Critical thinking is a way of thinking that must be taught and practiced before it becomes a habit of mind because critical thinking involves the exercise of a great many skills at the same time. One good definition of this process is provided by educator Daniel Kurland who says that “broadly speaking, critical thinking is concerned with reason, intellectual honesty, and open-mindedness” (11), meaning that an accomplished critical thinker cannot give in to emotions, laziness or narrow-mindedness.
This kind of thinking requires energy and determination, a willingness to let the evidence decide the outcome, it means close analysis of a problem followed by an examination of the data from different perspectives, and even assessing the authority’s motives or agenda. Critical thinking is the pursuit of truth even if that means calling our own ideas into question, and in the course of pursuing that truth, we will learn a great deal about our own prejudices and other weaknesses.
In a sense, critical thinking is an internal dialogue that can turn into a quarrel with ourselves when we find we are unwilling to break with comfortable, well-worn ideas to try on new and possibly dangerous new ones. Richard A. Lynch says that critical thinking entails an attitude of “reflective openness and challenge, a willingness to consider an idea from different points of view and at least for a little while, to step outside of one’s own views and acknowledge that one’s perspectives, assumptions, and outlook are vulnerable, perhaps even mistaken or incomplete” (2). That may be the most difficult part because we have to concede that other people’s ideas may be sounder, better supported, or even more intelligent than our own; but, as will soon become evident, that is the first step toward becoming a critical thinker.
There are many reasons to remain an uncritical thinker, not the least of them being that critical thinking is hard work. Even for people whose education has given them the necessary skills to think critically and clearly, the temptation to cling to preconceptions of one’s peer group’s orthodoxy is very strong, and to that end they may use their superior verbal and intellectual skills to prevent any real critical thinking from occurring. The reasons for that are many, but the main ones will be discussed under the headings of (i) crimestop, (ii) the urge to moralize, and (iii) self-importance. All of these, however, derive from one source: the mind. As I will show, the mind is the greatest obstacle to becoming an accomplished critical thinker.
Crimestop
In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell explains how IngSoc has conditioned the population to become “good thinkers.” Not only is the Party in the process of reducing the available vocabulary until it is almost impossible to express complex ideas, not only is freedom of speech prohibited and all forms of expression, including body language, are closely monitored, but it has also instilled a habit of mind that prevents all critical thought:
Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.” (220-221)
Crimestop is employed widely in political groups where a united front is considered more important than intellectual progress. Academic feminists in the West, for example, adhere to a set anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal agenda which places them in opposition to their own culture and in alliance with everyone else’s. It is among Western academics that radical Islam has found its strongest supporters, a position that requires the daily exercises of crimestop, especially for feminists who have to struggle against the routine oppression, brutalization, and even killing of women in traditional Islamic societies.
The effectiveness of crimestop may be seen in the way Western feminists have denied that traditional Islam treats women any worse than do their own societies. As Adrian Morgan says, it is no coincidence that such practices as honor killings and female genital mutilation (FGM) take place in traditional Islamic cultures, much as academic feminists may want to pretend it is in order to preserve their multicultural credentials.
When it comes to criticizing the treatment of women in other cultures, “the voices of famous so-called feminists are either quiet, or even refuse to acknowledge that such abuse has anything to do with them,” (Morgan 4), and even the fact that Islamic feminists risk their lives daily to improve the lives of these women and their own, does not move Western academic feminists to take action.
More gives the example of Germaine Greer who, rather than think critically about an issue involving another culture, equates FGM with breast enhancement and considers herself absolved from the need to come to her foreign sisters’ defense. This tactic is called moral equivalence, often used in political discourse to deny qualitative differences between offenses committed by opposing sides, apparently to maintain the principle that all cultures are equal in their own way but actually to nullify the introduction of inconvenient facts into the discussion.
Crimestop is achieved in this issue by moral equalizing on the grand scale, to the point where even Orwell would have been slack-jawed in disbelief. Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, makes excellent use of this tactic in her lectures called “Afghanistan Is Everywhere,” when she says that every culture has its own form of burqa. “Whether it’s an idea or a fascist tyranny of what women are supposed to look like–so that women go to the extremes of liposuction, anorexia and bulimia to achieve it–or whether it’s being covered in a burqa, we all have deep, profound, ongoing daily forms of oppression” (qtd. in Hoff Sommers 4). As far as Ensler is concerned, American women are just as brutally oppressed by mean as women in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.
