On Fixing Stupidity: Replace Dumb Ideas with Critical Thinking

Fresno Bee, September 5, 2021

Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, warned this week of an “information pandemic. He said, people who are “infected by viral misinformation” need to “inoculate themselves with the truth.”

We are plagued by misinformation, disinformation, and outright stupidity. Mis-information is mistaken information. It is not necessarily malicious. Dis-information is worse. It is basically a lie. Disinformation is a malicious attempt to make you believe something that is not true. And stupidity? Well, it’s a failure of intelligence. But it is not only a mental malfunction. Stupidity also involves actively embracing false and pernicious ideas.

The doctor was calling out people who are reluctant to get the Covid-19 vaccine because of false information. Almost half of the population of Fresno County remains unvaccinated. There is also the problem of people poisoning themselves with ivermectin, a horse de-wormer.

This is dismaying but not surprising. History is full of terrible ideas and epidemics of stupidity. Not long ago, kids were eating Tide pods and teenagers were stuffing their mouths with ground cinnamon. Even worse was smoking, a stupid habit that caused long-term health problems for millions of people.

The good news is that people usually wise up. The bad news is that advertisers and propagandists are always working to spread more stupidity. Ideas are contagious. They circulate and propagate. Some catch on. Some die out. This is true for all ideas—good ones and bad ones.

Stupidity has a tendency to attract our attention because it is ridiculous. It can also cause us to lose faith in humanity. It is not only the absurdity of dumb ideas that bothers us. We are also alarmed by the strange sense of certainty that stupid people seem to have.

We may worry that our own beliefs may be just as stupid. This can prompt a crisis of faith. As Shakespeare said, the fool thinks himself wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Cynics worry that bad ideas are more easily spread than good ones. But this is not true. Bad ideas only spread when the intellectual immune system is weak. And good ideas can be reinforced through conscious effort.

It is disheartening to know that stupidity is contagious. But we know the cure. Social distancing helps. We should isolate dumb ideas and prevent them from proliferating. The long-term solution is the vaccination we call education. Education strengthens the intellectual immune system.

The campaign against smoking provides an example of a successful approach. People were taught that smoking was unhealthy. Smoking was prohibited in public places. And taxes were levied on tobacco products. It took decades, but smoking declined. In the 1950’s, 45% of Americans smoked. These days the number is around 15%.

As we fret about the recent plague of stupidity, let’s celebrate the fact that many good ideas have caught on. And some very bad ideas have died out. Slavery was abolished. Women were liberated. Old superstitions and stereotypes have faded away along with the idea that smoking is cool.

Technology and culture play a role in all of this. Human culture is a process of spreading ideas. We gossip and talk, exchanging stories and information. In the old days this occurred slowly through face-to-face interactions among friends and family.

Electronic communication is faster and more volatile. Memes and trends explode overnight. Robots and artificial intelligence manipulate the cyber-ecosystem. They target us with advertising, including misinformation and disinformation.

The bad news is that misinformation and disinformation can spread quickly in cyberspace. The good news is that the truth is also out there and is often easy to find. But we need to be educated about where to look and how to distinguish the truth from a lie. That’s called information literacy and critical thinking.

It’s not true, as a folksy proverb puts it, that “you can’t fix stupid.” Nobody really believes that cynical proverb. Educators and coaches certainly don’t. And experience teaches us that stupidity can be fixed. It takes practice and discipline to overcome intellectual laziness and ignorance. But we can make progress. This is a lifelong project. People make mistakes. But we can learn from our mistakes. And we can build up an immunity to dumb ideas.

June 27, 2021June 27, 2021

Violence, Culture, and Character

Fresno Bee, June 27, 2021

Violence is rising. The Washington Post reports that gunfire killed 54 people per day through the first five months of 2021. This exceeds the death toll for the same period in 2020, which was the deadliest year in two decades. Here in Fresno, the story is similar. Last year there were 70 homicides, the highest number in 25 years. This year we are on pace to eclipse that number.

The epidemic of violence is especially tragic here at the end of the pandemic. We have endured a difficult time of dislocation and loss. But the worst is over and the future is bright. How sad that violence is raging when the world is reviving.

There is a general sense that people have become angrier and meaner. Some violence is racially charged. Some is connected to gangs and other crime. But some is merely random spite. In Los Angeles, 6-year-old Aiden Leos was shot on his way to kindergarten by an angry stranger on the freeway. Mass shooters have attacked in San Jose and elsewhere.

