People have 0 original thoughts, they just repeat what they hear.

I want my country back.

He says it like it is.

People should be able to come into this country legally.

We need to protect the children.

I’m tired of people coming into our country and taking our jobs.

If my daughter goes into a bathroom, she expects not to see a man in there.

I’m tired of immigrants taking our jobs.

Black people commit more crimes.

We have terrorism, mass murders, a failing economy, a broken education system, and you care about what bathrooms people are going into!?

This is about the rights of everyone.

We’re losing all of our jobs to china.

I don’t hate gay people, I just hate when they act gay.

We just want an open debate about these issues

Women make just as much as men

We need to ban all guns

Republicans are all racist homophobic bigots.

Liberals are all white-hating communists.

Heard these before? Of course you have.

These are the kinds of things millions of people repeat every day; 100% regurgitated content.

These are the kinds of things that, rest assured, people will say in a way that oozes with a cheap-confidence. Personally, I agree and disagree to varying degrees about the aforementioned quotes; but this article is not about the actual viewpoints.

Worse yet, any one questioning their viewpoints will act as if their position is defensible; which it often isn’t because either the viewpoint in question is blatantly reductive, logically inconsistent, morally indefensible, impractical for all intents and purposes, or just fucking insane.

And don’t even get me started on individuals who claim to think critically, (e.g. people who use the phrase sheeple or bankster), yet regurgitate theories from these indie-pseudo conspiracy news sites that are even more insane than the worst of the mainstream media.

But these are the kinds of things that are comforting; they’re black and white (often literally). Humans hate when things are complicated; we’d much rather make something up that aligns with our viewpoints even if that puts someone else at a dis-advantage.

Why is the lack of un-original thoughts bad?

It amplifies group-think. It takes a viewpoint an individual has, which started on shaky grounds, and amplifies it into this monstrocity that gains credibility through numbers of followers.

And this taints our democracy; viewpoints that shouldn’t have credibility now have a pseudo majority. This is called mob rule.

Should we be so surprised?

Nope.

…Students are not learning how to think critically

…The older generations have been mindlessly fucked by their televisions and corperate controlled news organizations to the point where they are un-able to get any actual facts.

With that being said…

We need to recognize that this un-originality is our fucking fault.

Don’t put the fault on the media companies that have been putting out content that sells the most.

Don’t put the fault on the free market that sells what consumers purchase.

Don’t put the fault on the politicans that have been pandering to the voters.

Don’t put the fault on the schools which have been following angry parents demands.

Notice a trend here?

We love to fault others for our lack of critical thinking. But these are all our decisions… and they are simple reductive answers for increadibly complicated problems. Sound familiar?