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Dear Thinkers, This week we will explore the concept of “judgement” for critical thinking. ***Apologies for this week’s letter coming to you hopefully only one day late. I was in Giza, Egypt when I scheduled it. The Internet connection has been bad. I have found it did not post! I am now writing to you from the Nile River. Again with bad internet. It is my personal commitment to get you my lesson each week so I am persevering to get it through. To my new subscribers…welcome! Okay, let’s get to The Trio of Thoughts: An Aphorism: A concise, insightful statement that memorably expresses a general truth or observation. It’s why quotes are so profound. They trigger deep thought in just a few short words. This week’s education lesson by me: JUDGEMENTS ARE BASED ON WHAT WE THINK WE NEED TO PROTECT Critical Thinking Activities
THOUGHT 1 APHORISMS “The power of judgment rests on a potential agreement with others.”
Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, Hannah Arendt, 1961 “We’re generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments.”
Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kaheman, 2011
Firstly, the different spelling of “judgment/judgement” is simply American versus Australian English. I often hesitate to point that out; it’s important to feel the irritation because right after that is the chance for some transformational thinking. As in moving from one point of understanding to a more progressed point. Let discomfort push you to learn what may be the truth. This spelling issue is one example of how quickly we judge—automatically, and swiftly before we even know. We don’t even know we don’t know. It’s a good example. Secondly, this week’s quotes are by two very clever thinkers who have given us a lot to think about. Remain open as you read their words. Think about what they mean. Accept at the very least that their minds are worth listening to on the topic of their experience. They have spent a long time thinking about it. Their chance of being critical thinkers on this topic is probably very high. THOUGHT 2 JUDGEMENTS ARE BASED ON WHAT WE THINK WE NEED TO PROTECT Our biases drive all of our judgements. For critical thinking to happen, we need to challenge our biases. However not all our biases are wrong, so this is where it gets tricky. Who decides what is wrong? And when do we know we are wrong? So, if our biases have some validity then our judgments are not always wrong. So let's think about how judgements work. We judge all day longWe do it unconsciously. We do it to decide what is valuable information and what is not. This is important because we need to make sure we either protect what is good or know when to change what is not so good. But the only time we have a chance to think critically is when we are triggered to think beyond the comfortable. Often what is uncomfortable could be a very good indication that something is not right. We use that discomfort as a form of alert that we need to do some deeper thinking about this, to figure it out. The many worlds we observeThere are many worlds we are constantly observing in the modern world. Think about the strongest thought influencers in your life. Some major influences might be: the online world, the mainstream media, governments, and then our own actual day to day human to human lives. In our human lives, we have our work lives, home lives, friendship lives, and more. The online world and cognitive effortThe online world exposes us to a trajectory of vastly diverse ideas from moment to moment. Every time a new idea lands, it collides with what’s already in our heads. That collision triggers the chemistry between where we have been and where we want to go. Yet the instant those symbols hit our eyes, we judge whether the idea deserves any deeper thought. Remember, we will only be willing to commit the cognitive effort required if it is necessary to do so—that is, will it be of benefit to us? Now that is a very clever question. If you were to ask it and really think, perhaps you would be in a position to do some very good critical analysis. But usually, it is not so conscious. It is often the automatic judgemental mind that will beat you to the finish line. Some of you may think well that is selfish and you may believe you are not selfish. But we are selfish all day long; lying to yourself about that does you no good. Even the fact I write this letter to you is for selfish reasons. I apply the cognitive effort because it is doing good for you but also for me. If I was gaining nothing from it I should not do it. Each time I write to you, I improve my thinking. The easiest way to know if you need to apply more cognitive effort is to analyse both the effects of your thinking and its impact on you. Are your judgments flawed? That is, do they leave you with lingering stress, mental anguish, or a problem you keep ruminating over? Teaching children to judge usefulnessA good way to think about healthy thinking is to reflect on what we teach the most innocent of us. For children, especially if we are their parents, we are often very likely to be inclined to teach them very clearly about how to judge the usefulness of information. We tell them what is important and, if we are fair, we carefully explain to them why. With children, it is a particularly easy task to simply indoctrinate them with our own thoughts. Anyone who is a parent or has had the chance to influence a child for some time will quickly recognise, despite their nature or biology, that it is fairly easy to convince a child of almost anything. For children, it is vital they learn this so that they are able to evaluate information as it comes for their