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Gidday Friends! It’s Dr Esha— your culturally-Australian, ethnically-Indian, Fijian-born, recently-moved-to-Croatia, critical-thinking prompter here. When talking about my THINKING, these facts about me, actually really matter. Our thinking has reason. A purpose. What we already know, becomes data which informs our thinking. We all have structures which inform our thoughts. In this letter, further down, I will introduce The Eight Structures of Thought. ELEMENTS OF THOUGHT For example, elements or background information which structure MY thinking are facts which are true about me: I am a mother to three young children. I am married to a Croatian man, refugeed as a child from ex-Yugoslavia due to war. My grandparents were taken as slaves as children from India to Fiji to work on plantations. I was educated to the highest degree, in a democratic Western society.
Also, I am currently writing this Newsletter from a small village in Bosnia, where my father-in-law grew up. There is no internet, that is, until I walk up the hill to push ‘publish now’ later today. All of these facts shape my conversations, my reflections, and inform ALL of my thoughts. It is not the actual event which matters, it is the fact which lead up to the point which placed me in this position which Two things matter here: That what is the same about us is that we can all think differently. That many facts inform our thinking.
If each of my daily conclusions were scientific papers, my life experiences are the background research which will inform it every time. You will need to be the honest-judge, of what factors about you, line the funnel of your thinking-mind. For example, perhaps you are particularly anxious when you first enter a room filled with people and what follows is a period of putting-your-foot-in-it moments where you would rather run and hide than stay and face the wolves. Or perhaps you rarely take accountability, and when confronted by someone, you become particularly defensive even though you know there is truth to the accusation. There are reasons in your history which make you behave this way. The myriad of problematic behaviour has conception within its complicated relationship with your personal history. Think about why you think like that. Then try to fix it. Our thinking is also intersected with being male, female, young, old, black, white, poor, rich, healthy, unhealthy, the list goes on forever by the way. All of these facts contribute to our uniquely designed telescope best referred to as perception. Our perceptions become problematic if we hold internal voids. Those voids will continue to show up in our words, reactions, and ideas. They will continue to eagerly contribute to the strengths or weaknesses inside the relationships with the people we love or care about. If they are NOT DOING GOOD, then they matter. What are YOUR inner voids? Focus on them. See them. Face them. Name them.
Discomfort has a purpose. It is teaching you an important lesson about how to manage cognitive suffering. Right now, your mind has your history all summed up, neatly packaged together, profoundly and personally labelled for you, they call it: Life. Many of you may ask why it would even be necessary to do any of this? Well, it is up to you to decide how much your thoughts either contribute to your wellbeing or your personal destruction. Critically—judging by the amount of people I work with, speak with, observe, and teach, our personal stories of self-sacrifice, self-destruction, and self-sabotage are usually at the forefront of all our experiences. When someone has a problem, it does not take too long to see where source is. So, I would say it is a task worth committing to. When I started learning and reading about critical thinking, I thought, well, the very first step would be to accept that we are thinking beings. You are not a critical thinker if while you have been studying critical thinking, you did not give sufficient time to think about the origin of thought, and its purpose. If you now use your title as critical thinker to push your own agenda of information which you believe has sufficiently trumped all other knowledge, you are have fallen victim to the tribalistic nature which guides our thought. With thinking, there is only one thing which works: hold your own thoughts accountable in the same way you hold others’ accountable. Step 1: Accept that thinking itself starts with a biological as well as psychological purpose, and that socially constructed ideas cannot precede those two FACTS. Step 2. Know that that ability to think, as well as our lifetime of experiences, profoundly shape what happens in our social world, which in turn continues to, like a pinball stuck within the boundary of its world, shape our thoughts. This cyclical relationship continues on forever unless disrupted. The only way to understand elements of thought is to first learn and accept the very basic structures of thought. STRUCTURES OF THOUGHT As suggested by the California Foundation for Critical Thinking (2024), ‘thought’ has EIGHT basic structures to our thinking. I have studied these in detail and will provide you with real world examples of how they either aid or ail us. All of our thoughts: Have a purpose: There is a reason for any thought. They do not exist without a particular intention. Example Perhaps we are thinking about the best car to buy within our budget, or the best school to send our kids. Or perhaps we authoritatively control other people’s thoughts because we desire power—we finally have it and maybe we never did before so we abuse it. Or perhaps we seek revenge, and have insecurities we have not yet addressed, so we harshly judge those we see as having even worse insecurities, in order to momentarily feel better about ourselves. Once you become a critical thinker it is easy to spot intention through analysing commentary and behaviour. Task: Next time you have a problem or issue you are concerned with, start by thinking about the purpose of your thoughts. Raises questions: As we are thinking about an issue, there are uncertainties and queries we have which we need to address. Example We must take the time to fill in information gaps with honesty, and integrity. It is