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Notes -
The trouble with politics in non-explicitly-political classes is that essentially it changes the subject of the course from whatever the subject was to, well, politics. And it’s almost impossible to make a course like that not turn into a political jam fest in whic( students game the professor for an A by telling him his politics are correct. And it’s also super easy to end up with ideologues teaching such courses and essentially having woke communist teach-ins paid by the university where everybody pretends it’s about learning English Lit.
I think honestly the best way to actually teach critical thinking is the old fashioned way — teaching formal logic, both philosophical and mathematical. People don’t know how to think clearly because they don’t read books (which can only be fixed by actually reading whole books), and because they don’t have a toolset to examine truth claims. The best way to get such a toolset is to be taught it, and use formal proofs to examine, make and refute arguments. If I want to argue for trans rights, fine, but do so in an open honest and logically correct way. Show your work. If you’re going to argue that The Tempest is about being White is good, then fine, but it’s going to need to examine its own assumptions.
Agree, just as Science + Politics = Politics, such is true for most classroom discussions as well.
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