RE: Why is propaganda effective? How does mental corruption take place?
Critical thinking is one of those things we all over-estimate how good we are at it but only because the base-line for it is so low. It wasn't until I really spent time learning it, as well as doing 'Think-Again' free 12 week course on critical thinking from Duke Uni [it's on the coursera site] that I started to see how easy it is to get it wrong.
A personal message I keep at the forefront of my mind always is 'the easiest person to fool is ourselves'.
Have you heard of Polya Patterns? They really speak to how easily people can be persuaded to believe something or find something to be true, and it has less to do with accuracy and more to do with inference and association.
I too think the world would be a better place if more people learned and cultivated better critical thinking skills; and it's something I use to help the people I work with especially with certain beliefs they have that they've never even considered challenging.
I have chosen to look at it as something that can never be mastered. It is like muscles in your body. Exercise makes you better at it, but does not make you a master, and it is something you should always be trying to improve yourself on.
It is unfortunate that when I point out critical thinking to someone I am thinking of it like someone telling you "You should try this new cardio program". I'm thinking of it as mental exercise, conditioning, training. I don't say it to attack someone or imply they are stupid in anyway. It is actually something I'd be willing to say to anyone... even myself. In fact, I do mentally tell myself the same thing. "Oops... I missed that one I better go do some more critical thinking exercises". People choose to see it as an attack when it is not. I actually am trying to be encouraging, but I have yet to come up with a guaranteed way to present it that is short enough they will read it, and that will work.
No I haven't... perhaps you should do a blog post on it and reply to let me know you did, so I don't miss it. I could google it. Yet it might be something more people benefit from.
The problems in the world we face are big ones. A lot of seemingly great ideas historically have been pushed as the solution.
I ultimately believe that none of our great big ideas will work if they are not built upon a foundation of people that are well versed and constantly practicing critical thinking.
It is too easy for corruption and propaganda to take hold and spoil any great idea. Critical Thinking is the only thing that I've seen that gives you an unbiased set of mental tools that increases your chance of seeing, noticing, and thus preventing such things before they take root.