A little quiz

Time for a little quiz, if you're game. It's simple, just answer the following five questions with either "yes" or "no":

Do you ...

1. consider yourself reasonably well informed?
2. get most of your news from trusted sources?
3. prefer talking with people who think like you?
4. believe a good many of our problems can be solved?
5. feel fairly sure about what our problems are?

There, that didn't hurt did it? So what's the catch? Oh, yes. Well, if you answered either question 1 with "no" or any of the remainder of the questions with "yes". You're part of the problem. You exhibit sheep-like tendencies, or, if that's too harsh a judgment, you have underdeveloped critical-thinking skills. (Better?)

One of the reasons why things these days see one-sided or simply out of balance is because that's exactly what they are: one-sided and out of balance. It never ceases to amaze me how, say, prior to an election, and even prior to the actual candidates having been selected, for example, people know how they are going to vote. How does that work? If things are that predictable, hasn't it crossed your mind that perhaps the whole voting exercise is not all it's cracked up to be?

This isn't a purely American phenomenon, don't get me wrong. Oh sure, as in so many cases, the Americans like to be #1, and they're probably doing it best at the moment, but there are just too many people who aren't doing their share of thinking. There's too much acceptance, not enough questioning.

Ah, yes, questioning. We certainly don't do a lot of that anymore, and from what I can tell, it's not being taught in a lot of schools either. Information is king these days, not asking whether the information being funneled into our heads or the heads of our children is worth anything.

It's going to come back to haunt us, I can tell you, and I'd be willing to bet sooner, rather than later, and we're not going to like it when it happens.