Being Critical

I would like very much to launch into an “Ann Coulter-like screed” about some politician.  I just know that my popularity would soar.  My readership would climb.  And maybe eventually I would be asked to syndicate my column and earn magnificent amounts of money.  But I can’t.  Not because I’m not capable.  Or that I don’t have strong negative feelings about some things.  But because I try to think critically about the issues that I cover.  Critical thinking and exaggerations don’t work together.

Now some people will say, “critical thinking is the act of being negative about something or someone and that’s what Ms. Coulter is doing”.  Not true.  Critical thinking has nothing to do with saying bad things about people.  It has to do with thinking in a way that bases your opinions on solid grounding.

Well it’s easy to criticize but how do you go about thinking critically in the way I’m defining it?  Read on.  You do it by these five actions as a good start:

Accepting that you have subconscious biases and accordingly questioning your impulsive judgments.  Some cognitive scientists have shown us that as much as ninety-five percent of our thinking is subconscious.  So there’s a whole lot of thinking going on in our heads without us being aware of it until it becomes conscious.  You probably experienced this when you said something that you later regretted and thought, “where did that come from”.  It came from your subconscious biases.

Adopting an intellectually humble stance.  You just don’t know it all.  In fact, you know just a tiny smidgeon of what there is to know in this complex world.  The NSA, the government security agency that records our phone conversations, collects more information in one day than already exists in the Library of Congress.  And you think you know it all?  (and yes they do record our phone conversations)

Recalling previous beliefs that you once held strongly but now reject.  You know what I mean.  If you haven’t changed some of your strongly held beliefs from when you were a rambunctious teenager, you haven’t been paying attention.  Or you’re dead.  When I was a young man, a young woman was told she could be a teacher, secretary or nurse.  Has that belief changed?  You betcha!

Realizing how much of your belief system is formed by what those around you say instead of what you have personally witnessed.  Don’t forget the talk shows you watch and the newspapers you read.  And don’t get insulted.  If constant bombardment of the same message didn’t work to influence our thinking, advertising would not be a several billion dollar industry.  You are human and listening to people who share your point of view, although more pleasant, limits your perspective.

Realizing that you have numerous blind spots.  Yes, that’s right, blind spots.  It’s been proven over and over that we miss what we don’t look for.  There’s the classic example of the people being asked to count how many passes a specific basketball team executed.  They completely missed a man in a gorilla suit walking across the basketball court.  They were watching the passes.  They weren’t stupid.  They were humans like you and me.

So when the controversial commentators go off on some tangential tirade about this or that politician being too terrible for human company, take another look.  Is this kind of commentary really good for our country?  Or does it corrode our moral character further?  Frankly, we can’t afford much more corrosion.

Being controversial is almost a sure way to get attention.  And in some endeavors, even make more money.  And heaven knows, we have a lot of targets of controversy.  But the antidote to our current corrosive environment is critical thinking.  If not on the part of the writer, then on the part of the reader.  It’s not as much fun but a lot healthier for our society.

Robert DeFilippis