Critical :: Reflective :: Creative
Critical thinking shows that the characteristics of foolishness can be for good or ill. A critical thought such as a laugh of joy or scream of horror functions in the short term. The product of policy in a Democracy is therefore politically incremental and expedient because Democracy responds well to the demands of a presumed representative majority or an established, passionate minority. The short-term response is well-tempered by using day-to-day data to reveal the lack of fairness, equality, and justice.
On the other hand, reflective thinking will reveal the small steps that introduced critical items such as impact restraints to help people in automobiles. The occurrence of resistance to this introduction fell to respect for life at a level higher than individual freedom. Various pragmatic responses to problems, such as vehicular safety technology, separate the knowledgable from those willing to be unknowing as a form of trust. One can understand how the life-first argument can win as an emotional appeal in the arc of creative talk in a Democracy.
At the national level, reflective and creative thought is dying. It was possible to illustrate the horror of impalement by a steering wheel but not exhibit children’s bodies ripped apart by assault rifles. A reason for the loss of reflection and creativity is how Democracy relies on statistics selected to measure the population’s overall well-being, parsed geographically with indicators that reveal distress capable of opening a rift. The data is an aid in identifying foolishness that allows the potential for violence at the critical scale of change yet retains enough shared, well-validated content to encourage a social movement. Here is an example.
Today one can place “an app” into your computer’s operating system. I have two that illustrate the difference between creatively reflective and foolish. Whenever a dollar amount shows up in an online document, the app provides an equivalent of a whole public education budget of a city with “the cost of a Raptor Jet in 2018.” On the other hand, an app is available that will replace the word “millennials” with the term “snake people” on a webpage. The former is useful and verifiable, the other is nothing more than an ostensibly benign violation. The line is blurred here by political leaders. How will it be possible to reveal its dangers to Democracy?
Implementing creative thought encourages influential events at the local level. As “actions,” each step requires the selection of stepping stones for crossing thousands of the data-rich creeks, rivulets, brooks, and burns that feed the rivers that establish boundaries and the commerce of ideas that build the big communication bridges. Unfortunately, the creative Democracy is slipping away for failing to understand a core change agent. When questions of “ends” become questions of values, the question of promoting an issue without reason makes good listening problematic. After that, the natural bullheadedness of non-compliance and lack of compromise between rival values becomes challenging to resolve. Steps to strengthen reason are not used by political leaders.
Therefore, the next and final post regarding the need to improve political reasoning calls for a review of Methods