The American interest in forensic science and diagnostic medicine and their applications to crime scene investigation and human problem-solving is nothing short of remarkable. Emergent during the Bush administration, this fascination with good detective work and logical thought has spawned a staggering number of television dramas including CSI - New York, CSI - Miami, CSI-Las Vegas, Law & Order - Special Victims Unit, Law & Order - Criminal Intent, House, Cold Case, and The Inside.

All these television dramas involve high-tech detective work in putting together the What, How and Why of a crime scene (or a disease scene). They all involve critical thinking of a nature seldom heard of in American government since capitalism's post-World War II dominion of both political parties. They all involve rigorous thought of a nature never heard of in the Bush administration with its predilection to using fear, lies and religious coercion to make life "right."

This phenomenon really begs for an explanation. Why is it that the American people are so willingly engaged in meticulous, critical thought when it comes down to who raped a fictional working woman in New York, and so willingly disengaged in thought when it comes down to who actually assaulted and raped and pillaged Iraq? How is it that the American people are infatuated with logical thought portrayed in television dramas and then reject the entire notion when dealing with the reality of the Bush administration, what it has done to divide and conquer the American people, what it has done to diminish America's once good name on a global basis?

Certainly there is a natural human need to be thinking, because we all know that our lives depend on it in one way or another. The ability to think abstractly happens to be what separates humans from all other life forms on earth, i.e., the capacity for creative, integrated thought, the ability to develop a view of the whole based on concrete observations and internally-consistent logic, and the ability to control reality based on that comprehension.

Someone, for example, really ought to be thinking about abstract concepts like national honesty, integrity, fairness, justice, security and reputation in the eyes of the world. Some one really ought to be thinking about the people and their empowerment in a democracy originally based on nascent Christian human rights. Some one ought be doing the job of being a president of, by and for the people, at least until the people can find their collective voice and do the job directly, as originally intended.

In harshly oppressive societies, those so oppressive that even a free press is wishful thinking, this need to think intelligently on occasion is stifled beyond reasonable doubt. There were no WMDs in Iraq? Don't think about it, trust us. There were no affiliations between Hussein's Iraq and bin Laden's al Qaida? Don't think about it, trust us. You doubt that the insurgency in Iraq is in its "last throes?" Don't think about it, trust us. You suspect that Bush's nation-bombing war has made terrorism even worse? Don't think about it, trust us.

You doubt that giving money to the rich is the best way to achieve equality and fairness and a healthy nation? Don't think about it, trust us. You doubt that CEOs are really worth thousands of times more than working people? Don't think about it, trust us. You doubt that society really needs a greed and power-driven corporate aristocracy mucking around with democracy? Don't think about it, trust us.

Trust us, until you don't have any original thoughts of your own anymore, until you believe every word out the mainstream media. With this newfound freedom from thought, you may even feel like you have transcended the real world and are on your way to heaven. If you need to convince yourself that you still have the capacity for intelligent cogitation, tune into "CSI-Miami" or "House."

That would appear to be pretty much what many Americans have done, i.e., taken to not thinking about anything at all outside of the Bush administration's tiny box, where cause and effect have been reversed, where human rights are not the path to world peace and prosperity but the biggest threat to religious capitalism and its self-righteous global self-imposition.

There is no need to question the official party line, there is no need to challenge religious dogma in government, there is no need to challenge class warfare at home, no need to challenge self-righteous foreign policy abroad. There is no need to question unprovoked belligerence, no need to question treasonous exposures. There is, in short, no need to think for oneself at all. This is George W. Bush's America, at one time the "land of the free and the home of the brave," now the land of the rich and the home of the uninsured, struggling masses.

In America under capitalism's dominion, there is simply no need for critical thinking. It is, in fact, a detriment to one's fiscal security to think for oneself. In America, "the marketplace" conveniently does all of our thinking for us. It makes our value judgements, it decides who becomes rich and who becomes poor, it decides who goes free and who goes to jail, it decides who lives and who dies, and it condemns the people to mindless silence for fear of losing ground in the competitive and ruthless world that marketplace dominion creates.

