An Informed Citizenry

"An informed citizenry will benefit from applying both creative thinking and critical thinking in solving the challenges of our society."

The above statement implies that citizens whom are well informed of challenges in our society will have more insight on how to resolve those challenges. In order to better understand why this is true, we should dissect the statement. By breaking the statement down we can analyze each segment and learn how critical and creative thinking are essential to solving a democratic society's problems.

In order to be informed, people need to research the information that is available about issues on their own and not just through talking heads. The source of the information needs to be reliable, cite facts, and should be unbiased.

Once enough information has been gathered to make informed judgments regarding the challenges facing society, the citizenry can then begin the critical and creative thinking process. Critical thinking can be described as thinking that questions assumptions and sometimes providing unorthodox solutions to problems. As an informed citizenry, we can collect the best ideas and apply them to societal problems as needed.

This, however, is easier said than done. As a democratic society, we have elected officials that are supposed to be the voice of the citizens they represent. Most of the time, instead of focusing on solutions that would benefit society, politicians get caught up in partisan bickering when they should be trying to find a bipartisan answer. If we could stop political discussions from being primarily political and add common sense into the discussion, we may be able to come up with viable solutions to the issues we face.

When citizens take a genuine interest in what is happening in our society we have more control of the government because the government works for the people. The government has seemed to have forgotten this piece of information. This is why it imposes its will on us and slowly but surely is taking away our freedoms as individuals. The same freedoms we fought so valiantly in the Revolutionary war for.

People of that time were informed of what England was imposing on the colonies and they banded together, put forth their ideas, and then proceeded with the best course of action. Their creative and critical thinking enabled us to earn our freedom and give birth to the most successful country in the history of the world.

It is time that all citizens take personal responsibility for what is happening in our country today. We all need to inform ourselves of what is happening in the world. By doing coming up with solutions as a nation and not as individuals or political parties, we can really start address the current issues plaguing or society and start to change the status quo.