Critical Thinking Assignment

The type of critical thinking employed by the comedy news anchors, as described by Alyssa Quart in her article “The Sarcastic Times”, such as John Stewart and Rachel Maddow is most closely aligned with the Dewey/Glaser model of critical thinking. As described by Fisher, this model of critical thinking focus on actively scrutinizing the evidence supporting an idea and the thought process behind any conclusions that are reached form the idea. Particularly in the case of Stewart and his compatriot Stephen Colbert, these comedic news shows focus heavily on the logic- or lack thereof- of the public figure or idea in question and use logical extension of the underlying thought of these ideas to draw comedic conclusions.

The epithets shouted at the politicians Lewis and Frank, as detailed in the New York Times article “The Rage is Not About Health Care” by Frank Rich, do not qualify as critical thinking under any of the modes presented by Fisher. They fail to pass in many ways, but most importantly they lack the criteria of active thought that Fisher lays out as a crucial underlying theme to all of the various ways to view critical thinking. The comments are made without particular regard to how they tie into the overall event of the health care bill, and they also fail to consider the particular congressmen that they target. Instead, these are reflexive comments made on the fly, so to speak, which Fisher points out as decidedly not critical thinking.