Not saying any of that, or antyhing LIKE that, nor does Dr. Dörner. (He's a internationally known cognitive psychologist, you know, not some mechanic or accountant.) Have you actually read his book? Or did you at least get the chance to read the blog essay you inspired me to flesh out for the front page, in which I hope I've given more nuanced meanings than this?

And btw, thinking and feeling have been integrated -- no more Spinozan-Cartesian dichotomy to debate! -- or so the NYT reported a few years back, let me know if I need to dig out that article.

This was already handy though:

Ever thought much about the relationship between thought and language? Lewis Carroll, logician and fairy tale writer, apparently did. He wrote in Through the Looking Glass:

"When I say a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

So if I were to comment that Sheehan's public persona to date puts the psycho- in psycho-logical, it would indeed be insulting and too glib by half, and while I might honestly mean it in one way (she is pretty "out there" to my way of thinking) it wouldn't capture much else that I find more important to say, and it certainly wouldn't mean I wanted her to go to the other extreme, become a machine instead.

I construct my arguments and choose my language to match all my thoughts and meanings, and when what I mean isn't simple --is it ever? ;-)-- then I choose nuanced words to mean several things at once, or to different audiences, and in the proportions I find satisfying. I expect the same thing from those I bother to read and argue with, or else I don't (bother.)

I wish all political commentators and activists would read Diane F. Halpern's Rules for Clear Communication and then follow them! There are six, and they are spot-on.

Read the book online.

She discusses words and their meaning, how we use analogies, context and contrast, and includes two sections that may particularly interest politically active homeschooling parents: "Definitions and Control of Thought" followed by "The Power of Labels and Categories."

And her treatment of Emotional Language and Name Calling may benefit any adult living in today's world, as could the subsection on " leading questions and marked words." For example, she shows how an identical program description may be accepted or rejected depending on whether the argument presented focuses on gains or losses.

"It is clear," she writes, "that a loss is more negative than a comparable gain is positive."

And connections between the logical and the psychological are introduced with this: "The trick of course is to reason well. It isn't easy, and it isn't automatic."

And like the joke about psychologists trying to change a light bulb, it can be done only if the object of all their hard work and attention really WANTS to change.

Critical thinking is why public schools universally require algebra, you know. It's supposed to fashion a whole society of logical thinkers, to run all our systems successfully. It's failing at that purpose, of course, but it has a certain simplistic gut-level appeal and it's well-intended -- just like Cindy Sheehan.