ABOUT THE FALLIBLE FOX
The Fallible Fox is partly a response to growing concerns about online misinformation and social discord. I think that many of our communication issues are rooted in (a) the inadequacy of our intuitive mental defaults for dealing with information and social life in a rapidly changing digital world and (b) the social and mental barriers to discovering and using new and effective tools for better thinking in this context.
Luckily, great tools for thinking are already floating around out there in the world, many of which have been harnessed to great effect by others. You just haven't found most of them yet! The Fallible Fox is a starting place for those interested in developing a mental toolbox for critical thinking with digital media. There are three things to know about the aims and scope of this site.
1. To think more effectively, we can start by cultivating an array of mental tools and a capacity to select the right ones at the right time.
“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool
you have is a hammer, to treat everything
as if it were a nail.” – Abraham Maslow
It seems obvious that you need more than one tool in your garage—if you've got a leaky drain and only a hammer in hand, you're inviting a flood into your home. It doesn’t seem quite so obvious, however, that having the wrong mental tool at your disposal will create more problems than it can solve. Here, too, you're better off if you have a variety of instruments in your toolbox so you can take out the right tools for the job.
There's often nothing wrong with using a particular perspective, ideology, or theory to help us to understand the world. But when you're over-invested in the truth and value of that one perspective, it'll be harder to grasp the complexity of, and deal effectively with, much of what’s happening around you.
Seeing everything through a single lens can lead us to view and discuss complex scientific or social phenomena in grossly oversimplified terms. Thinking can become hackneyed, overly certain, and inflexible. Any lens through which we perceive the world—even one that is useful in many contexts and scientifically supported—can only partially describe or explain most phenomena.
We could all use a wider variety of mental tools. We also need to develop a sense of when they'll be effective and when they're better left in the garage. This is not something we can do very well on our own—we're better off tapping into what other people have already discovered about good thinking.
2. The most critical place for us to cultivate useful mental tools is in our interactions with digital media.
“Don't believe everything you read
on the internet.” – Abraham Lincoln
The Fallible Fox is most concerned with the mental tools we carry with us as we engage with information online. Generally speaking, slower is better when developing our thinking about complex areas like politics, social justice, and science—our fallible minds have limited capacity and need significant time to evaluate what we encounter.
The problem is that reacting fast has become too easy. With a bit of typing and a click, out goes the raging insult or hastily developed belief. The reaction may have totally missed the mark but there it is now, out in the world. Social media tends to encourage fast thought and action. In this context, we often don't take the time that we truly need to effectively process things before acting. There are ways to change that.
This site is here to help you build a mental framework for engaging with digital media with greater clarity, accuracy, and nuance.
3. The Fallible Fox is for anyone interested in developing critical thinking skills, but it will be particularly useful for students and educators.
Parts of the site can be used in specific units on media consumption or as supplemental material for critical thinking courses (the MAPS Handbook aligns quite well with many critical thinking textbooks and can even replace them in some cases). For example, in part of an introductory psychology course, I've used the MAPS Handbook as a framework for students to evaluate the presentation of psychological findings in popular media.
About Darcy
I'm a social psychologist and post-secondary educator who develops and teaches psychology and critical thinking courses. I work with my students to explore tools for deeper thinking, develop a curious and inquiry-based orientation toward life, and find enjoyment in thinking through hard problems.
If you'd like to provide feedback or discuss how you could use Fallible Fox content for personal, educational, or organizational purposes, send me an email at dupuisdarcy@gmail.com.