Critical thinking is a fundamental tool for steering one's life. No one has achieved great success without possessing the skill of critical thinking and thinking independently.
Artists, philosophers and inventors derive many of their ideas from questioning the established norms. And while many lump critical thinking under the generalized category of "problem solving," it's really much more than that in that it's almost a natural survival-oriented need in us as human beings. It encompasses far more than mere information gathering - It also includes knowing where to look and continuing the search without prejudice about what we may find.
Analyzing the accumulated information requires thoughtful consideration of the veracity of the information and what we believe to be true in our life but not necessarily true in another person's life.
Critical thinkers and free thinkers are not always looked upon with warmth. However, without them, where would we be? They ask the questions and set the bar for understanding the world and reality that we live in. They push the boundaries of accepted norms and give us glimpses of the possibilities and also where we might be heading in the wrong direction.
Just a few famous critical thinkers/deep thinkers/independent thinkers:
Now, critical thinking doesn't have to be so lofty as the above thinkers. However, we require it in our daily decision making like food labels, our relationships, what schools we choose, what products we buy or what information we accept as truth.
Critical thinking is merely 'independent thinking'. That means you are figuring out the problem by yourself and generating the answers for yourself. You're not just taking whatever is given to you!
We have all this information, wisdom, knowledge, history, experience and yet we're not really 'critically thinking' when we're just grabbing these abstract thoughts in our brain.
Indeed, nowadays, we tend to take in and repeat whatever the values and beliefs of those around us have rather than forming our own independent thought and stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving.
There is something potent and important about deriving a 'truth' for yourself instead of just taking information from your surroundings or society. Although it is far easier to not challenge ourselves or take the time to question and organize our own thoughts, not doing so really doesn't serve anyone - especially ourselves! We need to use this ability, have experience with it and grow our ability to 'critically think' so that we gain true understanding and perspective. This will ultimately lead to mastery of this skill.
Unfortunately, critical thinking is very undervalued in society today. I could speculate on that, but I won't. It might surprise some to learn that it used to be very highly regarded as a necessary part of education in the classroom. In fact, I can't tell you how many times I have had other parents tell me that their children are not allowed to 'question' in the classroom of today. I would think that this skill and ability to question and learn, to use critical thinking would be vital to a healthy society.
With our daily lives filled with a sea of decisions, we can make better choices by simply adding critical thinking techniques. These techniques allow us to deconstruct nearly every situation and dilemma we have into logical pieces of information we can use to make the best decision.
One of the basic hallmarks of critical thinking is that it is not coming from emotion. What people don't realize is that when we address a problem or situation with emotional thinking, we are not seeing a decision or the options in their entirety. We are rather reacting to the emotion and making decisions out of this emotion.
I had an experience quite a few years ago that really brought this to my attention. It was an email I received from a friend. The email had something in the title like "Emergency, call to action!" Upon first impressions, I gathered that what would follow in the email was 'serious'.
As I began to read the contents, I found myself both emotionally distraught and angry. The scenario being described was that of elephants being harmed and that I should sign my name to the tens of thousands of others to stop this atrocity and forward it to others. As I was so disgusted and upset, I found the end of the list and started to write my name and then my critical thinking kicked in:
"Wait just a minute, How is signing my name and forwarding this going to stop this atrocity?"
I didn't sign the email. But I did realize with this experience that our 'emotions' can subvert our normal, logical, thinking processes. To be sure, emotions can fling logic out the window and bypass the pre-frontal cortex completely, making our decisions out of our fight or flight response regions of the brain.
Maybe the words of Edward Bernays will help in evaluating the importance of thinking for ourselves and developing critical thinking skills:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
Understand that 'marketing' today utilizes these methods in nearly every facet of society all across the globe. What boggles my mind is just how easy it is to hack the mind and persuade populations of people to think and feel a certain way. It boggles my mind more that there are actually people that would feel the need to do this -yet there are.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep my mind to myself! And I think the world, especially now, could use a lot more independent, critical thinkers not only for our personal lives but because this world could really use some original ideas in solving our greatest problems.
Utilizing the socratic method is a really good place to start:
The Socratic method is named after Greek philosopher Socrates who taught students by asking question after question. Socrates sought to expose contradictions in the students’ thoughts and ideas to then guide them to solid, tenable conclusions. The method is still popular in legal classrooms today. Source
How to apply critical thinking:
I will followup with the answers to these questions at the end of the week. Source Under CC
