Negative Press and Scepticism?

Several social media threads sharing and either supporting or ridiculing this Lawd Shugga view – no happy media.

It’s not just the press / media / journalists themselves – they’re doing their jobs by holding to account – questioning and finding-fault in public policy statements – but it’s the whole public discourse these days. Critical thinking leads to the received wisdom that criticism – by fault-finding – is forensic, objectively scientific, so it must be OK, right?

Well it’s OK in moderation, it’s not the point of the exercise, the point is positive human progress. It’s the same problem as this (from existential comics):

Destructive criticism and undermining by sketpical questioning is so much easier than constructive, synthetic understanding. Social media and ironic memes mean everyone is an expert in pedantic debunking – or ridiculing – every would-be fact these days.

Same problem too in the “whataboutery” of the previous Massimo Pigliucci post. Critical questioning is never ending, every why & because is followed by another why & wherefore, or / and another thing, what about … No rule or proposition (in the real world, beyond an axiomatic system) is 100% fool-proof. Rules are for guidance of the wise, etc. They all require positive intent beyond a healthy dose of critical thinking.

Criticism is cheap. Creativity is valuable. Whitehead was right “creativity” is the most fundamental reality.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.