Critical Thinking vs. Critical Thinking

No part of my education was more significant to my development than the critical thinking I learned in a class titled Symbolic Logic. This, with Quantitative Analysis, taught me to differentiate communication from bullshit. Serendipity brought Nixon as president when I took the course, and his speeches, our examples for analysis. Never say an unkind word about him - his words taught me more than nearly any other person's.
Harry Frankfurt, a retired Princeton philosophy professor, recently published a brilliant little book titled "On Bullshit." In it, he differentiates, by definition and example, bullshit from lying. Among the differences, he says, bullshit is an art.
That was the one statement in this otherwise stunning little treatise that really irked me. An art? How can he call THAT an art? There have been no more exasperating, fist clenching, mouth pursing, hyperventilating, eye glaring worse examples of me wanting to bash someone over the head with my superior knowledge, than to those who have bullshot me.
It makes me a little angry just thinking about it.
And just now, it makes sense. Lying is more of a simple thing: Yes it did, No it didn't; Black, White; Uh-huh, Uh-uh; Did SO, Talk to the hand, girlfriend.
Bullshit is more complex. Some lie, some exaggeration, some truth, some charm - all mixed together in a fast-talking soupy screen that allows, well, it may be possible. After all, there's SOME truth in it. Only after removing the rosy benefit-of-the-doubt glasses, does one see it for what it is.
Maddening.
Bullshit, opined Frankfurt, is on the rise. With that I agree heartily, and wonder whether now, when we need it most, its nemesis - critical thinking - will be a casualty to the other more pervasive type of critical thinking, I'll call critizing thinking.
The king of critizing thinking is that mean little Brit on American Idol. The standard for knowing whether you are engaging in it, is whether you are belittling the other person or thing at the time. If so, you are.
Critizing thinking is to lying, what critical thinking is to bullshit. Note that for your next SAT exam.
Critizers are simple, like liars. They are judgmental, less the mental.
Critical thinkers are complex. They test theories using premises that must follow each other using strict rules. Conclusions must be proven using well tested constructs. It's laborious, slow, contentious and difficult. But, it's our only defense against bullshit, and it is this - not the War on Terror - that I believe is the cause of this generation.
To further the cause of critical thinking, by the way, I've applied for the position of Media Whore for The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please send letters of recommendation to their website at bobby.henderson@gmail.com with the words "Help" and "Media Whore", or "Media Analyst" if you prefer.
I'd appreciate it.
That's no bullshit.