{"id":804,"date":"2020-05-07T18:36:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T01:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardalovett.com\/wp\/?p=804"},"modified":"2020-05-07T19:03:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T02:03:13","slug":"the-corruption-of-critical-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardalovett.com\/wp\/2020\/05\/07\/the-corruption-of-critical-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"The Corruption of Critical Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is not directly about politics or COVID-19. But it should be, which is why I’ve tagged it for both.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was teaching at California State University, Sacramento in the late 1980s, the Cal State system was trying to increase the focus on classes that emphasized critical thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there was an official definition, I never saw it, but my department made it clear that the environmental studies law-and-public-policy classes I taught were exactly what they wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ran these classes not as lectures, but as discussions based on assigned readings, and my biggest goal was to challenge the students to think about the readings’ implications, rather than just taking them at face value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite moments was a discussion in which one of the students flipped whatever I was saying at the time back on itself and pointed out something I\u2019d overlooked. \u201cThat\u2019s what you taught us to do,\u201d he said, when he realized how well he’d hoisted me by my own petard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t remember what grade he got for the course, but for that day, he definitely got an A+.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, however, I\u2019ve found that critical thinking is all too often replaced by shorthand substitutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Some people are taught that all you have to do is assess the speaker or writer’s self-interests and reject anything coming from someone with an interest\u2014particularly a financial one\u2014in it being correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, while that\u2019s a good reason for skepticism, reflexive cynicism and critical thinking are not the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another shortcut is to reject anything that comes from a source with which you disagree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But sources you disagree with may still get their facts right…and even your favorites can garble things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we need to do, and do now before it’s too late, is to start teaching and modeling how to do this better. In addition to the two above shortcuts, that means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n