As I put this post together, I note that I am using several of my older posts as support, and there is some duplication and cross-referencing within them.

Binary Thinking

Binary Thinking is distilling basic options down to two:
Something is THIS, or something is THAT; Binary Thinking does not allow the possibility that the answer is SOMETHING ELSE

Sometimes, however, there ARE indeed only two options. Due to the way we set up our (American) elections, the winner will be one of the two top candidates. Building third parties is a good idea for the future, but at the time of the election, it will be one of the two most favored candidates. OTOH, sometimes (rarely) there are several candidates that are close in polling numbers

There are not hard and fast rules as far as these situations; each one must be analyzed for all possible answers, and then distilling down to the best solution.

Multiple factors

I maintain in my writing that there is usually more than one cause for any activity outside of a tightly controlled lab experiment; this applies even so more to human actions where you have personal and group interests competing for success or survival.

An example I use is what I call the Poverty Pitfall [2] in criminology; The bulk of current thinking in academia, if not in real life, is that poverty causes crime. And yet when looking at the results of a lack of self-control, the causes and effects overlap with poverty.

Restricting this discussion to Information War and corruption networks, I leave you with alternative explanations to one-agent theories in these links:

How to be an InformationWar Activist - Part Seven: Who Might The Players be?(Updated)
How to be an InformationWar Activist - Part Eight: Making Sense of Multiple Levels of Corruption(Updated)

Utopian Thinking

Utopian Thinking is very often Binary Thinking;
If you do not believe in my perfect vision, you are evil

Utopia ALWAYS leads to Dystopia (Updated/ReSteemed 5/25)

No one is immune to wanting a perfect world; my own failure to think critically is highlighted in my past experience as a neocon:
I was once a neocon - why neoconservatism failed, and why it will ALWAYS fail

There is nothing wrong in wanting to build a better world; the problem comes from intentionally not recognizing realistic hindrances to any given Utopian scheme.

Conspiratorial Thinking

This is a form of Binary Thinking in which every action is connected, or must be connected to the central conspiracy. The links I provided in the Multiple Factors section give several alternate explanations for the level of corruption in the world.

I'll discuss bias next, but I want to bring up that idea that people want EASY solutions to problems; if one believes that is is just ONE cause to a problem, that makes for an easy fix! (see Normalcy Bias down below)

This is why you get group-think answers as far as who to blame like "The muslims", "the Jews", "the bankers", "the blacks", "the whites", "the establishment", "the New World order", "the rich", and "the poor". On the other hand, when membership in a group requires allegiance to to a certain ideology, like "the Left", then yes, you CAN make generic statements. Also remember it is easy to ACCUSE someone of being a member of a group without them actually being a member of that group.

Also remember that a group CAN have a dual purpose. Islam is both a political AND a religious ideology, as well as a cultural heritage. SO while Islam is ideologically a tyrannical and xenophobic political entity, because it is ALSO a cultural heritage, it does not logically follow that all Muslims are violent terrorists.

Remember, Binary Thinking is bad...sometimes.

This does not mean that there aren't good reasons to examine the actions of the elite, or accept their explanations for their actions; it does not mean that conspiratorial theories are automatically wrong.

What it means is that not everything has to be driven by a single agent (like a corruption network), although the possibility is that that is the case.

Cognitive and Group Biases

There are 100s of biases, logical fallacies, and angles of interest that affect both how we see the world, and how we decide to do with what we see. I am just going to list the most common:

Self-Interest - Self explanatory
Confirmation Bias - We see only those things that support our view
Projection Bias - Assuming that others think as we do
Pluralistic Ignorance - When we know that something is wrong, but do not speak out on the assumption that everyone else supports the bad idea
Rent-seeking - A self-interest bias which uses State power for personal power
Do-gooding - A self-interest bias which uses State power for social capital and feelings of self-worth
Baptists and Bootleggers - A theory which examines the unholy marriage of Rent-Seeking and Do-Gooding interests
Normalcy Bias - A bias in which we take the easy way out, and are willfully ignorant of problems we must face, and/or the harsh measures that are necessary to deal with some problems

The bulk of humanity seems to want to be led around by their nose...from April Morning:

Most folks are not dissenters, and most folks would just as soon find a chain to put around their necks, considering one wasn't there already.

Check out the work of Gustave Le Bon to explore this sad idea.

Critical Thinking

We have to have data to analyze data, once we have gone past the availability of data we must rely on faith and past experience in interpreting events.

Understanding What We Can't See - Conspiracy, "Debunking", and Absence of Evidence - Part One
Understanding What We Can't See - Conspiracy, "Debunking", and Absence of Evidence - Part Two

And we can always apply logic in how we analyze events. So let's see how these boil down in practice:

It is not necessary for the government to have taken part in destroying the WTC on 9/11 for there to be a cabal that controls the government and acts counter to the interests of America.
It is not necessary for every word in the Bible to be the literal Word of God for the messages of the Bible to be divinely inspired.
It is not necessary for the State to provide birth control for a woman to make it possible for her to swallow.
An organization (like the State) can lie without every statement issued by the organization being a lie.

And yet, how much time does humanity spend arguing over the smallest of details surrounding these issues?