What makes her use of this tactic even more remarkable is that Ensler visited Ensler visited Afghanistan and saw with her own eyes how the Taliban regime treats women. She even smuggled a film out of Afghanistan, showing a woman in burqa being executed by a man using an AK47. Yet crimestop, fueled by the necessity of adhering to the academic feminist agenda which ensures all those who do a comfortable and prestigious place in society, forces her to equate Afghanistan and Beverly Hills where “vaginal laser rejuvenation surgery” (Hoff Sommers 5) is seen as the exact counterpart of Kenyan girls undergoing a clitoridectomy performed by village women using old razor blades.
Hoff Somers cites Katha Pollitt who equates “limiting young people’s access to accurate information about sex and opposing abortion on the same plane as throwing acid in women’s faces and stoning them to death” (6). Feminists such as Phyllis Chessler who argue against these irrational ideas are “excommunicated,” in Hoff Sommers’s terms, because to acknowledge that other cultures treat women far worse than Western countries do would force academic feminists to align themselves with their own government’s foreign policy, which would be political suicide in their circle. Thus crimestop is used to main a convenient, profitable and self-gratifying position.
Were these women to think critically in concrete rather than abstract terms, and in terms of the common good rather than just their own, they would end up with very different conclusion. As Lynch says, critical thinking is not just thinking logically, as was once believed, nor does it use the “scientific method” (2). After philosopher Stephen Toulmin revolutionized academic writing, critical thinking moved from formal logic based on syllogisms to case-making, and at that point it became much more empathetic and imaginative, a point clearly lost on Ensler, Pollit et al. To a very large extent, critical thinking is the effort made to see the world through another’s eyes.
The Urge to Moralize
Another obstacle to critical thinking is moralizing, a cerebral activity that is far more common than critical thinking. In our politically correct times, certain moral propositions are considered unassailable and therefore not to be subjected to critical scrutiny. A famous example of that came when Australian writer Keith Windschuttle questioned the research on which a history of aboriginals in Tasmania had been based.
Journalist Ian Higgins writes that Windschuttle challenged one of the pillars of Australian history, that white settlers had attempted genocide in order to secure their hold on the continent, and that as part of their project they had swept the island of Tasmania clean of aboriginals, killing or transporting them all. Windschuttle examined the evidence presented by one colonial historian whose careless and tendentious use of data, he concluded, demonstrated that “political correctness had triumphed over historical fact” (qtd. in Higgins). In fact, the reaction was more protective in nature, defending the central idea that colonialism represents a kind of Ground Zero in world history which must be deplored by any right-thinking person, and that historians are keepers of that particular sacred flame.
The reaction by members of the Australian Historical Association, therefore, was more a backlash than a dialogical response. Instead of responding in kind to Windschuttle’s carefully reasoned article, they used every tactic except that one. The historian who stood accused of having supported her thesis with inaccurate footnotes, admitted she had made five mistakes but defended that by saying “footnote errors do occur” (qtd. in Higgins), and she made it clear that the moral value of her work put it beyond the reach of outside criticism. Her stated concern was to protect academics against future assaults by outsiders and the media, but her real concern appeared to be the story itself, one that has long been used as an instrument by post-colonial historians to advance their own political agenda.
The Association’s president did not take sides but did point out that the publication date of Windschuttle’s book ensured that the controversy would be discussed all through the summer holidays, thereby questioning the author’s motives. Other historians proposed “a gag on free speech,” another questioned Windschuttle’s credentials, and many more called him “a conservative” (Higgins 4), thereby bringing his agenda into question and lifting the burden of proof from their shoulders. By means of these tactics, the Association managed to fend off Windschuttle’s attack but at the expense of their intellectual and professional integrity.
Admittedly, a minority of historians recognized the “pack mentality” (Higgins 3) of the meeting and its preference for conspiracy theories over serious historical research that could take them to conclusions they might not find acceptable. Windschuttle says the Association’s reaction is based on careerism, saying that “there is a whole generation who have invested not just their academic capital but also their political capital” (qtd. in Higgins 4) in the orthodox view of that episode in history. All that is true, but the episode shows how the urge to put morality above reason can lead even professional historians into error, and that conspiracy theories are much more gratifying than logical, carefully thought out ideas.
Self-Importance
Ironically, it is in the humanities where critical thinking is taught, where it often seems that critical thinking is at its lowest ebb. In the sciences, skepticism is encouraged, all results must be reproducible and verifiable, and although there have been cases of falsified results, these are soon detected by other scientists working in the same fields and therefore interested in making sure they are incorporating valid data into their own research. Some humanities professors feel that, at the very least,
they deserve as much respect as their scientific colleagues get. A few take that a step further by increasing their own self-importance by critiquing scientific publications even when they do not understand them. Obviously, that practice is the opposite of critical thinking, and it offended some scientists.
