“We Are All Confident Idiots” is an engaging article that forces the reader to puzzle over important questions regarding self awareness, intelligence, ignorance, and the way we make decisions. Dunning effectively uses tone, ethos, and diction to inform readers of the dangers of making ignorant, misinformed decisions and not admitting to what one doesn’t know. Though most of his examples and evidence are credible and logical, Dunning occasionally glosses over the flaws within some of his examples, leading a critical reader to question some of the conclusions that Dunning has drawn. One of the most effective devices Dunning uses to support his argument is his appeal to his credibility as both an author and a source. For example in this quote …show more content…
“In the more solemn confines of a research lab at Cornell University, the psychologists Stav Atir, Emily Rosenzweig, and I carry out ongoing research that amounts to a carefully controlled, less flamboyant version of Jimmy Kimmel’s bit”, Dunning emphasizes the contrast between his “carefully controlled” studies and Kimmel’s more “flamboyant” approach, references his close ties to an accredited university, and even highlights the fact that this was also the work of two other reputable sources, not just himself. Later in the essay, Dunning mentions that he has been working in this field for over twenty years, mentions his publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and mentions the Dunning-Kruger effect which he helped discover. All of these accomplishments give the reader a sense of security regarding the author’s credibility. Even though Dunning is very self referential at the beginning of the paper, he uses studies from other psychologists and universities to support his argument later on. A slightly more nuanced method that Dunning uses to back his argument, is his use of tone. For a good deal of the paper, Dunning’s tone is both informative and cautioning. He discusses the idea that people often make ignorant decisions based off of a vague understanding of a topic (or information that surrounds a topic) in a manner that gives the necessary information to the reader and warns the reader of the dangers that arise from this kind of misinformation, ignorance, and inflated confidence in one’s intelligence. He warns us that “policies and decisions that are founded on ignorance have a strong tendency, sooner or later, to blow up in one’s face”. However, throughout the paper Dunning’s tone has an undercurrent of ridicule and even accusation. He discusses the comical aspects of these shortcomings several times throughout his argument, offering up the misguided individuals on Kimmel’s show as an object to laugh at, humorously discussing people who had plenty to say on Michael Merrington the “pleasant-sounding string of syllables”, and those who were sure that “plates of parallax” were real. Dunning doesn’t let the reader giggle for long though, immediately bringing up the vital concept that all of us have these tendencies to inflate our own intelligence and to draw false conclusions. Some readers may feel slightly unsettled by this tactic, but I believe that is exactly what Dunning means to accomplish. Closely related to the more jarring aspect of Dunning’s tone is his strong choice of words such as idiot.
Even in his title Dunning declares that “We Are All Confident Idiots”. He often brings up the words and phrases idiot/idiocy, ignorant/ignorance, clueless, dazed, incompetent/incompetence, ineptitude, and inappropriate/inflated confidence. These words definitely indicate a far more reproachful tone than perhaps the reader may be used to when reading an essay of this sort. Words such as idiocy and incompetence are most definitely jarring, and keep the reader’s attention. Some may argue that this sort of language drives readers away, and though that may be true for some it is also likely that these sorts of words may kindle a desire to keep reading. No one enjoys being called an idiot, but most people upon hearing such a claim feel the need to disprove it. Just as when children are told they can’t do something they want to do prove they can do it, plenty of readers I am sure kept reading this piece simply to discover or prove that they were different, that somehow they were an exception to Dunning’s rule. If Dunning had been just a bit more abrasive in his language, like the individuals he mentioned who declared American’s to be “as dumb as rocks”, he might have lost his audience. I believe this to be a risky but brilliant tactic to both shake up the reader’s perceptions of themselves and others, and to maintain
interest. Along with his use of ethos, tone and strong diction, Dunning uses a
Sean Blanda’s, “The Other Side Is Not Dumb”, uses cultural examples concerning the younger American generation involving, the medias influence and peer pressure vs the actual facts and proof, involved while forming a personal opinion. The author emphasizes how the effects of pressure from our surroundings, such as: friends, media, and more, adjust our view of political and social subjects. He includes multiple cases of where your own ignorance can hinder your learning and interaction with others. If you continue to have a negative outlook on people who disagree with you, you’ll never be able to consider yourself a curious person and participate in social media. “We cannot consider ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those that don’t agree with us.”- Mr. Blanda
Malesic, Johnathan. “How Dumb Do They Think We Are?” Writing from Sources Ed. Brenda Spatt. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 85-87. Print.
Additionally, Carr argues that the lack of our critical thinking skills causes less knowledge to be created because...
“Everyone loves free expression as long as it isn't exercised” (Rosenblatt 501). In the article, We are Free to Be You, Me, Stupid, and Dead, Roger Rosenblatt argues for the people’s right to freedom of speech and expression, that is given by the U.S Constitution. Rosenblatt argues that freedom of speech is one of the many reasons the Founding Fathers developed this country. For this reason, Rosenblatt believes that we should be tolerant and accepting of other’s ideas and beliefs. Even if one does not agree with someone else, they need to be understanding and realize that people have differing opinions. Everyone has the right to free expression, and this is what Rosenblatt is trying to get across. The necessity of freedom of expression and the important values it contains is a main foundation for this country, therefore, Rosenblatt’s argument is valid.