Commentators have offered various explanations. Some say this is the result of the stress of the pandemic. Others blame inequality. Pundits on the left blame Trumpism. Pundits on the right suggest that efforts to defund the police have empowered criminals.

Many blame guns. The White House is launching an initiative focused on guns. Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, said “We believe that a central driver of violence is gun violence and the use of guns.”

There is no doubt that guns make violence easier. The history of violence is about the evolution of killing power. Cain killed Abel with a club. Achilles went on a murderous spree with sword and spear. Guns produce more killing with less effort.

Technological innovation exacerbates all kinds of vice. Modern chemistry produces powerful psychoactive drugs, including distilled alcohol. The Internet makes porn readily available. Social media makes it easy to gossip. And fast-food chains facilitate drive-thru gluttony.

But technology only explains part of the problem. It is human beings who put technology to use. Most people avoid addiction, debauchery, gossip, and gluttony, just as most people avoid violence. There is some truth to the slogan “guns don’t kill people, people do.” The same is true of other vices. Booze does not cause alcoholism. And French fries don’t cause obesity. Somewhere in the background is human culture and psychology.

What gives people the capacity to resist the supercharged temptations of modern technology?

Virtue and character provide part of the answer. Moral psychology must be on the table as we confront the epidemic of violence. Virtuous people control anger, cruelty and spite. Every human being gets angry. But good people resist this negativity. They resist their vicious instincts. And they find affirmative outlets for negative emotions.

Defective character is an overlooked aspect of the increase in violence. Angry and violent people are lacking in psychological development and spiritual fulfillment.

The good news is that character can be improved. We are not pre-programmed. We can learn to speak a language and play the piano. We can also learn to defer gratification, control spite, overcome hate and become compassionate.

Culture matters in character development. Good culture supports us in doing the right thing, while bad influences contribute to vice. As we analyze the increase in violence, we must consider cultural inputs. What kinds of ideas and images inspire us? Who are our role models? Are we reinforcing kindness or teaching cruelty?

We must also think critically about violence itself. Violence is not natural or normal. Violence decreased during past decades. This shows that violence is not inevitable. People can learn to be less violent. But that requires lessons and reminders about the fact that violence is a sign of moral failure. It is shameful, stupid and sad. Decent people do not celebrate cruelty. Nor do they lionize villains, thugs, and murderers.

Finally, we must give people productive ways to find meaning, purpose, and happiness. Violence is a dead-end for hopeless souls who have lost faith in life. Another antidote to violence is to create a world that provides social connection, creative outlets for the human spirit, and opportunities to experience joy, love, and hope.

October 9, 2020October 9, 2020

Virtues and Vices of Online Learning

The idea of “reopening schools” is hopelessly politicized. School are “open,” even though teaching and learning have moved online. Unfortunately, school “reopening” is a political football. There is a legitimate debate about school safety and the well-being of children, staff, and teachers. But the political environment does not foster careful thinking about teaching and learning.

It is obvious that learning can happen online. Americans learn online every day. Youtube videos teach us how to do home improvements or how to play guitar. Useful apps teach foreign languages. Business training involves videos and interactive websites.

Some people don’t like this. Some are nostalgic for the routine of sitting together in classrooms, hanging out and chatting in the halls. Of course, not everyone is nostalgic for this. Face-to-face schooling also includes loneliness, bullying, and stress.

Schools are not simply places for learning. Public schooling is an essential part of the economy and the social safety net. Schools allow parents to get to work. They provide breakfast and lunch for poor children. They are places of refuge for kids who need social and emotional support. They are also connected to the rituals and routines of American life: football games and marching bands, holiday concerts, and so on.

But the traditional classroom is not essential for learning. Learning is an individual activity which requires effort, concentration, discipline, and motivation. John Dewey explained, “learning means something which the individual does when he studies. It is an active, personally conducted affair.” Social supports help. But the learner must do the learning, alone with a book, a piece of music, or a math problem.

A recent article interviewed college students who complained about online learning. One student said she lacked motivation. Another said, “I just feel like I’m turning in work and not really learning anything.”

Those same problems occur in the face-to-face environment. Teachers have long complained about unmotivated students who go through the motions and don’t learn. The issue of motivation and engagement is not an online problem.

