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Hello Critical Thinking Enthusiasts! What comforts and discomforts has your thinking brought you this week? Critical thinking (CT) is FIRSTLY about your relationship with The Self. Not many people realise that. Instead they believe it is to catch out those who are wrong. Think about the difference between those divergent opinions on what CT is. Question: How can one be open to see truth if one does not know The Self? Getting upset sometimes is normal. But all those issues you get upset about and: Cannot work through, or that: Weigh you down. Things like unnecessary, or frequent: …all of these can be addressed with CT skill of fair-minded thinking. CT is ultimately about your ability to be fair-minded. I still dislike the name CT. It is perhaps un-relatable, but we will leave it as it is until I come up with something better. Let’s start with an idea, because to be a critical thinker, reflections on ideas are your friend: “When we are disempowered internally, the stability of our external life pays the price”. The notion above is not so irrational; in fact, it's the very essence of why psychological therapy exists. Yet, despite its reasonableness, people’s stubborn biases will still oppose the idea that they hold most power over the cognitive impact of their problems. External blame is the easiest way to feel better momentarily. Although everyone experiences insecurity, individuals harbouring troublesome insecurities often exhibit discontent through misplaced anger, rudeness, or trolling behaviour, online or in person. CT places attention on these internal insecurities, and is a method to address the impact they have on our lives. We all have irrational outbursts at different moments in our life. While it may be normal, we can not justify when we are wrong and need to improve. We are masters at self-jeopardy, and hypocrisy. Huge volumes of philosophical and psychological texts discuss this fact about human beings—our propensity for unfair thinking is the very reason why scientific research places such importance on rendering transparent what we may be biased about during the research process. This however does not happen naturally in daily conversation. If you want to be fair, you have to first accept how unfairly your mind will try to think. BIAS & HYPOCRISY Though we all have biased views, we easily do not accept and forget that others are also biased – this is an immediate example of the unconscious hypocrisy we participate in daily. We judge others harshly despite behaving the same way. We think no one notices. But one person does—you. We have the capacity to know when we are deceiving ourselves, yet we come up with all sorts of mechanisms to reassure ourselves that we were justified. For those of you who want to be the best version you can be. I want you to notice the moments you are being deceptive…. There is a moment where your consciousness alerts you to your own deceit. This is the place you need to sTOP and BE VERY HONEST WITH YOURSELF. This is the moment where you hold yourself accountable. Extra cognitive points for those who fearlessly voice their failings. Next time you catch yourself doing this > Stop and face yourself. This can be done in private or with a trusted friend or with your therapist! Ask yourself: What reason did I have to add that extra and inaccurate detail? Why did I need to place myself as the hero in that story? Why could I not give credit where it was due? You must be willing to be mostly fair. People largely lack the ability to recognise what is fair. FAIRMINDEDNESS FOR CT If you want to know more about the intellectual traits required for true critical thinkers see last weeks newsletter here. When we work towards internal empowerment, we become rational, fair and reasonable individuals outwardly. CT is all about honesty with ourselves. About focusing directly on what parts of us cause us to see the world in the way we do. The more you start to realise the negative effects due to negative thoughts, the more control you will have. WRONG & RIGHT CT is never militant in its delivery. Ever. Emotion is. Those whose motivation to progress knowledge for humanity have no desire to force acceptance, instead, they desire people to achieve personal contentment. Those who point out which people are wrong all day long are not critical thinkers yet. If we choose to aggressively attack the ideas of others, we by unconscious default are simply in a process aimed to elevate and reassure ourselves of the validity of our own behaviour. Be the person who is brave enough to turn the lens on their own terrible behaviour always. Practice this high level of self-accountability, and watch your internal empowerment shift. Your consciousness will become fiercely attentive to what is happening. You will seperate what is happening to you as the objective self, with what you are within your inner consciousness. This is true enlightenment and empowerment. It is intoxicating. LEARNING CT Currently, there's a shortage of options to learn CT for