behaviour of the societally more 'successful' those around me, I lost years, even decades, trying to 'fit in'), and I'm sure that, in this survive-by-imitation world, some may hide, or even forego, their critical thought capacities in order to survive in it.
* I am persuaded that a large part of what many call 'autism' today is in fact someone who switches to autonomous thought (self-governance) before most of us do, that is to say, without a sufficient knowledge toolset - there is nothing 'mental illness' in it at all.
** I perhaps digress here, but I think it's worthy to note that this very basic goal of making one's body of knowledge match as closely as possible reality is much akin to, if not exactly reflected, by what we call 'the scientific method'. Science, often treated as though it's a religion or icon (to brandish at others), is nothing more than a shared body of knowledge about the universe we know of. Anyone of any stature can take or contribute to it at will, and if a contribution passes the test of reality, then the result, an even more accurate map of reality, will of course benefit our survival.
...and Those who have Not.
Our present education system (including school, traditions and religion), for the most part, teaches our young that if we "learn X behaviour patterns, we will get Y reward". There is no incentive to test, or often even question, and god forbid add to, any teachings, and this sort of environment is not at all one that would encourage critical or autonomous thought. Some would say this is almost by design.
So if the greater majority of our population is 'trained' in this 'survive by imitation' mode, it is most often not by any fault of their own. And more often they will get even further entrenched into that 'mode de vie' when they enter the workplace: attaining the X goals of one's employer (who may or may not become, in the mind of the worker, an authoritative or even 'provider' figure) will reap the material Y rewards necessary to survive, and this will become even further entrenched into it when the worker gains a family that is dependant upon them.
So if one is unable/unwilling to make value judgements (interpret reality through their own cognitive faculties) by themselves, who could they defer this task to? 'Parents' is a first obvious choice, but next in line would the the 'authority figures' (clan 'leaders') that they defer to. Depending on the circles (clans) they gravitate to, their 'leaders' may evolve through time.
As for the behaviour of an un-autonomous individual, the main consequence of their inability/unwillingness to accept the burden of interpreting reality for themselves is a lack of ability to empathise with others: if one can't interpret or understand one's own thoughts and actions, how can one understand the same of others? instead, in the 'survive by imitation' social makeup, with the 'clan' defined by all others who also defer to the same leaders, clan-follower behaviour would be dictated first by the leader, then by the clan-follower's 'sameness' to that of all other, mainly 'successful' (most accepted by the clan leader), clan-followers. In this state, the 'necessity' of adjusting one's behaviour comes from a rejection-fear caused by a difference with the clan 'social norm', not from any rational ('how my behaviour affects others and reality') cognitive conclusion.
Both the top-down behavioural-dictate and the 'survive by imitation'-er's total lack of empathy (let alone thought) for others is easily demonstrated in the their claim that "without X('s guidance), what point is there to life?". Not only does this demonstrate a total lack of understanding (thought) to what survival (or life itself) is, it demonstrates a total lack of thought to anyone but themselves: if one were to take the burden of responsibility for one's survival upon themselves, they would very quickly understand the reality-based requirements of survival, and very quickly understand our dependance on other humans and the dependance of other humans on us for that survival and comfort, but for one unable or unwilling to evaluate anything with their own cognitive faculties, these basic observations don't even register.
Without an ability to reality-evaluate situations, gone too is anything resembling anything can call 'morals': unable/unwilling to judge the effect one's own behaviour has on their environment, they replace this instead with a reactive-comparative goal to attain 'sameness' with their clan members and clan thought-leaders, in hoping for the rewards promised in return for this obedience; even a base kindness to fellow clan members may be partly, if not entirely, made with this reward as a goal. This is not 'morals' at all, but a mix of greed, fear, and an obeying of dictate.
This utter lack of morals and even thought is again displayed when it comes to how they relate to their clan leaders and those 'outside' their fold: for the former, they will not hold those leaders to the very rules they set as long as they retain their leadership ('trusted' status), and for the latter, there seem to be... no rules at all, anything goes, especially if it is for the 'good' of their clan. And most often, the 'good of the clan' benefits most the clan leaders.
