The Case for Critical Thinking
You ever hear that line in school—“There are no stupid questions”? Yeah, that’s bullshit. There are plenty of stupid questions. They’re everywhere. People ask them every day. And you know what? Most of them don’t come from curiosity, they come from intellectual laziness. People don’t wanna think, they don’t wanna do the work, they just wanna open their mouths and have the answer dropped in like baby food. “Feed me, teacher, feed me!”
A real question means you’ve already wrestled with an idea, chewed on it, struggled a little. A stupid question means you skipped all that and went straight to “Why can’t someone else do the thinking for me?”
“Stupid questions exist because lazy minds exist.”
Lazy Thinking, Dangerous Beliefs
That’s how you get people saying, “Well, I believe in God because my parents told me to.” Oh, fantastic. That’s not faith, that’s autopilot. By that logic, I should still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and that gum stays in your stomach for seven years. Or how about, “I believe the President because I like what he’s saying.” Oh, that’s smart—trusting politicians. Why not just hand your wallet to a crack dealer and hope for the best?
The Buddha had this figured out 2,500 years ago:
“Don’t believe anything just because you heard it, read it, or some authority figure told you. Test it. Analyze it. Use your brain.”
Wisdom requires effort. Effort is work. And work makes your brain tired.
Stupidity Dressed Up as Leadership
Instead, we get leaders asking world-class stupid questions like, “Why don’t we just nuke a hurricane?” Or, “Maybe we could inject disinfectant into the body to kill COVID?” That’s not curiosity—that’s stupidity dressed up in a lab coat.
Here’s the truth: stupid questions exist because lazy minds exist. People don’t want to think critically, they don’t want to analyze, they don’t want to learn. They just want someone to do the heavy lifting. Critical thinking is hard, and Americans, god bless us, we hate hard.
Why It Matters
Stupid questions don’t just waste time—they become dangerous when they shape public policy. The worst part is:
They don’t just ask the stupid question… they vote.
Further Reading
- Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman – How lazy thinking and cognitive biases shape decisions. https://civilheresy.com/thinking fast and slow
- The Demon-Haunted World – Carl Sagan – A defense of science and critical thinking in an age of pseudoscience. https://civilheresy.com/deamon haunted world
- Amusing Ourselves to Death – Neil Postman – How shallow media culture destroys serious public discourse. https://civilheresy.com/Amusing Ourselves
