Ronald Gross

“Cultivate skepticism as a virtue. In this exercise you will upgrade what Professor Neil Postman of New York University calls your “crap detector.” The term is from Ernest Hemingway, who said that it was one of the writer’s most important tools. Each day, keep an eye peeled for the most telling instance of lying, deceiving, and distortion or concealment of the truth. This will take no extra time at all, since these messages and images are thrust at you continually, unless you live in a cabin at Walden Pond without a television set or computer. For example: • Billboards • Advertising flyers • Newspapers • Commercials on radio or TV (and sometimes the newscasts!) • Opinions thrust on us by other people. For the top choice each day, identify the technique of deception or distortion being used. (It’s going to be a hard call!) Share your examples with friends and colleagues, and invite their comments and observations.”
― Ronald Gross, Socrates' Way: Seven Keys to Using Your Mind to the Utmost

“SOCRATES’ SCORN OF PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO THINK Socrates had no patience for people who give up on stretching their minds because our reasoning so often falters and fails. He even coined a word for them: misologists—“haters of reasoning.” “It is a sad case,” he said, “when a man discovers that some of his cherished beliefs are false and therefore gives up on finding the truth. He should blame himself for failing to validate his belief, but instead he turns against thinking itself. So for the rest of his life he goes on hating reason and speaking ill of it.” Socrates would have recoiled from our common practice of dodging discussion of an important but controversial topic by saying, “You have your opinion, and I have mine. Let’s just agree to disagree.” To Socrates, this would have been an avoidance of the need to engage in dialogue, to be willing to test our convictions in the give-and-take of discussion. “Let us not let into our souls this idea that perhaps there is no soundness in reasoning,” he enjoined his friends. “Let us think instead that we ourselves are not yet sound, and struggle to become better thinkers.”
― Ronald Gross, Socrates' Way: Seven Keys to Using Your Mind to the Utmost