Is everyone a Socrates now? A critical look at critical thinking

You cannot choose to be critical or teach people to be critical unless you engage in conversation, a deep public conversation that requires considerable knowledge and understanding. In today's therapeutic culture, critical thinking skills and a variety of 'critical' approaches and theories appear to offer the possibility of 'becoming critical' when what they really offer is intellectual and moral conformism through therapy. The only solution is to abandon the therapy of 'critical thinking' and to 'learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world' and 'critical thinking' will take care of itself.