The bigger problem is that schooling is viewed as a necessary evil and not as something valuable in itself. Whether online or in person, if you don’t view value what you are learning, you will be unmotivated and disengaged.

Working adults encounter the same problem when completing mandatory training courses. Whether online or face-to-face, if you don’t want to be there, it is hard to learn. On the other hand, if you are curious and interested, you will learn whether online or in person.

For curious learners, online learning can be very effective. One advantage of asynchronous courses is that you can rewind or fast-forward videos according to your own needs and interests. This is much better than suffering through a boring lecture in a crowded classroom.

Or consider the difference between in-person discussions and written discussion forums. In-person discussions typically group students in a circle to encourage oral communication. Skills of speaking and listening can be developed in this environment. But often the circle is dominated by a few loud talkers, while other students sit passively.

Online forums that encourage written communication are more inclusive of the quiet and reflective student. The level of discourse in written discussion forums is typically much higher than in in-person discussion. When students write online posts, they have more time to reflect.

By now, our technologies are flexible. Oral discussion can occur online through programs like Zoom. Written communication can be practiced in the classroom. Both skills are important. Each can be learned in either environment.

At the end of the day, neither modality is inherently better or worse. It all depends on the way the teacher structures the activity and on the motivation and curiosity of the student.

Teachers and students still have a lot to learn about online education. As with most things, there are pros and cons, virtues and vices.

But online learning is not going away. And if we work at it (if we try to learn to do it better…) we will get better at it. We won’t learn to improve if we keep complaining and waxing nostalgic for the old routine. Nor does it help to let politics get in the way of thinking carefully about what it means to teach and to learn.

August 21, 2020August 21, 2020

The Adventure of Virtual Education

The transition to virtual education is a new adventure for students, parents, and teachers. Adventures are difficult and risky. But that’s their allure. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be inspiring. Adventures also involve uncertainty. This calls for curiosity and creativity.

On the first day of class I asked my students in Zoom how they were feeling. Some reported anxiety. But a couple said it might be fun to learn this way. Let’s build on student’s youthful energy and squeeze something zesty out of our anxiety.

One teacher explained to me that she feels like an explorer in virtual space. There are new tools to master. Old ideas must be reorganized and re-evaluated. What was once taken for granted is now up for grabs.

Conservative souls will always resist change. But nimble spirits enjoy the unprecedented and unimagined. Dynamic minds are ready to adapt. We find joy in riding the waves of change. This is the genius of the artist, entrepreneur, and explorer.

Education is dynamism. It is an art of transformation that cultivates change and nourishes development. Random change is not good. It must be guided. Some truths remain perennial. But evergreen truth is not a fence or a prison. Redwoods thrive because they bend in the storm. New growth adapts to new soil.

Boredom and complacency are deadly diseases. They ruin businesses, marriages, and classrooms. Repetition dulls the senses. Bored teachers are, well… boring.

Most teachers enjoy new challenges. We are thrilled by each year’s fresh crop of students. Even though we’ve walked these trails before, new students help us see old terrain with fresh eyes. Each step takes us somewhere else.

The idea of education as adventure is an old one. Plato described education as a journey. It leads us out of darkness and toward the light. To learn is to wander beyond the familiar. It takes patience and tenacity to explore, invent, and discover. It takes courage to leave old habits behind and blaze new trails.

Alfred North Whitehead celebrated education as adventure. In his book, The Aims of Education, he insisted that educators embrace the fresh and the new. He said, “knowledge does not keep any better than fish.” He described education as an act of the contagious imagination. The metaphor of passing a torch shows how this works. Civilization depends upon the torch passers who spread the light. We also need better torches and new ways to enlighten.

This process occurs in the service of life. Whitehead said, “Education is discipline for the adventure of life.” We might simply say, education is adventure and life. He describes the history of the world as an adventure motivated by “zest.” Zest can mean both energy and flavor. A life without zest is dull and tasteless.

Each human culture is a unique adventure of the human spirit. Art, science, and religion are so many different ways of making meaning and finding flavor. Whitehead warned that when a civilization loses its taste for adventure, it begins to decay.

There is danger in any journey. Adventures are unpredictable. Sometimes we fail to arrive at our anticipated destination. But even failure can be enlightening. After all, Columbus got lost on his way to India.

