[cj]

The reason politics is so easy to argue about is because most people have strong feelings about which “side” is better, with the media feeding us all talking points to back up each person’s perspective, with very little critical thinking.

Questions like…

> Do we focus too much on classic books/music/movies/plays/art/ideas, or too little?

require critical thinking, in the moment, to form an opinion (as do most other examples on the list).

More “suitable” topics to argue about would be ones that don’t require very much critical thinking (sadly), and topics where everyone is likely to already know what “side” they’re on.

So, instead let’s argue about what to argue about before we start arguing.

[sebzim4500]

>Questions like…

>> Do we focus too much on classic books/music/movies/plays/art/ideas, or too little? >require critical thinking, in the moment, to form an opinion (as do most other examples on the list).

Do they? Maybe it's my superpower but I can form opinions on these things without any thought at all. Whether the opinion is defensible is a different question.

[tetromino_]

I get as far as the second word and get stuck: who the hell is "we"? The people in the room? My family? My social circle? My current and former colleagues? The people in my neighborhood or my kid's school district? The members of my economic class? People who speak the same language(s) as me? People who have the same citizenship(s) as me? People whose views get portrayed in this country's mainstream media? And for whichever definition of "we", how well - or at all! - do I know what they focus on? And how can I judge what for those people would be too much or too little?

It's a question to which one cannot even begin to formulate an answer without quite a bit of thinking.

[defterGoose]

You've just described the base class of all opinions. Fickle and uninformed.

[082349872349872]

Is it possible to discuss self-reference without mentioning either Ἐπιμενίδης or Gödel? What about Quine?