The Need for Critical Thinking

While Prime Minister Harper has kept a decidedly low profile this summer, Treasury Board President Stockwell Day did surface long enough for a press conference in Ottawa today to talk about 'how well' the government's Economic Action Plan is working for Canadians. Unfortunately for him, reporters had other things on their mind, including questions about the elimination of the mandatory long census form and his assertion that crime statistics are misleading, that there are many crimes that Candians are not reporting. For a change, it sounds like journalists were thinking critically and asking the hard questions that challenge the blithe claims that politicians are only too happy to make

You can read the full story here.

My Political Philosophy

When I was teaching, I used to tell my students that one of the first things they should try to determine when evaluating a piece of non-fiction, whether a biography, autobiography, or essay, was the bias of the writer. Sometimes that bias can be inferred from the content of the piece, but other times it can be helpful to know something about the writer or the organization upon whose behalf he or she is writing.

For example, when reading an advocacy piece from the C.D. Howe Institute or The Fraser Institute, or an editorial from the National Post, it is fairly safe to conclude that the material reflects a very conservative, right-wing bias. Similarly, if reading something by Jim Stanford, an economist employed by the Canadian Auto Works, one Canada's preeminent unions, it is reasonable to infer a liberal, left-of-centre bias. Why are these distinctions important? They simply provide another tool with which we can evaluate material.

So to help anyone who may read this blog, I would like to articulate my own bias. As accurately as I can express it, I would have to say that in my political outlook is essentially middle of the road, or at the centre of the political spectrum, a position that at one time was very respectable, but now, unfortunately, owing to the polarization of politics that has accelerated under the Harper Conservative Government, has become the equivalent of being either 'wishy-washy' or leftist, perhaps too-polite terms if you read some of the labels that are regularly used on The globe and Mail website's Readers' Comments' section. I was initially going to say 'fair and balanced,' but unfortunately Fox News has given that phrase a very specific and odious connotation.

So what does being at the centre of the spectrum mean? For me, it means having a respect for each side's views, as long as neither is extreme. It means respecting the labour side of the equation, as well as the owners' side, i.e., the capitalist model. I draw the line, however, with unbalanced and extremist applications of either perspective. It is as anathema to me to say that all owners are simply fat capitalist exploiters of the workers as it is to tell me that the union model is dead, having outlived its usefulness. Both positions bespeak a kind of faith-based belief that permits no reasoned discourse in opposition to to their arguments/rants. In other words, I really don't have time for the kind of simplistic thinking that so often attaches to those platforms.

The question that has dogged me for so long, related to the above discussion, is: Why can there never seem to be moderation in contemporary politics and discourse? Why does one side so often seem to want to “win it all”? For example, if we study the history of the labour movement, the major impetus toward unionization was the frequently inhumane and dangerous conditions and hours of work under which people laboured. But why, other than thinking they could get away with it, did the owners seek to extract the maximum profit out of each employee at the expense of his health and life outside of work? Why could they not have been satisfied with reasonable profits from their investments? The obvious answer is that capitalism is all about the maximization of profit in order to promote even more entrepreneurship and investment; however, those making the decision to send five-year-olds into the coal mines were not principles, they were human beings. What is it then, that makes humans enslaved to a principle or belief, no matter the cost?

Or, on a related matter, why is reasoned discussion in our society so often trumped by cheap emotion, where demagoguery, if engineered sufficiently skillfully, can carry the day?

Are we really such flawed human beings?

An Article I Recommend Reading

While I have been polishing up my post for tomorrow, I just came upon an article written by David Susuki that fits in nicely with the the theme of critical thinking.

A Brief Introduction

About three years ago, about a year after I had retired from the high school classroom, I started a blog entitled Educations and its Discontents – Observations from A Retired high School Teacher. Based upon my 30 years as an educator, I felt that I had a great deal to share, especially about what I perceived to be the truth behind public perceptions about education; I examined educational policy, the often politics-driven decisions made by administrators, the behaviour of students and teachers, literature that I feel is crucial to developing well-rounded thinkers, etc.

I think, as far as those goals were concerned, I succeeded. However, I found that as time moved on and my distance from the classroom increased, my definition broadened to include almost anything that in one way or another relates to life-long education, whether related to my travel experiences, the development of critical thinking skills, or the broader area of politics, especially Canadian federal and provincial politics.

It is the latter that has been occupying an increasingly larger portion of my thoughts, in part because I see things happening in Canada that are very disquieting, and also because I have been pretty much a lifelong 'political junkie,' fascinated by the role politics play in influencing and even molding public perceptions and values. Looking back at this year's postings on Education and its Discontents, I see that the vast majority of what I have written pertains to either provincial or federal politics, and so I deemed it time to start a separate blog entitled Politics and its Discontents – Reflections, Observations and Analyses by An Evolving Critical Thinker. The latter part of the title derives from the fact that I am striving more and more in my later years to assess issues, people, and policies through the prism of critical thinking.

While I do not claim to be an expert in critical thinking, part of what I know about it derives from my experiences teaching it as a subunit of a senior English course when we examined George Orwell's famous essay, “Politics and the English Language,” which I then followed up with fallacies of reasoning. That section of the course, which I spent at least six weeks on, turned out to be my favorite part, as it provided me with the opportunity to help students begin to think critically as well as sharpen my own thinking skills within the arena of the classroom.

Of course, being able to think and assess critically involves much more than merely knowing some of the most common fallacies of thinking. It is an ability borne of an on-going engagement with the world, a willingness to accept new possibilities, and a fairly broad educational base. I sincerely believe that we never reach the point where we say there is nothing more to learn and that we are now expert and skilled thinkers; indeed, I am sure that as my posts accumulate, my own values and prejudices will become abundantly clear, but the distinction (at least I hope!) between an uninformed rant and what I write is that the latter will be conveyed through the filter of education, reflection, and critical assessment, all of which I hope will result in something worthwhile to read.

In my next post, I'll write a little about my own political philosophy, which may help you to better-evaluate what I write.