Critical Skepticism and the Media

The current and often lamentable realities of the Internet and social media have helped to call into question the veracity of much of what is published in the news media. Sadly, for all critical skeptics, this makes the effort of sorting out what’s true from what is being reported with spin and bias all the more difficult.

Sorting through inchoate and contradictory claims from various news sources is next to impossible. Very often what was reported at the point the news was breaking changes as more and more information becomes available to reporters. What we thought in the beginning can be incredibly different as time proceeds.

With this reality, a critical skeptic must be willing to be open-minded while still obeying the tenets of the ideology of doubt.

Following are a few techniques that we can apply in this brave new world of instant (and often misleading or downright incorrect) news.

According to a 2016 poll by Pew Research, 64% of
Americans find that Fake News "has caused a great
deal of confusion."
https://goo.gl/GFxS0G

• Glean your news from various and trusted sources, with the understanding that you will be able to see a larger thread of truth in the heterogeneity of this particular practice. For instance, a friend that reads four or five different newspapers a day, may have a better grasp on a current event than the friend that gets all their news from only one source.
• Always pay attention to the attributed spin of the various news sources you use. Some newspapers and online or televised news sources are well known to be “strongly left-leaning” or “very conservative”. While this reality is not inherently bad (based on your own political biases) it can be the cause for intentional misrepresentation from the particular perspective represented. To deal with this, the critical skeptic does not shy away from reading news written at any point of the political spectrum. Just because you don’t agree with the position, doesn’t mean that important information cannot be learned. This is very important to remember.
• Keep your mental waste basket handy with news bloggers and headlines. Always click through to the article and read it thoroughly. A critical skeptic must not be too easily swayed by shocking headlines or posts on social media. Much of what is posted there is meant to get your attention and distract you with emotional content such as ‘the outrage factor’. Feel free to toss any of these kinds of posts away. There’s no need to value all news in the same way, understanding that much of it is fluff meant to sell advertising.
• Finally, avoid the temptation to only or mostly follow one news source above all others. Often, we tend to gravitate to the source that agrees most with our own world view and even if we are trying to remain unbiased, our personal beliefs can cause us to be too dependent on information that helps rather than hinders the backfire effect.

By adhering to these basic techniques the critical skeptic can continue to revere the ideology of doubt and uncertainty in a world where the prevalence for fake news is becoming more and more a very real problem.

Doubt and morality: Weighing Moral Codes

Most humans have a sense of right and wrong and would, we hope, try to do the right thing, whatever the situation dictates that particular right thing to be. Immanuel Kant, in his book 'Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals' outlines the socially normative underpinning of ethical behavior and shares with the reader his categorical imperative, which states that we should act in such a way that that action could be made into a universal maxim.

Immanuel Kant 1724-1804, was a German idealist philosopher
who wrote about ethics, metaphysics and perception,
among much else. He is often considered a central thinker
influencing much modern philosophical thought.

In other words, act in a way so that your behavior can be emulated by any other person with no harm to them or others.
And, by the very lights of his own theory, we could apply Kant's categorical imperative as the only moral code the human race ever needs. But we know that various cultures and ideologies have varying moral codes and the critical skeptic has got to wade through these in order to measure their efficacy. We cannot afford to take certain moral codes at face value, any more than we can any other idea we may be faced with. The ideology of doubt demands that we carry our tools of the critical faculty with us into the many different versions of what is actually right and wrong.
The reason that we must be willing to do this, is because, once again, human credulity often leads people into unethical behavior, which, unbeknownst to them, can be harmful for everyone. The critical skeptic must carry with them a sense of what is truly ethical and moral in order to weigh the other proffered moral codes against. The categorical imperative is an excellent standard by which to make this judgement.
There are a few general rules that one can ask that help to discern whether or not a moral code is really what it claims to be.
First, we can ask who benefits. If it is not the person or their immediate family group, then it is probably not a good code.
We also need to ask what the source of the code is. Is it applicable to our day and age? Does it take into consideration current scientific understanding? If not, once again, this is not the code for you.
Finally we need to think about whether the moral code in question would indeed do well as a universal maxim. If this became the morality of every single human on earth, would the world become a better, or worse place?
Dealing with the myriad moral codes in these ways give us the ability to decide which are actually beneficial to humanity as a whole.
The critical skeptic has a moral obligation to point out immoral and unethical codes and laws even more than we have the responsibility to point out bad ideas.