I think you’re right.

IRL I used to tell people they need to do more research when they mentioned outrageous ideas to me. It backfires almost every time. Either they assume the suggestion is a rhetorical device to insult their intelligence. Or they go on to do some research and end up deeper in the rabbit hole.

Part of it is related to what you said about anti-intellectualism and liberalism. This results in an education system and a broader social environment that does not inculcate the way of asking the right questions. So for example if someone denies climate change and you tell them to do more research. They google ‘Is climate change real?’ or ‘Are climate change believers rational?’ etc. These questions are unlikely to lead to useful answers. People need to be taught how to ask questions.

Additionally, Google & Co partly builds its reputation on the ability to answer questions. We see this in the screenshot-memes, where someone has started to ask a question and the search engine suggests some ridiculous subjects. What many (perhaps most) people don’t seem to realise is that search engines don’t work like that. They’re not answering questions, they’re returning results with that phrase in the title, body, or metadata. People need to be taught how search engines work and how to use key terms to find general sources that still require interpretation and critical analysis.

I’m not saying any of this from discouraging people here from asking questions. Asking questions of other humans is very different to asking a search engine. And having a discussion about materials can be part of one’s ‘investigation’. This should be encouraged. In fact, I’d say ask questions before making claims and assumptions. A lot of the pain in online struggle sessions could be avoided by asking each other for clarification before ‘responding’ substantively.

Whether someone says something problematic or something that might require a broader re-evaluation of one’s own knowledge, yours are good questions to ask, I think:

“Why do you trust this source? What is their agenda? Who finances them?"

If you or others are interested, I wrote up a short(ish) guide on investigating / doing research a couple of weeks ago: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/481195.

Unfortunately, educational institutions and broader society fail to teach these skills. They perpetuate the idea that information simply needs to be absorbed. Bourgeois pedagogy reinforces this.

Have you heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy? For those who haven’t, it’s a pyramid of six skills, ranked from ‘understanding’ and ‘description’ through ‘analysis’, ‘criticism’, ‘evaluation’, to ‘synthesis’. The system (in some countries, at least) is deliberately structured on this basis. School-leavers who achieve the top grades are to reach ‘description’ by age 16 and possibly ‘analysis’ with some ‘criticism’. It’s similar for those who achieve the top grades at age 18, but slightly less description, slightly more analysis and criticism. Only the top university students are expected to be able to do the three higher-level skills.

(For any current pupils/students reading this: take a look at your assessment marking criteria and you’ll see these skills reflected within the relevant grade-boundaries. Working with this knowledge, you may find it easier to achieve the higher grades, which require a demonstration of the right mix of skills.)

There is some deviation, but these are the skills tested in examinations, and we know that many teachers (especially in the ‘better’ schools) teach to exams. At age 16, for example, 80% of the marks might be awarded for demonstrating understanding and describing the subject matter (depending on the criteria). This means the bulk of class time may effectively be set up to avoid the trickier higher-level skills; they distract the class from what they’ll be tested on.

Politically, it costs too much to test for criticism, it’s more difficult to rank the students and schools (which ranking feeds into an educational hierarchy), and the bourgeois tend to clash with critical workers.

I’m not trying to denigrate teachers, here. This is systemic. They have a lot to answer for, sure, but they need to be organised before they can do much about systemic problems. A lot depends on educational policy and the logic of that policy may not be explicit.

I see part of the task of modern Marxists as teaching these skills as well as Marxism. Fortunately, the task is made easier because if you can get someone to read almost any Marxist text, they will be tackling more advanced material than the majority of university students, who work mainly with extracts and summaries. Part of learning to be critical is seeing other people do it and working out how they did it. Bread and butter Marxism, really.