ï»żHey whatâs up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens hereâŠ
Rather than talk about a specific fallacy today, I want to talk a little about thinking - good thinking-, and Iâll be covering more of this in future episodes, but our family just got back from a retreat up in the mountains, (which is our happy place!) and I wanted to share some things we learned. This retreat was for high schoolers, and my husband and I went along as chaperones and we got to sit in on all the sessions and we had such a great time. The whole point of the retreat was to teach the students how to think well and how to have great discussions with others, even when they disagree! So today Iâm going to share a few things from this weekend.
First of all, a huge shoutout to this showâs sponsor, Classical Conversations. This is the homeschool organization where we have learned all these skills about how to think well! If youâre considering homeschooling & donât want to do it alone, check out Classical Conversationâs model, where you can join a community of like-minded families and take the homeschool journey together. We have 2 free e-books for you if youâd like to learn more about homeschooling and what a classical education even is. Just fill out the form at www.classicalconversations.com/gibbens to get immediate access!
Ok, I want to share 4 hard truths about critical thinking with you, and some of these may come as a surprise, but theyâre critical to know and embrace if you truly want to think well!
Hard truth number 1: If you want to think well, you have to risk being offensive. In fact, it is impossible to think without offending and getting offended. There are several reasons for this. One is that the whole point of thinking is to discover truth, beauty & goodness. We live in a society that considers truth to be offensive. Our society says there is no absolute, objective truth, so therefore we canât know it, so all weâre left with is our own individual, subjective truths that shift & change like the wind. Well, we donât believe that. We believe there is a truth, and we can know it, and it is our privilege and responsibility before God to push in, to wrestle with ideas and to seek to find truth. Thatâs going to be offensive to people who donât want to be held responsible to an objective truth. Another reason thinking is offensive is because it exposes peopleâs lack of thinking skills, and they donât like that. This is why youâll find most people will resort to emotionalism, name-calling and personal attacks when theyâre presented with a well thought out argument: they just donât have the skills to know how to think about it or how to analyze ideas. So they get angry or defensive or offended.
Hard truth number 2: If you want to think well, you have to practice not being offended. Yep, good thinking is going to be offensive to you, too. All of us have ideas, biases, preferences that need to be challenged, that need to be put on the working table of our minds and be subjected to good critical thinking. Guess what? Some of those ideas are going to be wrong and theyâre going to be exposed as being incorrect, incomplete and biased. When that happens, it can feel offensive. It can be hard to look at some long-held idea and realize in a moment of clarity that itâs wrong and you have to change it and you may find the idea you have to replace it with is an idea you spent years thinking was wrong, but now you realize itâs actually right! Guys, one of the hallmarks of good thinking is someone who is willing to be persuaded. Thinking is essentially a conversation with yourself, and you canât have a good conversation with another person unless both people are willing to be persuaded. You have to be willing to change your mind when you realize youâre wrong, or when you get new information.
Hard truth number 3: If you want to think well, you have to welcome conflict. Yes, welcome it! Good thinking always leads to truth, and truth is divisive. Truth creates conflict, especially when youâre living in a culture that says there is no absolute truth. That says the truth can be whatever you feel like it should beâŠoh, and you have to go along with my truth-of-the-day or else youâre a hater or a bigot. Guess what, guys, just b/c someone says it doesnât mean itâs true! I can look at a blue sky and say itâs brown all day long, but that doesnât make the sky brown! When you seek to discover truth, itâs going to create conflict with those who donât believe in an objective truth, and youâre going to have to just embrace that fact. You have to be able to tolerate conflict in a world that wants you to just âtolerate without conflictâ.
Hard truth number 4: If you want to think well, youâre going to have to practice. As Iâm sure youâve seen and experienced, critical thinking is in short supply these days, and itâs typically not a skill thatâs taught in traditional schools or in society as a wholeâŠin fact, our culture is actively dumbing us down so that we canât think for ourselves so that weâll just accept the narrative the powers that be are trying to feed us. Youâre going to have to work to learn these skills, to teach them to your kids and to get good at them. There is a well-oiled propaganda machine thatâs at work 24/7 that we somehow have to be able to stand up against. The only way to do that is to practice. But, what a privilege, yes, I said privilege, we have to always be discovering truth, beauty and goodness, and to spend our whole lives doing so! Itâs an incredible gift and itâs one of the things that makes us uniquely human, as God created humans to be.
Hereâs the thing, thinking takes courage. I donât want to believe anything that isnât true. Because when you seek truth, youâll end up with a position, not just an opinion. And when you have a position, youâre going to have to then decide how youâre going to live based on that position. Your thinking will determine how you live. Youâre going to have to defend & contend for your position, and sometimes, youâre going to have to be willing to defeat ideas that donât want to be defeated. None of this is easy. Take courage, my friends, we can do this, and, to have any kind of a future at all, we MUST do this and we must teach the next generation to do this as well.
Alright, thatâs it for today.
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: âIs that really true?â