The human need to be involved in intelligent, meaningful thought cannot be fulfilled in public life under crony capitalism because there is no logical or compassionate thought beneath it. The human need to be involved in intelligent, meaningful thought can only be fulfilled by watching television dramas featuring forensic science and diagnostic medicine at work.

All of science, of course, is conceptual, even the forensic applications. It consists of empirical observations (facts) integrated logically (as ideas) into larger explanatory viewpoints, viewpoints that can be pictured in the mind. That is what makes science so useful on the public front. The Germ Theory of Infectious Disease could be comprehended by most everyone, even "the people." No real science, in fact, is so complex that it cannot be comprehended conceptually by all but the self-restricted. If a scientist cannot explain what he is doing in street English, there is a good chance he does not know what he is doing.

Television dramatizations therefore begin with the making of empirical obervations relevant to defining the crime scene and making inferences about the How of the crime. In a shooting, for example, the angle of the wound and blood splatter can establish the position of the shooter. These factual observations, as ideas, are integrated into a view of the natural (or unnatural) history of the crime, in terms of the What, the How and the Why (motive) beneath the situation.

In establishing the natural history (causation and course) of crime, the logic works both ways, forwards and backwards. It can involve identifying and piecing together antecedent events that lead up to the crime. It can involve identifying and piecing together events after the crime in order to make inferences about antecedent events.

In other words, before the crime events and after the crime events must fit together to provide an internally-consistent natural history of the crime. The pieces of the puzzle must all fit together in creating a view of the whole. Across the board, legitimate comprehension requires thinking in terms of cause and effect, one event leading to another to comprise a defineable process.

We wouldn't dare, as a nation, look at our current national situation through intelligent eyes. We wouldn't dare ask, for example, how our current occupation of Iraq came to be. We wouldn't dare to do so because the justifying antecedent events that led up to our preemptive assaut on Iraq, e.g., Hussein's acquisition of WMDs and his alliance with bin Laden's al Qaida, were all based on distortions and fabrications (that being a crime in itself).

The single-most important criterion for believeability in a logical viewpoint is internal consistency. If Bush says that Hussein possesses WMDs, then Hussein must have WMDs in his possession, or someone is telling a lie. If Bush says that Hussein is intimately aligned with bin Laden's al Qaida, then Hussein must have defineable alignments with al Qaida, or someone is telling a lie. If it is all a lie, a concoction to drug the people, then it is the American people who have been screwed, right along with Iraq. Who is this all too tough for? Certainly not too tough for those who watch "Law & Order - SVU."

If the American people applied anything of what they can learn about critical thought (even from television dramas) to the brave new world brought to them by religious capitalism, the Bush administration wouldn't last another month. That is how patently straight-forward this all is, if one is unafraid to call a lie a lie and treason treason. Admitting incompetent national leadership is far more sane than referring to the Bush administration's lies and coercion as part and parcel of doing the work of God.

Bush's entire program is predicated on keeping the people from thinking for themselves. That is certainly not the kind of democracy that Jefferson and Franklin had in mind, but it does prevent the people from dealing with the "Crime of the Century," the unprovoked assault, rape and pillage of Iraq. Bush's concept of "democracy" is a total denigration of the core message taught by both Jesus and Jefferson, that most of all the people have a right to simple, honest human truth.

Bush, the religious capitalist, knows nothing about the human rights of nascent Christianity and nothing about the human values of Democracy. In this ignorance, Bush is aided and abetted by a national press that just "can't deal with the truth," not without admitting its own failure as a friend of the people. It is a clear case of the blind leading the blind.

I used to know a marvelous Catholic nun, a Franciscan lady of the cloth by the name of Lorian. She was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at a small college in Wisconsin. She taught nascent Christianity with a Franciscan naturalist flair, no Old Testament religion at all best as I could tell. She thought it important for young people to have their beliefs challenged so they could learn to think for themselves. Her personal prescription for sanity, her approach to knowledge and philosophy, was simple and direct. "When you get up in the morning, turn your mind on, turn it all the way on, and leave it on." Otherwise, how will you know that you are alive and well, how will you know that you are still human?

© Copyright 2005 by AxisofLogic.com

Dr. Lower is an Axis of Logic Columnist, residing with his family in Eugene, Oregon. He can be reached at: tisland@blackhills.com.

Biography and more articles by Dr. Gerry Lower.