It seems increasingly urgent to provide our students with tools that allow them to differentiate rigorous information from falsehood and to foster critical thinking. The problem is that we do not have infallible tools that save us the effort of thinking. This is why I want to talk about the tree pop of the Pacific Northwest (Pacific Northwest tree octopus).
In 1998 a writer with the pseudonym Lyle Zapato created a sophisticated website to raise awareness of the critical ecological situation of a unique cephalopod capable of living both in water and in trees. In fact, it particularly enjoyed swinging from the mossy branches of the temperate rainforests of the Olympic National Forest. Zapato, who admitted his connection to PTECA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Pumpkins), asserted that the danger of extinction for this little animal was as imminent as that of the mountain walrus.
So far, what we have is a story too crude to be believable, but if we season it with a moral discourse that connects with cherished values of the present, things change. With this intention, Zapato isn't about to point fingers at those responsible for the poplar's lamentable situation: carpentry companies and sawmills, uncontrolled urban development, road construction, the predation of non-native species (like domestic cats), water pollution due to chemical runoff... and the hat industry of vain millionaires. However, his most lethal enemy is misinformation. Zapato denounced a press campaign that exaggerates the danger poplars pose to loggers. Curiously, this campaign is allegedly subsidized by the businessmen who want to market the timber from the Olympic National Forest. Who could be so insensitive as to remain unmoved by the lamentable situation of the poplar trees of the Pacific Northwest? Who wants to be complicit, through action or inaction, in their extinction? Why have we so quickly forgotten the extinction of Douglas's pop art and the red-ringed strawberry tree mattress?
This is a good example of toxic empathy, one of the deadliest enemies of critical thinking. If we fill a lie with a moral narrative that appeals to our good feelings, it's easy to swallow it whole.
When students aged 12 to 13 are offered the information that Zapato provides about tree pop, they tend to believe it is plausible, and when it is subsequently shown to them that it is not, a large percentage still trust it.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we all lower our logical guard when faced with an empathetic Machiavellian or the image of suffering of a supposed innocent. We are all more moved by a good metaphor than by a rigorous syllogism. And we all feel our self-esteem grow when we support a cause we consider noble. We are all susceptible to the seduction of pop music that flatters our emotions while dulling our rationality. The feeling of caring for the defenseless prevails over any hypothetical objection. When the great Balmes spoke of the inherent bias in "thinking by feeling," he knew that it is more democratic to listen than to argue and that cognitive laziness is a faithful ally of all partisanship. It guarantees loyalties while economizing intellectual effort. Thinking is never free. We must pay the price of attention, and that is tiring.
We can only judge the reliability of information if we have rigorous prior knowledge of it. And this should be alarming in a time of cognitive decline in schools. We're hearing that nonsense again that in the age of AI, we don't need knowledge. AI is very useful for those who like pre-cooked omelets. When they're hungry, they put it in the microwave and eat it. But it's a treasure for those who enjoy cooking. And intellectual cooking remains, as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow, literacy. If reading is thinking other people's thoughts, writing is shaping one's own. As Francis Bacon said: "Reading makes a full man; conversation, a ready man; and writing, an exact man."
The idea that knowing nothing is a sign of wisdom is a lie. It is not ignorance, but the awareness of our ignorance that sets us on the path to knowledge. However, if we wish to progress, we need teachers who understand what we don't know about ourselves and can help us transform that awareness into wisdom.
