When facts and opinions are asserted, I ask basic journalistic questions such as: how? who? why? where? and when? This helps me to index communications rather than reflexively internalizing others’ implicit assumptions.
“the economy is better” - better for whom?
“authorities say” - who are they? And who considers them to be authorities?
“how women are treated” - where? Is this equally true in Shanghai and Nairobi as it is in Detroit?
“white people” - when? The definition changes over time
"our society" - which society does the speaker identify with? Do they assume the reader shares this identity?
“we choose to” - who are we, and how do we make this choice?
I look out for categorical markers which may be hiding assumptions which should be unpacked. These often involve categories which are so broad (human being, common sense) or nebulous (supernatural, family values) that it might seem easier to leave them alone. For example, when I am told that no human being would ever posit a solution to a problem which I do, somebody might hope that this sounds exclusionary enough to explain my position away. After all, since me being a different species would seem far fetched, we can then appeal to common sense that my assertion must be categorically mistaken. Y U human WRONG, Popo?
In my experience, people love to favor polar absolutes rather than the vast continuum of middle space where most of reality is. Which is why “always” and “never” factor far more prominently than “sometimes” or “usually”. So I use a few very basic tests of universality.
Is the assertion true of all humans?
Is the assertion true of all organisms?
Is the assertion true of all physical phenomena?
Most “absolutes” people put forth to me don’t even satisfy the first, never mind the second and third. And besides absolutes, they can be useful for knowing the scope of generalization.
