Tag: critical thinking

The Kids Aren’t All Right: Part 5–Awake

Let us then never fall into the sleep that stupefies the rest of the world: let us keep awake, with our wits about us. (1 Thessalonians 5:6 PHILLIPS)

Technology can be our friend.  It created the laptop on which I am writing this, the Internet on which I posted it, the social media whereupon I distributed it, and the device upon which you are reading it. As well as many other more beneficial things, of course.

This same technology, however, can also be our enemy. It robs our productive time, pushes our dopamine buttons relentlessly, decimates our attention spans and erodes our ability to relate to one another.  It seems that the more tech savvy we become, the less awake we are to the real world around us.

This phenomenon can affect any generation, of course, but kids today have never known a world without this technology.  Texting is as natural to them as breathing.  When new tech becomes available that might make the head of someone my age blow up, kids adapt to it instantly.  It’s as though they were part machine.

What concerns me is that with all this information at the touch of a button (or a voice command—who needs buttons anymore?), an entire generation may be losing its ability to think critically.  Anyone can retrieve copious amounts of information off the interwebs, but do they know what to do with it?  It’s bad enough when kids fall for the clickbait. But when the generation that’s supposed to teach them how to make sense of it all is caught up with the rest of the sheeple in the fake news maelstrom?  Then the kids don’t stand a chance.

Hellooooo. . .

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The 21st-century paradox of technology is to be totally connected, yet totally oblivious.  This needs to stop.  There is a real world out here with real people in it that have real needs that we were uniquely designed to meet.  God can’t draw our attention to these needs if we’re busy taking selfies instead of looking for signs.

Yes, technology is fun.  There is a 99% chance that if you’re reading this, you found it by a link on social media.  And obviously I spend a fair amount of time on there as well.  Otherwise I wouldn’t have known where and how to post this.

The main issue is where, and how intently, we are focusing our attention.  We can’t teach our children to be more aware of the world around them if we aren’t.  As every parent knows, kids will do what they see us doing before they’ll do what they hear us saying.

It all comes down to self-control, really.  Any intelligent adult is capable of prioritizing his or her activities. But be honest now.  Are you better at planning your work or working your plan?  To an unfocused person, even the planning process becomes busywork, until the planning becomes an end in itself.  I’m done planning my week, so . . . TIME FOR FACEBOOK!

Staying awake and alert over the long term requires having a driving purpose or mission.  Without something like that to focus on, your mind will drift.  Then your body will follow, since that is where your mind is located.  Before long, you’ll get to a place where you look at your life and wonder, “What happened to me?  How did I end up here?”

And if you can’t figure out how your own life got off track, then how could you expect your kids, who have never had a chance to get their lives ON track, to have any kind of motivation to wake up, rise above the masses and make a difference in the world?

We have to be on our guard at all times against anything that would deter us from our main mission.  For our own sakes, and for the sakes of the kids who are watching us and trying to make sense of their own lives.  They’ll never understand the concept of finding their calling if they don’t first observe what it looks like to seek after it.  And they’ll never be able to rise to the occasion if they can’t see that an occasion is taking place right in front of them.

Therefore it falls to us be more intentional about being awake and aware.  We can’t guarantee that our children will employ self-control just because we model it. It is certain, though, that they won’t if we don’t.

(To be concluded in Part 6–Words Matter)

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DN=: Part 8–Hate Speech

 

 

Be clearheaded. Keep alert. Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  (1 Peter 5:8 CEB)

All of humanity has a common enemy—Satan, the accuser.  The enemy’s primary goal has always been our destruction, but he has been busy developing some new tactics.

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First to review, you’ll remember that in Part 3, we identified “righteousness” as being a right standing with God the Father, which is made possible only through a trusting relationship with His Son, Jesus.  Those with whom the enemy succeeds in denying this opportunity for righteousness will nevertheless still crave it.

 

However, since they have allowed themselves to be cut off from God’s saving grace, they are only able to manufacture a false perception of righteousness.  In their desperate attempt to elevate themselves in their own minds, they find themselves compelled to disparage others in order to make that possible.

 

The enemy facilitates this process by helping those under his influence categorize people into groups and label them.  Then he directs his unwitting followers to abuse the people in those groups by treating them unequally and criticizing them based on their differences.

 

Over time, these blanket condemnations become a habit, and hatred develops.  If left unchecked by correction, it is possible for this hatred to swell into an epidemic of ignorant bigotry.  This bigotry will then be projected toward the groups of people to whom they are trying to maintain their sense of superiority.

 

Combating this is a struggle we all share.  And it is indeed a daily struggle.  Seeing other people as individual human beings, instead of part of a labeled subset of humanity, requires a generous helping of both humility and critical thinking.

 

Knowing this, our enemy imparts his unwary abettors with a liberal dose of arrogance, which suppresses all traces of humility and artificially inflates their perception of their own intellect, eliminating the prospect of any critical thought taking place.

 

This is where the enemy plays to his greatest strength.  He advises his impressionable followers, “If you can’t convince ‘em, accuse ‘em!”

 

And this is how it plays out.

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When one of these people attempts to engage a Truthseeker in debate, he quickly discovers the futility of this venture, since the primary objective for Truthseekers is to end arguments, not win them.  Since the arguer finds that he cannot claim the logical high ground, he will then attempt to lower the ground beneath his opponent by attacking his character.

 

But here is the twist!  Since unwarranted character assassination would make him guilty of judgmentalism, he must first deflect his own guilt by accusing the Truthseeker of being judgmental himself, thereby forcing him into a defensive position.  With any luck, the Truthseeker will take the bait, lower himself into the argument, and thus become that which he has already been accused of being.

 

On the other hand, a mature Truthseeker will not take the bait, but will simply hold fast to the Truth, and not change course.

 

When the arguer sees that his attempts at both logic and character assassination have failed, he plays the only card left in his deck by attacking Truth itself.

 

He does this by labeling the Truth “hate speech.”

 

DEFENSE OF TRUTH DN= HATE SPEECH

 

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The irony of this concept of “hate speech” is that the people most commonly accused of hate speech are in actuality the ones most commonly on the receiving end of it.

 

For centuries upon centuries, Christians have put their trust in the eternal God, in his indisputable and unchanging Word in which He is revealed, and in His universal promises and plan for all of mankind.  In a world where people follow after every wind of change, no matter how ludicrous, we build our lives on the solid rock of eternal unchanging Truth, passing it down from generation to generation.

 

But instead of a fixed and eternal rock, our faith is now portrayed by our degenerate culture as an ignorant and hateful tradition.  We are even demonized for faithfully carrying out our most important responsibility as parents, the passing on of our faith to future generations, with the charge of “indoctrinating” our own children!

 

If parents should not be the ones most responsible for helping to frame the basic worldview and shaping the character of their own children, then who should?  The enemy has some ideas about that.

 

(And you’ll hear all about them if you come back for Part 9—Brainwashing.)

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