very easy in these moments to accept the availability of the easiest and quickest answer. This is exactly how confirmation bias operates. For example, if you were raised in a violent home with a violent and bad man, it is easy to sit comfortably with the assumption that all men have the capacity to be violent and therefore be bad. If you have not dealt with these issues in your past, this type of thinking may lead to problematic assumptions simply being a man is a bad thing despite plenty of evidence which demonstrates the opposite. The most conscious and intelligent critical thinkers of us, ensure they seek the correct answer and do not need to quickly fill in any gaps without sufficient evidence. In relation to bad men, a critical thinker would question the statement of whether all men are bad and violent. As well as whether being a man a bad thing? For the critical thinker it is perfectly okay to sit with uncertainty and accept various possibilities, if there are too many uncertainties which prevent drawing a conclusion. Uses information: We draw on what (data/knowledge) we have access to for consideration while we are thinking. Example This is the point we become honest with ourselves about the possible limits of our knowledge. We should either attempt to ask questions or take the steps to broaden our information source. We should not assume we have enough data to inform a final opinion. Especially when we are speaking to someone who may know more than us. The critical thinker, often is the most knowledgeable in the room because they always assume they could be the least knowledgeable. Be curious about the fact there is so much you do not know. Utilise concepts: Draw on universal, rational and logical ideas to inform a basis or foundation for our thoughts. Universal concepts, enable broader observation of other ideas. Example A universal concept may be that ‘all humans have a right to freedom of speech’. This is universal as it is a fairly logical expectation, and reasonable human right particularly in a democracy. Thus, this belief may underpin all of your thoughts. The fairness of how you apply it however is left up to the honesty with which you deal with your thoughts. You are immediately discredited as a critical thinker if you choose to speak freely about what you wish, but equally cancel or shut down another person’s ability to speak freely. Or another universal concept which many people collectively believe is that humans need both men and women to ensure the survival of our species. Or the universal concept that children are usually innocent and therefore we have a responsibility protect them. Where a person who harms children attempts to suggest this is ok, as a collective, most humans would reject that person and their ideas. However, what is harm and what is protection would be up for discussion by the critical thinker. What one person may think is harm is what another person does not, for example, the ear-piercing of young babies or co-sleeping are some examples which raise controversy. Often issues of culture, or personal preferences may have varying views on a single idea and therefore universal concepts also have complexity. Makes assumptions: These are your implicit often unconscious, unrecognised beliefs and ideas, which guide your thinking process. Example Critical thinkers have learnt to accept that we have deep unconscious biases, and beliefs which cloud thoughts. We must work hard to identify them, name them and heal them in order to be able to think without problematic bias. In the age of the social-internet, everyone has an opinion on every single idea or concept despite its personal relevance. Non-critical thinkers are unable to even acknowledge the existence of bias, and even often believe themselves to be critical thinkers. Generates implications: Our thinking has implications and potential consequences which may result from a particular line of thinking or action. Example A critical thinker demonstrates awareness of implications of a certain line of thinking. For example, let’s use the example again of the potential implications upon a democratic society if we tolerate the cancellation of people because we disagree with them. We must make room for those we disagree with or it has dire implications on democracy which enabled the ability to disagree in the first place. Critical thinkers allow room for those who think differently to them to exist and even offer them opportunity to prove them wrong. In order to progress knowledge, we need the right type of opposition, and resistance. Embodies points of view: Our thoughts always hold a perspective and point of view. This shapes how we interpret the world as well as our experiences. Example True critical thinkers are deeply aware of how history, culture including economics, social systems, personal experience, personality and biology shape the way our worldview is constructed and the serious implications this has over thought. The true critical thinker is aware that education or a range of experiences may dominate their point of view so they work hard to adjust that to be more fair-minded. This is the highest form of personal accountability we require in order to tame problematic thinking patterns. FINAL WORDS There are structures which develop the framework for our thinking. To be able to gain control over our thinking we must know why we think, and how we think. Cognitive processes are complex but serve a purpose. One who takes the time to truly think about what our intentions and purposes are for taking a certain perspective is one who will become truly aware of the self. It is a useful endeavour to tackle this challenge of achieving true critical thinking given that thinking informs all of our experiences and contributes to our happiness as well as our sadness, our failures and our successes as an individual. Stay tuned for the Sunday Synapse, which will be delivered to your inbox every Sunday! Get ready to take on a new week better than you were last week! If it does not bring value to you, just hit the unsubscribe button below. Send me an email with feedback, what you like, don’t like, want more of, or just to say hi! Until next Sunday, take care. Dr. Esha.
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