Humanities and Fine Arts 191HFA39 - FYS-CritThinking/Pol Polar Age

We all like to think of ourselves as rational: that while the other side has been duped by fake news and propaganda, we?ve come to our beliefs and political opinions by way of careful consideration of the evidence and sound reasoning. But is this really the case? Recent empirical research seems to indicate that we?re all much more systematically irrational than we would have thought ? that we?re all susceptible to the same kinds of cognitive biases and pitfalls in reasoning. Troublingly, these weaknesses can be harnessed by those who wish to manipulate our beliefs for their own political or material
ends. And to make matters worse, it seems that recent social and technological changes have only exacerbated these problems. For example, lessons from the psychological and behavioral sciences have made rhetoric, bullshit, fake news, and propaganda all the more sophisticated, and the development of political microtargeting has enabled their more efficient dissemination; new ways of consuming media have also led to the creation of online echo chambers and filter bubbles, which polarize our beliefs and give us a false sense of epistemic confidence. If this picture is correct, what are we to do? How can we recognize when we're falling prey to group-think, or being manipulated to believe what's convenient for someone else? How can we avoid the cognitive biases that pervasively affect human thinking and decision-making? How can we be sure that we have good reasons for our political opinions? By attempting to answer these and similar questions, this course aims to give you the tools necessary
for critical thinking in our politically polarized age.

Open to first-year Humanities and Fine Arts Exploratory Track students and first-year HFA Majors.