And one would think that, since the clan leaders are making all the decisions, they would be held accountable for them, but as this sort of leader-dependent-follower relation is all to prone to abuse by those doing all the 'thinking', the result is usually a 'leadership' that, in addition to using the work of the following to boost their personal position and income, not only won't accept accountability, but uses its following as a human shield and/or hostages against any reckoning ever happening. And, quite often, even in a highly abused state, that following all-too-willingly continues to support their very abusers, to a point of committing often quite horrible crimes against 'other' humans in that 'leaders' name; ironically, in doing this, those followers are also shirking accountability... or so they (don't) think.
All this in the state of things today
In all, as those who have foregone making their own reality-based life decisions count on 'higher-ups' to dictate to them the 'realities' of reality, the only form in which a survive-by-imitation society can survive is in 'layers of authority', where the level below is following the rules set by the level above for (a promised) 'reward' of the scraps that fall from the table above. Of course this system is wide-open prone to abuse, and abused it is today; one only has to look to the economy's wealth disparity as evidence of this. In spite of the obviousness of this situation, those 'below' continue complacently to produce for their 'leader-provider-deciders', as all the complacent have as a reference for judging their own state of being is their own level of comfort and a comparison to that of those other followers in the same situation as they: if everyone else is suffering, the non-questioner may consider this state 'normal' and not complain, that is until their personal discomfort becomes too much to bear or becomes a threat their own survival.
I can't remember what triggered my transition to autonomous thought so early in life (and for this early transition, most psychologists would probably put me on the 'autistic' scale), but when I was too young to even grasp the workings of this system, already I could observe obviously unhappy 'adults' telling me to obey and 'follow the rules' unquestioningly (and often with 'because I said so' as a sole explanation to my 'why' queries), and that if I should do so, my 'reward' would be becoming... just like them. My answer, of course, was a resounding "Fuck You". And when I tried get others around me to question what was making them so miserable, I was confused at their automatic citing 'authorities' and everyone else's behaviour to explain their own behaviour, instead of actually partaking in any self-examination or examination or testing of the realities of their situation. This is the largest communication problem between those who have transitioned and those who haven't: both assume that the other party 'thinks just like them', and have difficulty thinking or reacting in any other way.
It is for this that it took me close to thirty years to finally accept the fact that most 'adults' today in fact aren't adults at all. If one depends upon another to dictate to them the 'right' way to think and behave, it is all too easy to hide this shirking of responsibility (to that 'higher' personality) of one's own survival behind a mask of seeming-authoritative and confident certitude in the 'rightness' of their ways; this attitude seems to be that of what many would define as 'adult behaviour' today.
It was a while ago that I said that "A democracy without voters who think for themselves is not one.": at best, its structure is a democratic one, but if its voters are divided into survive-by-imitation clan-behaviour groups, any resulting vote will echo the interests (dictate) of each respective clan (leader), and not be any rational decide-for-myself-what-behaviour-benefits-both-myself-and-others-then-consensus-with-others process... only the latter thought-fed-awareness in voters can result in anything one can call a real democracy.
In times past the greater survival-by-imitation behaviour was exploited by the 'thinking' nobility and religious leaders, but today corporations (and their faceless shareholders) have largely taken over, and are using every tool at their disposition to both map and 'herd' our imitation-behaviour to increase their profits.
Profit is taking more than one gives, yet even this simple fact seems to escape most in today's society. What makes it worse is that many, if not most, of any economy's actors, even to its lowest ranks, dreams of being 'that guy' who takes (undeservedly) the product of everyone else's work. And to those actually holding the decision-making reins of an economy, this society-dividing 'dream' is what keeps their machine rolling, all while distracting attention from the cause of the very cause of the ills rampaging society: themselves.
But, like I said earlier, once an individual is 'set' in one's ways, it takes a lot of work to even convince them that there's something damaging (to society) in their ways, let alone motivate them to actually go through the work of finding, testing and accepting alternate solutions. This is why I'm vying for the next generation: all I can do is try to make as much real, (scientific) consensus-led information about our environment and history available to our future youth in the most coherent and testable way possible. I'm almost certain that I'll never see those who caused this generation the most damage held accountable for their actions, let alone see them repair that damage, but here's hoping that a better-informed, thinking future will place those bad actors in their proper place in history.