benefit as opposed to their demise. They need to one day make judgments all on their own and, if you have not taught them how to do this independently and with confidence, they will forever seek cognitive comfort as opposed to the cognitive effort required to judge a good or bad idea. Judgments in adult lifeFor adults in the home and in families or in workplaces everywhere, we make judgments for different reasons. If it is for work we need to make good judgments based on making sure we get along with others so we are motivated to get out of bed each morning or to ensure we will one day get that promotion as well as not get fired because we need the money. Given it would be a lot of effort to find a new job we try and avoid any problems. Voices on judgement and biasLet’s take a look at some thinkers who have studied judgment a lot. Hannah Arendt, a political philosopher famous for her work on “moral judgment,” discusses how easy it is for any of us—not just those we think are inherently evil—to rise towards evil thoughts if we are thoughtless and poor with our judgements. Arendt says the chance of this happening is often in places where there are too many rules and too much ideology doing the judging. She asks us to be extra careful of accepting clichés as methods of relaying understanding for important ideas. She (as well as many good thinkers) makes it very clear that we must all fight against any codes or standards placed around freedom of expression. For critical thinking and progressing ideas and new ways of thought, we must always be able to accept the differences in reality for humans across place, space, and time. This means the potential for offence. Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, has spent his life trying to get us all to remember how flawed our judgements are based on our never‑ending biases and desire for shortcuts in our thinking. This is especially important to remember when we are stuck in problematic thinking. He talks of systems thinking—that is, System 1 which is where we will always react emotionally first and fast, as this is intuitive and sometimes destructive (like if we react before thinking during a fight with the life partner we love), and sometimes helpful (like when we automatically and swiftly type in the exact PIN we need though we have not used it in years). Then there is System 2 which is the more effortful and slow thinking that is aligned with critical thinking. This is where we take time to really reflect on whether our thinking requires an update. Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist and has done a lot of work on moral psychology. He argues that moral judgements always come first and reasoning comes later, similar to how Kahneman somewhat explains the broad functioning of System 1 and 2. Haidt says our moral judgement is not about finding truth but about justifying what we already believe, especially when we are part of existing social groups. If people have no reason to question the inner workings of the social group they belong to then they will not activate critical thinking in relation to how they judge others. This is perhaps a good example of what we are seeing now online where people are constantly judging others based on moral judgements—reactions based on fast intuitive thinking with little reasoning and not activating slow thinking.
When critical thinking kicks inOften we are not triggered to think critically unless we are pushed to think deeply about something that really matters to us. So if we use Haidt’s approach, he states that when our social position is not stable we are more likely to think critically. That means we begin to question behaviours, words, actions, and outcomes. So, if you’re happy enough, content, and socially comfortable, the chances of you doing any thinking that will challenge that position are low. The question becomes, if something is important enough to protect, then will we really think deeper about it to challenge its place in our lives? What are you questioning in your life? Why? What is it blocking and what is it doing for you? Why is it a complicated decision? THOUGHT 3: ACTIVITY Answer the above reflective questions. Expand Your Knowledge Pool (Helps you have more info to “automatically” draw from). > Look up the 3 academics I mentioned in this week’s letter and learn a little about the work they are doing. When you know more about different ideas by different people, you have more ways to understand the same thing. As you learn about something deeper, you also gain confidence in innovating your own ideas about the topic of your interest. That’s when the intellectual magic begins. Weekly Micro‑Activity: “Traffic‑Light Tag”
Goal: Spot which judgements deserve critical thinking and which are just personal tastes. HOW TO DO IT 1. When a judgment pops into your head, think: 🔴 Red Affects an important action or someone’s well-being (this includes yourself) 🟡 Yellow Unsure—impact might be moderate 🟢 Green Pure preference; little or no real impact 2. Act accordingly: • 🔴 Red → Pause, ask “Could bias be warping this?” • 🟡 Yellow → Take one extra second: if the impact is small, treat it as Green; if bigger, treat it as Red. • 🟢 Green → No extra effort—carry on. EXAMPLES 🟢 Green “I like the taste of soy milk better than dairy.” 🟢 Green “I’m not drawn to The Hampton’s vibe; feels too superficial for me.” 🟠 Orange “I’m not sure adopting that stray cat is a good idea—need to think it through.” 🔴 Red “My first impulse is to cut off this long‑time friend; pause and ask what’s driving that.” 🔴 Red “My first instinct is to deny this loan application; better pause and check for bias.”
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