I would agree with your take if we had a solution for the "who watches the watchers" problem. Since we don't, blanket criticism of critical thinking doesn't go down with me since I watched the pandemic unfold. Our state-controlled local media said 3 days after the first lockdown that we are supposed to only listen to them, and ignore every other media outlet because they are going to lie. This in a democratic country. I was schocked, and what followed didn't make me any more trusting in the powers that be. We tell our kids if they keep lying, nobody will believe them. This is what happened during the pandemic. And claiming experts are cool just because, doesn't make that deeply rooted distrust go away. We tell our kids they are not supposed to lie because after a while, nobody will believe them. But if we're being subjected to improsionment at home based on vague "scientific" experts who turn out to have followed orders from politiccians, we are supposed to forget all about it and more on? Nope, sorry. Trust has eroded, and just saying so will not reestablish it.