In retaliation, physicist Alan Sokal submitted an article to a cultural studies journal, Social Text, published by Duke University, in which he concludes that since “physical ‘reality’” is nothing more than a “social and linguistic construct,” what the world needed was a freedom-oriented science and an “emancipatory mathematics” that countermanded the elitism of high science, creating instead a more politically progressive “postmodern science” (Sokal 3).
To any critical thinker, the satirical intent of this piece jumped off the page but not to the journal’s editors who, as Sokal had predicted, we’re unable to resist an article contributed by a physicist as part of the debate sometimes called the Science Wars. This debate questioned the objectivity of science in which the postmodernists showed little or no understanding of the scientific disciplines or theories. Sokal decided to submit the article to see if nonsense could get published if “
- it sounded good and
- it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions” (152).
In spite of the editors’ later denials, the article did appeal to their biases as well as their sense of self-importance by implying that science had all along plotted to place itself above the humanities by whatever means at its disposal.
The Mind
All three reasons derive from one basic source, and that is the mind itself. The mind not only objects to the brain engaging in critical thinking, it actively encourages the brain to maintain the status quo by rewarding it for all forms of crimestop. Michael Shermer has done research in that particular obstacle, one he calls a “confirmation bias.” A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows that the brain responds to an intellectual challenge not, as might be expected, by referring the problem to the center of reasoning but instead setting the various emotional sections of the brain to work on it, and those parts concerned with conflict resolution and morality.
Once the conflict had been resolved in a way that made the thinker “emotionally comfortable” the brain activated the “ventral striatum which is related to reward and pleasure” (2). Clinging to our biases, in other words, brings rewards and pleasures that must otherwise be bought from drug dealers. We have little incentive, then, to work toward new ideas or perspectives; in fact, we have very powerful incentives to do the opposite, not just pleasure but also acceptance by our peers and the approval of our superiors.
The question should perhaps be: Why should we become accomplished critical thinkers? In a time when fundamentalist religions are threatening our most basic freedoms, this question is more important than ever. Mark C. Taylor says that “the task of thinking and teaching, especially in an age of emergent fundamentalisms, is to cultivate a faith in doubt that calls into question every certainty” (1). That faith can only be developed through thinking critically even about subjects considered sacred and transcendent, a practice which would be regarded as blasphemous by many but which is necessary if global religious wars are to be avoided.
Taylor recommends establishing “a genuine dialogue within and among all kinds of belief, ranging from religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism” (2) before the present conflicts turn ever more deadly. Dialogue may be considered the ultimate solution to all our problems, but dialogue is the product of critical thinking. Without all the principles stated in the first part of this essay, dialogue cannot even be conceived of.
Critical thinking is the basis of a liberal education, the starting point of all dialogue, the key to success in almost any career and a prerequisite for full participation in a democratic society, and that is why we must strive to become critical thinkers even if our peers, teachers, society and even our mind seem to work against developing this essential skill. How can we, under these circumstances, become accomplished critical thinkers?
One of the most effective methods of introducing and accustoming students to critical thinking is through debate. By asking students to defend positions they may not believe in, they must either think through the issue, find supporting evidence and develop a persuasive argument on the basis of it, or they will not be able to contribute to the dialogue that invariably emerges from a properly conducted debate. Writing essays in support of controversial positions is another excellent way of developing critical thinking, and reading essays and articles of that kind is another. Students must learn to make a case in support of their position as if they are lawyers presenting that case to an intelligent, questioning jury.
Through constructing reasonable, well-supported arguments, we learn to evaluate ideas impartially and, in the process, develop a healthy skepticism (as opposed to unhealthy cynicism, itself the product of uncritical thinking) toward all authorities. Just as importantly, we will learn to distrust our own first responses to new ideas, and train ourselves to understand issues before we judge them. When we reach that point, we will be accomplished critical thinkers.
Works Cited
Higgins, Ean. “Who’s still afraid of Keith Windschuttle?” The Australian, 2004.
Hoff Sommers, Christina. “The Subjection of Islamic Women and the Fecklessness of American feminism.” The Weekly Standard, 05/21/2007, Volume 012, Issue 34.
Kurland, Daniel J. I Know What It Says… What does it Mean? 1995. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994.
Morgan, Adrian. “The Failure of Western Feminists to Address Islamist Abuse.” Family Security Matters; the national resource for American families. 2007. Web.
Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, pp 220-1.
Shermer, Michael. “The Political Brain.” Scientific American. 2006.
Sokal, Alan. “A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies”. LinguaFranca, 1996. Web.
— — “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” Social Text #46/47 (1996). Web.
Taylor, Mark C. “The Devoted Student.” The New York Times. 2006.