Upon reading Peter Elbow’s essay, I was struck with the realization that I use the doubting game in much of my daily life to make decisions. I even conducted an experiment around my house and noted that all of my family plays this logic-based game also. There is no correct process to use, though, it is merely your brains instinct based off past experience. I see no main difference between these two games and critical thinking, in fact, it appears that the doubting and believing games are actually just branches off of our critical thinking process. The idea behind critical thinking and the entire reason for using critical thinking in any strategy is to evaluate the evidence and form an analysis off of the presented information. The doubting and believing game are
One strategy Moore uses in his excerpt is exemplification. He clarifies his points by providing examples, which help build the credibility of his arguments. For instance, to demonstrate how ignorant American officials are, Moore provides numerous examples, such as describing William Clark, “President Ronald Reagan’s nominee for deputy secretary of state,” who “ had no idea how our allies in Western Europ...
Culture Centers in Higher Education: Perspectives on Identity, Theory, and Practice is a powerful and enlightening book by Lori D. Patton. Patton is a higher education scholar who focuses on issues of race theories, African American experiences on college campuses, student development theories, campus environments, inclusion, and multicultural resources centers at higher education institutions. She has a variety of publications and was one of the first doctoral students to complete a dissertation that focused exclusively on Black culture centers entitled, “From Protest to Progress: An Examination of the Relevance, Relationships and Roles of Black Culture Centers.” In Campus Culture Centers in Higher Education Patton collaborates with many higher education scholars and faculty members to discuss various types of racial and ethnic culture centers in higher education, their overall effectiveness, relevance, and implications for improvement in relation to student retention and success. Diversity, inclusion and social justice have become prevalent issues on all college campuses, and this piece of literature gives a basic introduction for individuals unfamiliar with cultural resource centers. This book successfully highlights contributions of culture centers and suggestions for how centers can be reevaluated and structured more efficiently. For many faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals unfamiliar with the missions and goals of culture centers, Patton’s text provides a concrete introduction and outline for the functionality of these resources and also offers recommendations and improvements for administrators managing multicultural centers.
Television was an invention designed to entertain and inform. Created in the 1920s by John Logie Baird, TV has become an indispensable piece of furniture in most American dwellings. Every child, at least once in their lives have heard their mothers tell them that spending long periods of time in front of a screen will damage their brain. Two opposite arguments question all mothers’ hypothesis. Steven Johnson in “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” claims that over the years TV has become more complex. He considers that this complexity forces the brain to work. Dana Stevens in “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box” argues that there are many cons in the issue and that watching TV does not make anybody smarter. Instead,
Many people refer to this generation of kids as the "dumbest generation." I disagree, our present generation is not the "dumbest generation," our minds have simply been developed differently. Our minds are wired much differently than our parents, and our parents minds are wired differently from our grandparents. Everyone has been brought up at different times and everything seems to be changing generation to generation. Technology is an area that as changed the most over the past few years and has nearly influenced every aspect of life, specifically the way we learn.
Certainty being such a powerful tool of persuasion can be organized into categories based on how people make evaluations or appraisals (formulated based on relevancy, completeness, legitimacy and accuracy). The writer argues that’s there are four levers of certainty and they are as follows:
As Frye (1986) quotes, “the vast majority of things we hear today are prejudices and clichés, simply verbal formulas that have no thought behind them but are put up as a pretence of thinking”. This is still incredibly true today. Prejudice is defined as “a negative feeling toward a group based on faulty generalization…something we think and feel” (Bergen, 154-155). With no concept of how to critically evaluate one’s prejudices, there will be no change in problematic thinking. Thus, in order to address society’s and one’s own prejudices, critical thinking must be incorporated, which can be fostered by a diverse
Brown, M. &. (2000). Critical thinking: Asking the right questions. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Peason Custom Publishing.
Cynthia Rylant, William Stafford, and Joni Mitchell all convey a similar message in their literature works.The story “Checkouts”, the poem “Fifteen”, and the song “Both Sides Now” all express the idea of romanticizing realities. In “Checkouts” the girl has “that moment” when she immediately falls in love with the bag boy after he breaks a jar of mayonnaise. This conveys the cliche of instant love, or seeing someone and immediately falling for them. The bag boy falls for her the same way at the same time. In “Fifteen”, the young teenage boy finds a motorcycle, engine running, laying on the ground. At that moment he imagines jumping on the motorcycle and riding away, over the hills and all the way to the end of the road. In “Both Sides Now”,
Whether someone is a nobody or a somebody, everyone is a follower, but the decision to follow the crowd or the heart is theirs. “I'm Nobody! Who are you?” is a poem written by Emily Dickinson about the two categories of people in the world: nobodies and Somebodies. A somebody is someone who chases the crowd or the trend. Somebodies always want to blend in with those around them. Whereas, a nobody is someone who only pursues his/her’s heart. Nobodies want to stand out and be unique, but they are shunned and looked down on for being different. The disheartening reality is that today rather than being themselves, majority of people yearn to be more like somebody else.
In his essay Critical Thinking: What Is It Good For? (In Fact, What Is It), Howard Gabennesch explains the importance of critical thinking by drawing attention to how its absence is responsible for societies many ills including, but not limited to, the calamity in Vietnam. Yet, at the end of his essay, Gabennesch also mentions that, despite “the societal benefits of critical thinking, at the individual level, uncritical thinking offers social and psychological rewards of its own.”(14). Similarly, it is these rewards that, like the bait on a fishhook, often make individuals hesitant to engage in critical thinking despite the resulting harm to both them and society.