Analysing Critical Thinking
This seminar flows from an article titled 'Critical Thinking- A Post Truth Remedy', published in The Hindu on January 30, written by Dr. Albert Rayan.
I am going to introduce this theme by bringing to fore the concept and importance of critical thinking.
Post-truth denotes the circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion, than appeals to emotions and personal belief.
The US based Partnership for 21st century skills has identified communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking as the skills required for 21st century education and the author holds critical thinking as the most relevant and important, and I shall attempt to explain why.
To define critical thinking is to say that it is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.
In social science, this is referred to as 'agency', which is the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices, and there stands in contrast the structure, that seeks to influence and limit the capability of individuals in taking those rational decisions.
One's agency is affected to great extent by the belief structure and social conditioning of the individual, formed by his/her perceptions and experiences.
We as a people are generally inclined towards hero-worshipping and idolising, which renders us ignorant and unreceptive towards any argument that might contradict or stand in opposition to the glorious aura that we construct in relation to it. Doing so not only clouds our wisdom but also constricts the scope of improving for the entity in question.
Propagandists seek to disseminate their ideologies in a manner where people believe and accept the misinformation served to them. Media, political parties, pressure groups, none has spared the use of emotions to influence the public opinion.
In this post-truth era, according to Dr. Rayan, we are constantly bombarded with messages falling in the categories of half truths and no truths, which I believe forces us to choose the lesser evil, but evil just the same.
Controversial events are happening all over the world, everyday, and more the people, more the opinions.
I assume most of you are familiar with the game 'Chinese Whispers', where the initial message gets distorted to a great extent by the time it reaches the last person, and what happens in real life is not very different from this.
None of our information is first hand, every news channel portrays a piece of news differently, allowing its biases to play and affect what kind of coverage is provided and what strand of public opinion is telecast and we accept only that which caters to our pre-existing belief and opinion palette.
The only way to overcome our agencial limitations is to move out of our comfort zones and into the realm of discussion and debate.
We need to learn not only what to question, but also how to. It is imperative that we ask the right questions and not get swept away in our passions, which the propagandists use heavily to their advantage.
We need to examine, question, evaluate and finally challenge the assumptions cleverly crafted around our lives.
Today, we can clearly see how misinformation is fed, how rumours set passions alive, and how ideologies ignite violent action, and that is exactly why critical thinking is integral to our lives, so we can take a step back, re-evaluate our thoughts & actions, and encourage the generations past and future to follow suit.
I am going to introduce this theme by bringing to fore the concept and importance of critical thinking.
Post-truth denotes the circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion, than appeals to emotions and personal belief.
The US based Partnership for 21st century skills has identified communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking as the skills required for 21st century education and the author holds critical thinking as the most relevant and important, and I shall attempt to explain why.
To define critical thinking is to say that it is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.
In social science, this is referred to as 'agency', which is the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices, and there stands in contrast the structure, that seeks to influence and limit the capability of individuals in taking those rational decisions.
One's agency is affected to great extent by the belief structure and social conditioning of the individual, formed by his/her perceptions and experiences.
We as a people are generally inclined towards hero-worshipping and idolising, which renders us ignorant and unreceptive towards any argument that might contradict or stand in opposition to the glorious aura that we construct in relation to it. Doing so not only clouds our wisdom but also constricts the scope of improving for the entity in question.
Propagandists seek to disseminate their ideologies in a manner where people believe and accept the misinformation served to them. Media, political parties, pressure groups, none has spared the use of emotions to influence the public opinion.
In this post-truth era, according to Dr. Rayan, we are constantly bombarded with messages falling in the categories of half truths and no truths, which I believe forces us to choose the lesser evil, but evil just the same.
Controversial events are happening all over the world, everyday, and more the people, more the opinions.
I assume most of you are familiar with the game 'Chinese Whispers', where the initial message gets distorted to a great extent by the time it reaches the last person, and what happens in real life is not very different from this.
None of our information is first hand, every news channel portrays a piece of news differently, allowing its biases to play and affect what kind of coverage is provided and what strand of public opinion is telecast and we accept only that which caters to our pre-existing belief and opinion palette.
The only way to overcome our agencial limitations is to move out of our comfort zones and into the realm of discussion and debate.
We need to learn not only what to question, but also how to. It is imperative that we ask the right questions and not get swept away in our passions, which the propagandists use heavily to their advantage.
We need to examine, question, evaluate and finally challenge the assumptions cleverly crafted around our lives.
Today, we can clearly see how misinformation is fed, how rumours set passions alive, and how ideologies ignite violent action, and that is exactly why critical thinking is integral to our lives, so we can take a step back, re-evaluate our thoughts & actions, and encourage the generations past and future to follow suit.
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