Critical Thinking and Historically Based Action

I agree that critical thinking is important to teach, but it's only half of what you need. In addition, one needs to be able to express oneself orally and in writing clearly and persuasively. In fact, the demands of the latter frequently helps with the former.

The need for critical thinking is less necessary in the sciences, because, well, there are rules. True, many people get by in the maths and sciences by rote memorization, but you don't stick around if you don't learn to master the material, make it your own, and analyze it. This the way most people develop critical skills in the first place.

Not to single anyone out, but, from what I have seen of the blogosphere, most of it consists of reactions to political events, and recourse to past political events (history) to put the current events in some kind of context, and from that context to infer the future.

The problem is that, with history, there is no "right" answer; The reason being that historical events are a congeries of events, and there is simply no way to "prove" with regard to a past event or series of a events that one single cause was more important than another, or many others. Furthermore, precisely because past events are past there is no way to test if a tweaking of a proposed cause would engender a radically different outcome. For this reason, I think it is clear that we have to accept that most interpretations of history and most interpretations of current events based on history are "non falsifiable", they can be neither proved nor disproved. Of course that doesn't mean we have to roll over and die, it just means we have to be modest in our arguments.

Most of the arguments that arise due to the use of historical materials (say, 20th C history), are due to saying, current event A is like past event B. And the argument can be made. But on the other hand someone else can come up and say, no, current event A is not like B, for such and such reasons, it is more like C, and so on. There really is no end to this dialectic (I mean this in the classical sense), until one side manages to create a cogent and persuasive edifice of logic that manages to set the tone until it is also eventually supplanted.

I don't say these things to be jaded or cynical. If you really study the history of historiography, as well as the political uses of history as historiography, I don't see how one can come to a different conclusion; as it says in one of my favorite religious books, "There is nothing new under the sun", and human history is not new. BTW, what I note about the tendency to extract facts about cause and effect in history also pertains to moral judgments derived from history: just because s.o. may be certain of his or her POV today, don't think that others at different times were equally sure of their POV's in the past, and I do think there is a bit of hubris in assuming that we, today, got it right (as opposed to all those dummies in the past.)

As for "And, after all, why else learn history, if not to help us act in the present and the future?" Well. I think the reason I have studied history most of my life is because it gives me insight into the human condition, to find out how people just like us coped with the various challenges of existence and attempted to solve them. It is a deepening experience, because, it allows you to live a thousand times.
I have to demur on the idea that an interpretation of the past can be a reliable guide to current or future politics because that interpretation rests on the assumption that the past bears a single interpretation of cause. It just does not.

I think I understand the background, if not exactly here, then at least the background Dr Sanity references. I would guess that it is about the WOT, and most currently Iran. Sanity writes "The pervasive denial of the reality of 9/11" -- which, whatever he or anyone else chooses to say about must be a matter of interpretation, and therefore non-falsifiable, and disputable, reveals the underlying agenda. The argument that is latent right now is that there is a clearcut historical narrative that explains what Iran now is (Nazi Germany) and there is therefore a clearcut path of action (something like, immediately bombing the hell out of it). It is being suggested (not necessarily by Neo) that those who do not accept this line of argument are trolls, or in denial, or incapable of critical thinking. If you step back from this, you can see that the line of argument is essentially setting up an argument that goes something like this: I believe that A is B, because, clearly, A is B, and anyone who doesn't see that A is B is either insincere, mentally ill, stupid, has a hidden agenda, or is a bad person. Nothing new here, either. Happens all the time: it is an attempt to take a non-falsifiable interpretation and turn it into an orthodox ideology.

I think a better approach to this whole matter is to recognize that no one is going to get everyone to agree all the time. It isn't possible; and sincere disagreement is one of those ugly realities of life, like tooth decay and death. To the point of attempting to influence politics, insofar as anyone in the blogosphere does that, one simply wants to make a clearcut argument for action based on logic and reasonable historical inferences. Then make the argument, and see what happens.

I do see in the post-9/11 mentality a tremendous increase in fear and anxiety; because most of the arguments I have seen for forceful, even brutal, action are based on fear: get them, before they get us. Well, hold on a minute. First, if we are driven by our fears, are we in control? Second, what can our enemies (however defined) actually do? Third, what were they able to do before 9/11, and how would we have successfully interdicted them at that time? Fourth, what will be the consequences of our actions, and are we willing -- as a nation -- to make the appropriate commitments? I don't know.