Critical Thinking in the Modern World

Today, at lunch, we got into the subject of brainwashing. It all started when we asked ourselves what would happen if we moved to China. Poly's first response was, "It won't happen to me because you've taught me to reject every foreign idea." I corrected him, "No, I did not teach you to reject every foreign idea, but I taught you to evaluate every input that comes at you from every direction." Then I told them that not only Chinese kids get brainwashed by their communist government. Here in the US, we get brainwashed all the time, in far more subtle ways. Every newspaper, every magazine has its own political, social, and financial agenda. You need to read everything not only for the information it presents, but also the underlying purpose for the information presented. We talked about commercials, children's books, and popular movies.

Movies, especially the inocuous animation films, are the most effective and far-reaching "brainwashers." We examined some recent movies such as Shrek, Ratatouile, Wall-E, Over the Hedge, trying to find a common thread among messages being transmitted unconsciously into children. A pattern began to emerge. The idea of "self-esteem" and "being true to who you are" was highest on the list.

I immediately caught on to one possible sociology project (my brain is always working on possible research projects): watch enough movies over the next 12-24 months and come up with a report of the predominant themes and messages being taught to children. The result could be highly revealing. Poly hates the idea. He says that way he'll be forced to watch movies every weekend, and he'd rather be doing something else instead. I find this response rather revealing, too.