Thinking Critically in the 21st Century
Information flies at each of us at an ever-increasing pace each and every day. There was a time in the not-too-distant past in which we had to seek out information, go look for it. We would sit down to read a newspaper or watch the evening news on TV. Physically go to the library. We might pick up a book or a magazine. My father once tried to read the entire encyclopedia. I don’t think he finished it. Today, information comes from all directions passing through our devices to our eyes and ears. Unlike the evening news or a newspaper column, most of it is unedited, not vetted for accuracy, raw data literally at the speed of light. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, pod casts, you tube videos, blogs, and news feeds from all over the world. We don’t really have time to process these mountains of data, so information that fits our comfort zone or our world view, we largely accept. Information that is outside our world view is largely discarded. Then on to the next post. Hans Rossling in his book Factfulness, explains the ten instincts that cause us to improperly process new information. They are the gap instinct, the negativity instinct, the straight-line instinct, the fear instinct, the size instinct, the generalization instinct, the destiny instinct, the single perspective instinct, and blame instinct, and the urgency instinct. I highly recommend this book. I have read it twice. These instincts inhibit us from thinking critically during the age of human civilization in which critical thinking is the most, well, critical. That is to say, here in the information age we have not been properly trained how to process information. We re-tweet and re-post. Critical thinking is a skill that needs to be better taught and more diligently practiced. This article discusses just how to do this.
Skills, like throwing a curve ball, or driving a car, must be learned and practiced over and over in order to be proficient at. To think critically requires education as to the topics that are being considered. It requires patience to sift through data and opinions. It requires the thinker to be willing to admit to being wrong, something that we generally don’t like to do. It requires belief that the world is not always black and white, but exists in a whole rainbow of colors, colors that require perhaps very nuanced evaluation. But more than anything else, if there is one point I want you to get from this it’s that critical thinking requires the thinker to step outside of his world view (his paradigm), at least partially, and to be willing to adapt or change his world view, or to abandon it all-together based upon new ideas, new data. However, stepping outside one’s world view even the least little bit can be very difficult, painful, and even impossible for some. Why? Simply, our world views are not just part of us, they define us. To change your world view requires us to redefine ourselves, like changing political parties or religious affiliation. This can be extremely difficult. In addition to the above, research shows that when we discover information that supports our world view there is a dopamine release in our brain. We are sort of addicted to our way of looking at the world and there is no twelve step program for this.
To understand better let’s start with a fish. If a fish could think critically, it would not think about the fact that it is in water. Water is its everything, its first paradigm, its world view. I will use those two terms interchangeably. The fish doesn’t know what air is. It can’t conceptualize the idea of a cloud, snow, or air. It cannot step outside of its primary paradigm. It “thinks” from the perspective of water. Like the fish in water, you were born into some of your paradigms that you think from. You don’t think about paradigms, you think from them. We actually have many paradigms. For example, you were born into the paradigm of race, ethnicity, sex, country of origin, and native language. Other paradigms were instilled in you early on such as your birth religion or your parents’ political affiliations. Some were constructed over time by your parents, your teachers, your friends, and others. Some are constructive and some destructive. Perhaps they convinced you that you were good in math, or bad in English, or a poor athlete, or good looking, or ugly, etc. Maybe your paradigm is that of a devout Catholic, or that of a committed Nazi. Constructive and destructive. Finally, along the way you made some of your own paradigms. It gets complicated, but in reality most of our paradigms through which we organize our lives were not of our own creation. Since they have been with us nearly our entire life, stepping outside of them is not an easy task, perhaps impossible for some. If you are not aware of your paradigm in the first place, like the fish in water, you will be inextricably incapable of stepping outside of it at all and, therefore, unable to think critically about any associated issues. Therefore, critical thinking requires us to be self-aware to recognize the paradigms through which we view our reality.
Our reality gets filtered through our world view. This is normal and natural and even critical. Our paradigms create an organizational filing system in our brains. Without this organizational structure mental chaos would reign. We know people who lack the ability to do this. They are labeled psychotic. They cannot see the world as it is because they lack any rational paradigm through which to organize it. In spite of the absolute necessity of these paradigms, they can also severely limit us. There are many such examples to explain this but perhaps the most easily understood is that of race.
I was born of northern European ancestry; white, very white; 100% white according to 23 & Me. I can’t change that. It is my racial paradigm. To let it control how I organize my world is to see others through my white racial filter. Perhaps as the lyrics go in the stage play Avenue Q, “we are all just a little bit racist,” but when this controls our thinking about others inside or outside of our race this leads us down the destructive pathway of racism. In order to avoid this trap, in order to see people of other races fairly and accurately, we must will ourselves to step outside of our racial paradigm and attempt to see the world through theirs. This has proven very hard for humans to do. The proof of this is the rampant racism that we see throughout the world, each group believing their race is greater or purer or better than the others. It’s an out-of-control pandemic dating into antiquity. For my part, if I can step out of my white paradigm just a little bit maybe I can better understand a black paradigm for example. Due to my whiteness I’m not trying to step into a black paradigm. I can’t. But in trying to step out of mine just a bit I can better understand the black one and think more critically about blackness-related issues. Certainly, I’ll understand the black paradigm even better if I have made a study of it. To aid me in this regard I have read several biographies. This includes the usuals such as biographies of George Washington and his conflicting views of his own slaves, freeing them upon his death, as well as several books about Lincoln and the Civil War. More specifically my reading list includes biographies about historical black figures such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Soloist, Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington, Twelve Years a Slave, In the Shadow of Liberty, and Soaring to Glory – A Tuskegee Airman’s Firsthand Account of WW2. Finally, The Rise of the GI Army and At War at Sea both in part chronicle the historically systematic racism of the American armed forces and its painfully slow incorporation of black men, as well as women into their ranks. Mine is the beginning of an effort to be able to think more critically about some of the race related issues our nation and world face today.
