How does government benefit from teaching critical thinking in government schools? If there's no good answer to that, it won't happen.

The assumption that all governments are at best always hostile is not something shared by everyone in the world.

it seems to be a reliable indicator that the person expressing it is a US citizen or at least resident in the US.

Isn't it debilitating to live in a place suffused with this opinion? Does it become self-fulfilling?

And to answer the question: the government is composed of people like you; critical thinking helps the government see how to improve society just as it helps you to improve your own life and prevent you from falling for scams.

When you say "the government is composed of people like you," I imagine you are talking about the low to mid echelons of the civil service. That's right, but they don't set policy. Corporations work together with politicians and reliable upper-echelon civil servants to set US policy, and the media works together with them to prevent the use of democracy. It's impossible for a US citizen to believe anything else if they have but the most shallow awareness of even the foreign policy alone of the past 70 years.

It's universal knowledge; you will hear it whether you are talking to a conservative christian or a communist, although the particular culturally appropriate way of phrasing it will change. You will even hear it from comfortable urban professionals, although couched in a way that makes it look like they're not excessively upset about it.

I have heard a lot of opinions, some of them bonkers, but there is one I have never heard; I challenge you to find one single American who believes that Iraq was invaded due to popular demand.

> I have heard a lot of opinions, some of them bonkers, but there is one I have never heard; I challenge you to find one single American who believes that Iraq was invaded due to popular demand.

I seem to recall it being fairly popular among the public back when it was proposed and first carried out, because there was a pretty widespread belief that Saddam did still have WMDs, and that he was somehow linked to 9/11. Those were both wrong, and there were certainly people who were skeptical, but it did have somewhat popular support at the time.

Some popular support?

"Days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Maines told a London audience the band did not endorse the war and were "ashamed" of US President George W. Bush being from Texas. The remarks triggered boycotts in the US and backlash from fans." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicks)

That's overlooking the order of events - first the decision was made to invade Iraq, then the WMD claim was invented, then the public was convinced of the claim, and then Iraq was invaded. If you only consider the last two steps, then it would look like the second to last event was first. Sadly, public demand was a consequence, not a cause.

I don't know whether it was actually invented or was the result of poor intelligence and the Bush administration wanting it to be true. At any rate, the public largely bought into it at the time.

> It's universal knowledge; you will hear it whether you are talking to a conservative christian or a communist,

I wouldn't expect either to be part of the Overton window, and both to be rather unhappy with current society. As for upper civil servants, corporations and the media, one has to suppose their interests are all aligned, as opposed to being in disagreement over various matters. Sounds like something you'd hear conservative christian or communist say. Someone unhappy with the current form of government who supposes there is a grand conspiracy preventing their ideal conservative or communist society from being realized. Instead of a majority of people not wanting such a society.

Both have a narrative of the world as being controlled by dark forces brainwashing people, instead of it being a complex, emergent structure from a messy history with nobody in control.

The factions within the, as you put it, Overton window, share some interests and oppose each other on some other goals. All of the uncertainty in policy lies in wondering whether corporations, politicians or upper level civil servants will get their way in each conflict, sometimes none of them getting their way due to gridlock. Nobody is in control, but some people are in more control than others. As you put it, groups outside the "Overton window" are all dissatisfied - but the really revealing thing is that they make up almost all of the US population.

> Isn't it debilitating to live in a place suffused with this opinion? Does it become self-fulfilling?

One of the 2 major political parties in the USA has pushed this opinion for as long as I’ve been alive. They deny federal government any opportunity to improve then point at government as an example of why it doesn’t improve peoples’ lives.

I hope other still-functioning governments learn from the institutional failures of the USA in the 1970s and 1980s so as to avoid following the same path.

The people running our society have more to lose from getting replaced by some kind of taliban-equivalent than they have to lose from inoculating the population against propaganda at the expense of limiting their own power in some cases. This is a plan where they can keep their money and their authority, and they'd only have to sacrifice a small amount of the effectiveness of the big papers, which are not effective anymore anyway.

The problem with your reasoning here is that your two options are replacement by "a taliban-equivalent", or a slight limitation of their power. I think you've vastly overestimated the risk of a naïve population to government while underestimating the benefit. In my view, the U.S. government's propaganda system is essential to its survival in its current form. It uses it to maintain the war industry, to justify its spending power, to preserve the stability of the currency, to ensure the election of tame officials — there's a lot to lose.

The stability of the currency is mainly decided by countries outside the reach of the US's internal propaganda, because of the enormous debts and reserve currency status. I agree that a population which wouldn't go for Qanon would also make them quit invading countries in the middle east and south america, but depending on how this crazy business plays out, leaving Iran alone may be a small price for them to pay.

I hate to invoke Godwin's law, but business people loved Hitler all around the world right up until his propaganda machine shut out their influence and he started invading the other half of their markets and supply chains. If the people running our country have learned anything from history they will quit encouraging irrationality and gullibility some time before the curtains close, so to speak.

Maybe you are right. I'm not as confident as you that the U.S. government has learned from history, though; it spends a lot of time explaining that it has made historically-attested consequences of its actions impossible. But I'm not a fan in general, and that may color my perceptions.

GP told about "a government". You rephrased to "The people running our society". If we accept the fact that this people is, simply put, the rich and the giant corporations... they have a lot to gain from some kind of fascist society. That's the heart of fascism: a strong government serving the rich. They do have to gain a lot from the masses ignorance, irrationality and short sight. Not that I'm saying they all adhere to fascism, people may have principles that contradict their most direct interest.

Multinational corporations don't like nationalism. I think the idea that big corporations benefit from fascism is an interesting one, but it doesn't square with capitalism's need to keep borders open to trade and capital flow. If you're proposing that someone is going to invent a non-nationalist version of fascism, that's again an interesting idea, but I'm having a hard time imagining it.

If it's successful it won't get a name, it won't be a "thing," it will just be the new normal.

I don't think critical thinking will do anyone any good if people abuse critical thinking to have opinions they want to have as opposed to changing their mind.

Talking of unscientific beliefs, I have yet to see any evidence that teaching critical thinking is either possible or likely, or that schools would do anything other than use the time for propaganda - particularly in regard to anything of importance that is contentious.