everyday communication. That's where I come in. Our strained relationship with our own minds is evident in how we read, react, and respond to online messages as well as interactions in our real lives. We barely understand what the purpose is for our collective humanity. We are totally lost amongst our subjective needs, desires and wants. Inside the university walls, where I teach, we are given the privilege to impart, and promote CT skills every day. Despite this, there is a discrepancy—99% of professors believe they are teaching CT skills but employers believe 75% of new graduates arrive without CT skills (Academically Adrift, by Richard Arum and Josipa Roska). So, there is a huge discrepancy in how these skills are being translated from paper to real life. If professionals, who are considered masters of CT, struggle to teach this in a formal setting, imagine the challenge for every day people to be able to develop this skill? Everyday, I witness individuals who perceive themselves as possessing CT skills, only to reveal their lack thereof, easily recognisable through the comments they make. People frequently disagree with others. This is OK. But, while universally agreed-upon topics may have some clear-cuts backed by hard data, most of our daily conversations involve cultural nuances. So CT for every day thinking means—if a viewpoint seems reasonable and applicable, there's no need to reject it. Explore it instead. Offer thoughtful suggestions, adding to the beautiful dance that can quickly transform into a dopamine-inducing intellectual exchange if you are lucky. Conversing with individuals who have confronted their intellectual insecurities is truly powerful. They engage in conversations not to win others over or validate themselves but simply to connect with the diversity which people represent. We often reject rather than accept the reasonable ideas of others because we are still focused on proving the worthiness of our own ideas to ourselves. If you disagree with this very reasonable idea, I promise—you are who this is about. In fact, all your thinking problems are your problem. No one will solve them for you. No one cares about what is happening inside your head as much as you do. Yes, there are lots of annoying people, things, and facts. BUT you have below zero probability of even scraping the mere surface of the possibility of changing those things if you first do not work out how to be reasonable. People accept ideas, and thoughts which are well thought out, considered, reasonable and careful. People who can do this are the people who have the power to impact change. Try and be that person, in your next conversation, your next presentation, your next meeting, and your next self-reflection. Our judgments often serve as a vocal exercise where we apply our own values to govern the actions of others. However, these judgments should instead be used for introspection and analysis of our thoughts. If our judgments are solely aimed at tarnishing someone's reputation or justifying our own behaviour, rather than assessing the validity of others' actions in light of our own thoughts, then we are not engaging in CT. Use CT is to improve YOUR mental functioning. FAIRMINDEDNESS VERSUS SELF-CENTREDNESS One thing to keep in mind is that once people start learning CT it can be used to serve two things: Self-centredness Fair-mindedness
These letters are to fuel you to become more fair-minded NOT more self-centred. I tell you this as it will, and can easily happen. You can see clearly those “critical thinkers” who are extremely rigid—unmoving with their ideas and thoughts. If you don't address your internal conflicts while learning CT, there's a period during which you may become more self-centered with your ideas, not less. As you acquire more knowledge-authority, such as in the case of scientists, there's a tendency to perceive one's own opinions as unquestionable truth. This is where we must be extra careful, even if we do hold a degree or qualification which gives us the right to know more. When we think we know more, we can easily become authoritative– this is not good. It is the antithesis knowledge progress. Interestingly the very tool (CT) which can enable us to progress knowledge is also be what arms the very evil which can censor it. Non-critical thinkers often exhibit a rigid adherence to their ideas, despite the existence of credible variability. It's crucial for all people to communicate data thoughtfully, without ego and focus on transparent acknowledgment about the complexities involved. In my experience teaching CT, I observed that students in the early years of learning CT, could readily identify flaws in others' reasoning but struggled to recognise their own fallacies, and hypocrisy. Achieving genuine proficiency in CT entails rigorously evaluating one's own arguments as rigorously as those of others. This requires a commitment to fairness and a willingness to confront hypocrisy. 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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