CRITICAL THINKING: WHY IT’S GOING THE WAY OF THE FLIP-PHONE
Listen up
I finished reading an article by one of the better writers on Medium that delved into America’s need for compassion.
Compassion.
Not money.
Not more free time, lower housing prices, cheaper gasoline, or any of the thousand other hot buttons that we’re all writing about these days.
Just compassion.
How this one emotion can fuel change.
How it can usher in a new age — not like the Roaring 20s, or the Gilded Age of the 1890s. But more relevant, like the Age of the Internet.
She didn’t use these words.
I’m using them because that’s what writing and reading are all about.
You consume a few hundred, maybe a thousand words, and let them ruminate deep within yourself until they are ready to break through with a new idea.
A new perspective on an old subject.
For me, it’s all about critical thinking.
Specifically: the unbiased analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment. (Thank you, Wikipedia)
For me critical thinking undercuts everything. Why bartenders can’t put a decent head on a glass of beer, to why certain Supreme Court jurists think it’s the 1880s and women don’t have the right to vote.
Apparently, they still don’t possess the requisite intelligence, emotional stability, or here it comes, the capacity for critical thinking necessary to elect good men to tough positions.
We see a lot of dialogue out there about racism as well. The institutional kind, not what you might see at an upscale bistro or a Friday Night Football game.
The kind that limits inclusion.
That quietly remains in the background ready to pounce, like some crazed subway rider intent on pushing a stranger off the platform because of the logo on the back of their jacket.
It’s out there, black and white. Amorphous.
Changing shape and size to look like a church-bound preacher, a Wall Street raider, or your great aunt Bethany from Newport, Rhode Island.
It’s there in the subtext. Between the lines.
Dyed into the woof and warp of everyday fabrics that clothe Americans throughout the country, but can’t be seen for the flowers and delicate embroidery.
It’s the constant droning that interferes with day-to-day communication and renders otherwise clear and distinct discourse into a jumble of misplaced adjectives and fixed ideas.
Racism is a bad thing. It excludes. It shames and deprives.
It alters the contours of a beautiful smile and reduces one’s perception; allowing someone to see only what they’ve been told and not what they see before them.
Critical Thinking.
It’s the antidote to racism.
The answer to why today’s politicians say the stupidest things and render 250 years of democracy into a referendum on abortion and the rights of women to control their wombs.
Critical thinking, like a dike strategically placed, prevents bad from contaminating good.
Stupid from marrying up with bright and giving rise to a generation of mediocre thinkers who believe climate change is simply the fifth season that no one is talking about.
The animus created by racism, and pro-choice vs. pro-life camps today, exists because of false information, and altered information all masquerading as the truth.
Disguised as compassion but in reality, nothing more than the pursuit of one’s personal agenda.
The disinformation we now gleefully refer to as the News creates fear and uncertainty.
Disinformation that festers in history books and the personal essays of men who saw it as their God-given right to rule over others — all others.
But fear and uncertainty are corrosive. They eat through hope and reason and gnaw away at logic, forcing many to go visceral.
“What he says doesn’t make sense, but he’s not the other guy, so I’ll vote for him.”
Critical Thinking is one of the first things to go in today’s society and political climate.
You don’t want anyone thinking too much — they might see the man behind the curtain.
So, yeah, compassion is a good thing. A vital reaction to what’s happening all around us.
Compassion allows understanding to take hold. It instantly if only momentarily raises one’s IQ and permits conversations to take place.
Compassion allows the human mind to imagine a future that differs from a present that is beating on us ceaselessly every day.
And critical thinking?
Without it, compassion is nothing more than a fortune cookie saying. A hallmark card wishing you a happy decade.
Two neighbors stop to chat but realize that they don’t talk much anymore and move on.