Critical Thinking -- Critical Indeed!

Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Western Enlightenment has been the elevation of individual reason and judgment over dogma and received wisdom. The celebration of independent thought -- not to mention independent thought itself -- has played a central role in the rise of both secular government and religious ecumenicalism; in the steady expansion of liberty and civil rights; in the major scientific and economic advances of the last 500 years; and in the philosophical underpinnings of all these achievements.

It is a strange and troubling state of affairs, then, that in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the art of "critical thinking" (as we may conveniently term it) seems increasingly to be a lost art. Our image-saturated culture is showing signs of what Lewis Lapham, in Harper's, has identified as a "broad retreat into the forests of superstition." The qualities of mind essential to a vibrant democracy -- curiosity, skepticism, self-awareness -- have ceded too much ground to a creeping complacency and a willingness to repose our faith in the good intentions of the powerful.

To this affliction critical thinking is a vital antidote. In the broadest sense, critical thinking helps clear away the mists with which the status quo shrouds itself. It exposes the inner mechanisms and workings of the social machine. It enables us to resist the mystique of the powerful, drawing aside the curtain and revealing the Wizard of Oz at the heart of our Emerald City. Critical thinking guards freedom in the midst of what Guy-Ernest Debord, in 1967, called the "Society of the Spectacle." If the "spectacle" is "the existing order's uninterrupted discourse about itself" -- if it is "the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity" -- then critical thinking represents the individual's path to mental and civic independence.

There are practical policy implications here. Most importantly, for our democracy to remain healthy, critical thinking must be more fully integrated into the educational curriculum, particularly at the lower grade levels. As it stands, it is taught primarily in the universities -- and there usually in an ad-hoc fashion that depends on the pedagogical inclinations of individual professors. Teaching critical thinking in college is also, in a sense, teaching it too late. The qualities of thought we wish to promote should be promoted among younger students -- those in elementary and middle school -- such that they enter their adult years already better equipped to make good decisions for their lives, and to understand the forces and processes that shape their world.

The current trend in American education does not bode well in this regard. That trend is toward "standards" as measured by standardized tests. This is the whole philosophy behind the "No Child Left Behind" act, which, among its other unfortunate consequences, is pushing schools to adopt a less creative, more homogenized approach to education, with teachers pressured to "teach to the test." Educational standards are important, of course, but how those standards are defined, and by whom, are crucial questions. If we rely on a nationalized, uniform system of standards that emphasize technical achievement only, we will, in effect, be stamping students out of the same mold.

Our schools should not be assembly lines simply producing the next generation of go-along corporate citizens. They should be incubators of independent thought.

There are different ideas about what exactly critical thinking is, but it generally involves a variety of intellectual skills and habits, including:
* A willingness and desire to reevaluate one's own assumptions and         presuppositions
* An ability to ask intelligent questions
* An orientation toward the big picture and the long term
* An awareness of how arguments (especially implicit arguments) function
* A refusal to take information or sources at face value
* A belief that conclusions must be drawn, but drawn cautiously
* A healthy skepticism toward authority, power, and tradition
In his book "On Liberty," the British political philosopher John Stuart Mill identified the connection between civil and intellectual freedom. "The mental and moral, like the muscular, powers are improved only by being used," he wrote. "The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it."

The antithesis of critical thinking is fundamentalism, in all the forms that fundamentalism can take: religious, political, intellectual, cultural. The fundamentalist mindset stifles debate, limits creativity, diminishes tolerance, and refuses to confront itself in the mirror. Fundamentalism is anti-democratic in spirit, given its self-righteousness, and it always seeks to acquire political power. Fundamentalism views the world in black and white, and it is directly responsible for some of the darkest passages of human history. And it does not have a good sense of humor.

Today we see the resurgence of religious fundamentalism not only in the jihadist movement, but in the rigidity and messianism of the administration's foreign policy. We see it not only in Hindu nationalism in India and Jewish nationalism in the settlements, but in the Ten Commandments case in Alabama; in the wild popularity of both "The Passion of the Christ," and the "Left Behind" series of apocalypse novels; in the war against the teaching of evolution and "anti-Christian" books such as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"; in the campaign against gay marriage; and in the overtly religious moralism of John Ashcroft's Justice Department.

Such, then, are two of the major anti-democratic trends in our society: A dependency on images, sound-bites, simplicities, and illusions, and an encroaching fundamentalism that leaves little room for alternative viewpoints.

To achieve a fully functional democracy -- i.e., one in which citizens understand the issues, are not unduly influenced by distortions or propaganda in the media, and are able to provide valuable input into the process -- we must press our elected leaders (especially local school boards) to emphasize critical thinking as a core component of elementary and high school curricula.

If the United States is going to encourage democracy in the rest of the world (and hopefully not at the end of a gun), we should be encouraging it at home first, and presenting a model of how effective and inclusive it can be. That means developing the underlying institutions of democracy -- such as a free press and an effective public educational system -- and fostering the cognitive skills and habits on which democracy thrives.

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