"Intro to Critical Thinking"

The “Sarcastic Times” article really wasn’t a testament to how television personalities of “sarcasm news,” such as Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart, are critical thinkers. However, if we were to assume their status as critical thinkers from their respective credentials [a news anchor that is also a Rhodes Scholar (Maddow) and a political comedian who took on the news in a sarcastic manner (Stewart)], we may easily be right. In order for one to become a news anchor, it is often the case that one is an accomplished journalist and grasps a good understanding of all the subjects that they cover and takes into account all sides of the story. For one to become an accomplished political comedian, one must be knowledgeable of events occurring in the political world and must think of creative ways to jibe at the issues and the politicians at the center of them while making it funny. Critical thinking is necessary in both of these fields to comment effectively on the issues at hand, especially political blunders.

The people on the sidelines watching these events happen, such as the recent healthcare bill, much of the time they are not thinking critically when they resort to banalities like shouting homophobic slurs at openly gay politician Barney Frank or racial slurs at John Lewis. These people do not think about the consequences of their actions and are only thinking about one part of a piece of legislation, not the bill as a whole and the entire effect of that legislation in the long term.

Figures like Maddow and Stewart use tools of critical thinking that Alec Fisher advises that everyone use: identifying the elements of an issue and its conclusions, clarification of ideas, evaluating arguments, drawing inferences, and making arguments. These are, in many cases, the tools that the people who fling slurs at politicians don’t employ in their reasoning. These are the individuals that Fisher is really reaching out to to read his book so that they can think more critically and not feel the need to resort to these banalities.