Week 3 - Lesson Title: Broaden Your Perspective

Thinking Habits

   Conformity is a common habit that people have as far as there thinking habits go. It is easier to agree with the crowd then go against it. To go against the crowd would take a person to reason "why not" and causes conflict in witch they might have to defend that idea. For some people it is easer to not fight and just go with the flow. It is also emotionally safer to agree then having to think through a statement and make your own judgment and risk the conflict that might ensue. (example) the last presidential election, was a large source of friction. I did not agree with one of the candidates. Then some one called me racially bias for not jumping on his bandwagon. So i explained to them that it was not his skin color that i did not like but it was his social policies and his economic plan. So i asked that person why they liked that candidate so much and all they could say "it was time for a black president" and explained no other reason why.  If a candidate makes a good president or not, is not be based on skin color but on merit. The person I talked to was just going along with the crowd and knew nothing about the candidates polices. This is a bad idea and can cause many problems. For this reason we have an electoral collage and we do not vote directly for our president. The electoral collage was made to protect the people from selves. To keep us from making a bad choice in president based purely on popularity. (Hitler was a very popular man in Germany.)

   Self-deception this is another common way that people do not think critically. this is when people convince them shelf that the subject is true and right with out thinking it through. Oddly enough this is not always bad. There is a medical term for it called placebo effect. This is were a patient is given a pill or some other medical treatment just to satisfy the mind of the patient; tricking them in to thinking they are better. Even though the pill would be just sugar the patient convinced them selves they are better. This self-deception is what the snake oil sales men would use on people of the 1800's. Convincing the people of the old west that the products they sell were cure-alls the snake oil sales men would sell the people there tonics. These were usually watered down alcohol at best; at worst it was bad herbs that might just kill the person.

   Falling victim, I am a strong believer that we are all human and any decision we make is tainted by these traits. All we can do it try to minimize the damage by thinking things through. Some times it is not easy to recognize were we are not using our critical thinking skills; but through practice we just might make better decisions.