The word “adventure” is related to a word that means to happen or occur. Philosophers use the word “adventitious” to mean accidental or unintentional. And for Christians “advent” signifies a time of hope for the birth of something new and wonderful. Education as adventure is open to the unintended. It is hopeful about the future. It courageously embraces the birthing process.

This brings us back to the current transformation. No one could have imagined the strange birth of online learning from out of a pandemic. Difficulties remain, especially the digital divide. But problems are opportunities. Let’s set our creative imaginations free. Let’s stop dreaming of the way things used to be. Stop complaining about the need to get back to normal.

The old normal wasn’t perfect. Why go back, when we can move forward? Let’s cook up something zesty and nutritious. Learn to bend with the wind. Find joy in transformation. And embrace the fact that history will view us as pioneers who explored the great frontier of virtual education.

April 2, 2016April 9, 2016

Education is the solution to climate change, Syrian refugees and ISIS

The Fragility of Civilization

Fresno Bee, April 2, 2016

Climate change, religious extremism are related challenges
Recent events expose fragility of civilization
Education is needed to preserve civilization, history

The archeological record is reassuring. We build things that last thousands of years. The Parthenon and the Coliseum provide consolation for our mortality and give us reason to hope.

But malice and indifference could destroy much of what we take for granted. The rising seas of a warmer world could inundate major cities, leaving them lost, like Atlantis beneath the waves. And human destructiveness has already been unleashed against the monuments of ancient civilization themselves, as we’ve seen in Syria.

The climate news is ominous. NASA reports that Greenland and Antarctica are losing billions of tons of ice per year. The concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere is at 403 ppm and rising. That level of CO₂ last appeared 2.5 million years ago, when Earth was warmer by 3 degrees Celsius and sea level was 5 meters higher.

Climate scientist James Hansen warns that climate change may be faster and more severe than previously predicted. Rapidly melting ice could raise the sea level by several meters within 50 to 150 years. Superstorms may be generated by permanent changes in ocean currents.

In a recent paper, Hansen and co-authors warn, “It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.” In a video explaining his conclusions, Hansen warns that his predictions may mean “the loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s largest cities, and all of their history.”

The human toll of superstorms and flooding coasts is difficult to imagine. The loss in terms of human history when coastal cities are inundated will be incalculable. Cities like New Orleans may be forever lost beneath the tides.

The human dislocations of a warmer, wetter world will be significant. Poor people in developing countries will have difficulty adapting. Environmental refugees will flood our borders, looking for sanctuary. Some argue that Middle Eastern refugees inundating Europe are fleeing drought, as well as political persecution.

Even if we overcome apathy about climate change and avoid the deluge, malice remains a threat. The fragility of civilization was exposed recently when Syrian forces recaptured the ancient town of Palmyra. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in the Syrian war. In Palmyra, ISIS’ sinister ideology turned against the archaeological record.

Statues and reliefs were smashed. Monuments were toppled. The Roman Arch of Triumph was blown up. Torturing and beheading human beings is evil. Iconoclastic attacks on historical artifacts expose a sinister strand of nihilistic extremism.

Somehow all of this is interconnected. The oil economy is part of the history of colonialism and militarism. This has created backlash and religious extremism. Globalization gives us global capitalism, global terrorism and global warming.

Some wise pundits may connect these dots in more detail. But beneath all of this is a flaw in human nature. We are not rational. Nor are we good. We fail to plan for the long term. We succumb to stupid ideologies and get-rich-quick schemes. We singlemindedly pursue our agendas, indifferent to the consequences. Power, profit and political inertia prevent us from doing what is right for each other and for Earth.

The solution is as obvious as our fatal flaw. Education is the cure for the twin diseases of indifference and wickedness. Indeed, education is an act of preservation and conservation. We need to learn more about science, history, politics, religion, art and ethics. We need to criticize greed, hatred and indifference. And we need to understand the fragility of civilization.

It is difficult to imagine civilization crumbling. Our achievements seem permanent. But historical and geological education reminds us that none of this will last forever. Civilizations rise and fall.

If we don’t take care to preserve the accomplishments of civilization, they will fall faster, brought down by stupidity, arrogance and selfishness. Of course, human beings will adapt. Life will go on – albeit in a different form – once ISIS is destroyed and the oceans rise. Our grandchildren will remember New Orleans and Palmyra as lost gems. But they will rightly blame us for failing to protect and preserve what our own ancestors so painstakingly created.