What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking is thinking that takes you beyond what’s handed to you. It’s more than analyzing someone else’s opinion and deciding to agree or disagree… critical thinking is figuring out what’s *missing* from that person’s argument and showing how a more complete, or how a better, different, or more thorough approach would have led to a better, different, or more thorough conclusion.
Critical thinking is creative problem solving. It’s looking at an issue and seeing what could be instead of what is.
Most of us believe we engage in critical thinking. At the same time, most of us are deathly afraid of it. I don’t know why. I only know that, if you are one of the millions who wish to appear like you are engaging in critical thinking while actually avoiding having anything that could be construed, under any circumstances, as an original thought, then this half-wit’s guide to faking it will be of tremendous value. Anytime you hear the words “what if…” “how might…” or “I wonder…” and especially if you hear someone ask “Why?” you need to pull out this list.
1. Discuss decisions instead of making them. Use phrases like, “That’s a good idea, we should discuss it,” and “I know we all agree on what to do next, but before we do anything, let me just say that I think it’s unfair that we have to deal with this and I for one want to understand how come we’re the ones who are supposed to fix it.” When copied on emails, use Reply All and make non-commital statements like, “That sounds interesting,” “I’ll consider it,” and “Let me know when the group decides something.” That last one is extra-awesome, since it even brings your inclusion in the group into question. Remember, for critical thinking to occur, you have to want to make a decision. You have to want to take action and own your life. You have to want to end the meeting.
2. State opinions instead of researching facts. The more you treat critical thinking as something synonymous with opining, pontificating, speculating, and “just saying,” the better.
Critical thinking requires asking tough questions and researching hard data that could potentially blow apart an argument or idea. Don’t go there. Sharing opinions which–because they are based on nothing–can be neither proved nor disproved allows everyone to “agree to disagree” when necessary for the sake of the relationships. Using data to actually test a hypothesis might mean that someone’s idea could be wrong, and that might hurt someone’s feelings.
3. There are no stupid ideas, but there sure are some stupid people. You’ve heard of separating the people from the problem? Forget it. Ideas are only as good as the people offering them, so when you hear a lame one, you can rest assured that the person behind it is a first-rate moron. Whenever possible, skip right through the idea and attack the individual. Unless you can intimidate the person into shutting up, s/he might try to speak up again later, and how annoying would that be!
4. Confirm what you already believe to be true. Critical thinking implies gaining new knowledge, which further implies that there must be a gap somewhere in your current thinking. But since you know everything already, the idea that there might be something to learn that you don’t already know is ludicrous. Any “thinking” you do will therefore need only confirm for yourself things you already know (or believe to be true).
5. Take all statements at face value instead of questioning people’s motives. True critical thinking requires everything to be on the table at all times. Everything: why people hold the positions they do, where assumptions come from, what original sources were used in research, the quality of others’ analyses… even your own motives for why you agree or disagree with others are on the table. What a chore. It’s much easier to just take what everyone says at face value, don’t you think?
6. Don’t ever let yourself be wrong. Refer to number 4 above. The logical conclusion of already knowing everything is that you will never be wrong. Therefore, steer any discussions that start moving into uncharted territory firmly back to the idea you originally hypothesized would be best. Don’t let new information sway you… even though new information could TECHNICALLY be used to change your mind, technicalities are generally too subtle for most people. They would probably only see your waffling, which would call their awareness of #4 into question… and let’s not even go into what happens then.
There you go: the half-wit’s guide to critical thinking. (If you want a peek at how those fools who ACTUALLY do strategic thinking do what they do, let me know and I’ll follow up with another post.)
Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.
I'm the CEO of Ajax Social Media. We're helping 1 million people shine by making their online stories better. 