"Paying for the party" is amusing. "Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities" covers much the same material. The importance of drinking didn't happen by accident. The alcohol industry promoted it heavily.[1] Two out of five students in the colleges studied are now binge drinkers.
I got critical thinking early because I was brought up by a lawyer. There were always briefs around the house, and I could read the briefs for both sides. Seeing both sides discussing the same facts and coming to different conclusions gives a sense of how to decide something. Today I read The Washington Post and Fox News every day, to compare what they're saying. This is apparently unusual, although it didn't used to be. Left-wing radicals used to read the Wall Street Journal, to see what the other side was up to. This seems to have stopped; the problem with the Occupy movement is that while they were against Wall Street, they never developed an agenda that could be implemented to do something about it.
I got critical thinking early because I was brought up by a lawyer. There were always briefs around the house, and I could read the briefs for both sides. Seeing both sides discussing the same facts and coming to different conclusions gives a sense of how to decide something. Today I read The Washington Post and Fox News every day, to compare what they're saying. This is apparently unusual, although it didn't used to be. Left-wing radicals used to read the Wall Street Journal, to see what the other side was up to. This seems to have stopped; the problem with the Occupy movement is that while they were against Wall Street, they never developed an agenda that could be implemented to do something about it.
[1] http://www.soe.vt.edu/highered/files/Perspectives_PolicyNews...