There is one rule to critical thinking that supersedes all others. To be able to truly think critically about world views other than your own, you must be willing to abandon yours if it is proven false. Obviously, a white man cannot stop being white, so the example of race, while easily understood by all, is a limited example. But what about religion? Most are born into a religion. Some choose it. Some chose to not have it. I’m a Christian. I was born into the faith. At 16 I chose to declare my faith. At 60+ I continue to make that choice on a daily basis. But I live in a world not only of Christians, but of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and a myriad of other faiths, including atheists, people with very different world views from my own. If I am going to have a relationship of any real depth to talk about faith with people outside of my faith I need to have some understanding of their faith. I don’t need to abandon mine to understand theirs, but I can try to step into their faith just a little bit to better understand their world view. That’s called respect. For example, I have a good friend who is Jewish. I can better understand her world view, and therefore be a better friend to her, having read many books written by Jewish authors and about Jewish history, customs, and practices. If I want to have a conversation with a Muslim friend about God would it be more productive to tell him about my God or ask him about his? A question is always a softer entry into a conversation than a statement, I would assert.
Tying back into the first sentence of the last paragraph, I argue that to be a truly critical thinker about this topic of religion I must acknowledge that there could be conditions under which I would have to abandon my faith, and to be aware of what at least some of those conditions could be. Are you willing to acknowledge that about your faith? I can think of two conditions off the top of my head. If science were to prove that the universe had no beginning, that it was eternal, this would negate all of Genesis I, and therefore the entire Bible by extension. I would have to abandon my faith. Or, if it were to be proven to me that Christ never existed, or that his resurrection was false, this would be catastrophic to the Christian faith and I would have to abandon it as well.
Politics is the other thorny topic that we are not supposed to talk about in polite conversation. But the same rules apply. If I want to truly understand an issue, it is best to listen to both sides of the topic to make a decision based upon critical thinking. As a centrist, this is perhaps easier for me than someone committed to one side or the other of the political spectrum. But this is how government either functions or doesn’t function. A politician firmly committed to the far left or far right has little taste for engaging in negotiation. Their position is correct and the other side is wrong. It is that simple. If you have too many, so called, ideologs, government doesn’t function. The real work of government comes when each side takes a few steps out of their trench and meets in the open trying to understand the other’s position, at least enough to find a middle ground. This is how legislation is enacted. It takes critical thinking skills in addition to negotiating skills, and it takes a willingness to admit that not everybody in this country thinks like you or I do. And for those who are politically aware, we do see from time to time a politician leave one party and “convert” to the other. I would argue that when you see that happen, although rare, you may be seeing a true critical thinker, regardless of whether you agree with his/her politics or not.
I’ll leave you with one final example of critical thinking. Early in my career, when childhood vaccinations had organic mercury in them, I was a skeptic of childhood vaccination. I thought that the concept of vaccination was a good one, but that the tools that we were using at that time had side effects severe enough that I felt it important to encourage my patients to educate themselves about the issue. As time went on and scientists found safer formulas my position softened. I went from a skeptic to neutral. When the pandemic hit and the concept of m-RNA vaccines came to my attention, once I studied them I became very much pro-vaccination. I abandoned one paradigm and took on another, over a long period of time. I will compare this to most of my profession, the majority of which are anti-vaccination of any kind. I would argue they lack the critical thinking skills necessary because they are unwilling to not only abandon their vaccine world view, but won’t even have a conversation with the other side. As an example of this, my daughter, who has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, used to debate through Facebook with a chiropractor friend of mine. She would make her arguments with dignity and respect, as any published scientist would. At some point the former friend ended the debate once and for all by name calling, declaring all Lindwalls to be haughty and supercilious. I had to look supercilious up in the dictionary. Name calling is the last refuge of the ignorant. It is what we do when we have no more legitimate arguments to make.
I hope you can take this information and improve your critical thinking skills. Practice it daily. Listen to other’s stories while trying to put yourself in their shoes. Ask questions. Delve into the data. Wonder if you are wrong. Never assume. In your mind view Earth from the aspect of deep space. From there you can see that we are all on the same tiny little blue sphere soaring through this great, beautiful, and terribly dangerous universe. So, when you have concluded your critical thinking on an issue and you still ardently disagree with that other person’s world view, give him or her grace anyway.
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