Critical Thinking

The Art of Critical Thinking

In most public education facilities, kids are not trained or encouraged to practice critical thinking. Certain pieces of information are presented as facts and they are expected to memorize these facts and point them out on standardized tests to prove how much they have learned. We often think of criticism as a negative commentary that points out a person’s, idea’s, institution’s, etc., deficiencies or faults in an unkind manner.

The art or discipline of criticism is the ability to evaluate the merit of something, mostly artistic works, primarily literary, but such works are nothing if not explorations of ideas, beliefs, and morals—something decidedly needed right now to help us comprehend our fast changing world. Ideas now come in sound bites, two seconds of helpful information it is hoped the public swallows whole.

Examples of Non-critical Thinking

1. Guns don’t kill people, people do.

Any police officer will tell you guns help a lot. I hear many say that if more people were armed, there would be fewer fatalities at shooting massacres. Suppose you’re in a movie theatre, the screen blaring, the lights dim. You hear a shot. A black guy stands up two rows in front of you and draws a gun. A dark-haired, dark-eyed guy holding a gun runs up the aisle, a white guy holds a gun by the exit, and a woman—too dark to see what she looks like—is pointing a gun at each of the others. Who do you point your weapon at? Do you wait to see who fires first and at whom or just shoot and ask questions later?

People can easily obtain training to fire a gun, to learn firearm safety. Gun clubs and shooting ranges do not train in critical thinking to handle split-second decision-making, to objectively handle the fear and stress of such a moment. I suspect there would be a great many more casualties rather than less.

I find it very interesting that the general public will not be allowed to carry guns into the Republican Convention. If not there, where most political gun proponents will gather, why would they recommend it in other venues?

2. Vote out politicians who disagree with you.

  

Fifty plus Republicans and several Democrats funded by the NRA voted against gun-control updates to the law. Do you vote for a candidate based on one issue or their overall record? If your only alternative is the opposite party who maybe agrees with you on one or two issues but whose other policies you don’t endorse, you are unlikely to switch parties. Even if someone runs against the incumbent of the same party in a primary, they seldom disagree on core issues.

Perhaps insisting on law reforms regarding political funding and Congressional term limits might be more effective.

3. Deport all people who are in the country illegally.

Never going to happen, it is a physical and economic impossibility. The manpower required would alone bankrupt the country. We cannot legally deport their kids, born citizens. Who will pay to raise them if the parents leave them behind? Smarter, more manageable policies might include ways these people could make amends for their illegal entry such as paying a fine and their fair share of taxes.  

Critical thinking demands thoughtful, in-depth consideration of each problem by itself and as it affects other areas. Sound bites won’t cut it and just make the person issuing them sound ignorant. Politicians apparently don’t believe it, but we are smarter than that.