Beyond Critical Thinking: Distortions of Academe?

From The Chronicle Review:

The antivocational dimension of the humanities has been a source of pride and embarrassment for generations. The persistence of this reputed uselessness is puzzling given the fact that an education in the humanities allows one to develop skills in reading, writing, reflection, and interpretation that are highly prized in our economy and culture. Sure, specific training in a discrete set of skills might prepare you for Day 1 of the worst job you'll ever have (your first), but the humanities teach elements of mind and heart that you will draw upon for decades of innovative and focused work. But we do teach a set of skills, or an attitude, in the humanities that may have more to do with our antipractical reputation than the antivocational notion of freedom embedded in the liberal arts. This is the set of skills that usually goes under the rubric of critical thinking.

--"Beyond Critical Thinking," by Michael S. Roth, President, Wesleyan University, The Chronicle Review (1.07.10)

There are many like me who feel just that way about the value of a liberal arts education, regardless of professional training or vocational pursuits. We are lawyers, CPAs, executives, educators, and a range of other professionals; we are entrepreneurs, small business owners, researchers, politicians, and people in a range of government and public service roles. We recognize the importance and advantage a liberal arts education provides--or should provide. Essential is the ability to read with understanding, to formulate good questions and responsive, helpful answers, and effectively apply what is learned to new situations. Equally important is the ability to write concisely with clarity, while conveying effectively and fully the desired information and understandings. These are qualities that distinguish the effectiveness and relative success of all professionals, regardless of vocation.

But that singular quality nurtured in a liberal arts education, and the sine qua non of the most valued professionals and leaders, has to be "critical thinking." And we all think we know what that means. First, for me, it means fully examining and understanding a body of knowledge, a theory, approach or proposal, then open-mindedly questioning and testing the facts and assumptions, the methodologies, deductions and conclusions. And last, it means establishing the implications, taking what is most defensible and useful from it, and identifying the best, most useful applications for it. The notion and practice of "critical thinking" has been often used, but sometimes abused. Now we are told that the concept has been abused and distorted in academic cultures to the point of making constructive, positive contributions difficult, or at least unlikely. I thought you might want to hear and know more about it. From the Chronicle Review:

[In academia today,] a common way to show that one has sharpened one's critical thinking is to display an ability to see through or undermine statements made by (or beliefs held by) others. Thus, our best students are really good at one aspect of critical thinking­—being critical. For many students today, being smart means being critical... [T]hese are marks of sophistication, signs of one's ability to participate fully in the academic tribe. But this participation, being entirely negative, is not only seriously unsatisfying; it is ultimately counterproductive. 

The skill at unmasking error, or simple intellectual one-upmanship, is not completely without value, but we should be wary of creating a class of self-satisfied debunkers or, to use a currently fashionable word on campuses, people who like to "trouble" ideas. In overdeveloping the capacity to show how texts, institutions, or people fail to accomplish what they set out to do, we may be depriving students of the capacity to learn as much as possible from what they study.  

In a humanities culture in which being smart often means being a critical unmasker, our students may become too good at showing how things don't make sense. That very skill may diminish their capacity to find or create meaning and direction in the books they read and the world in which they live...Perhaps that's why we teach our students that it's cool to say that they are engaged in "troubling" an assumption or a belief. To declare that one wanted to disprove a view would show too much faith in the ability to tell truth from falsehood. And to declare that one was receptive to learning from someone else's view would show too much openness to being persuaded by an idea that might soon be deconstructed (or simply mocked)...

I should not have been surprised by this view and analysis--presented by a university president and esteemed intellectual historian, no less. For a couple decades, I have been reading of the direction of academic criticism--philosophical criticism, literary criticism, cultural criticism--all of which have moved increasingly toward the "deconstruction" of ideas and values to the point of rendering all not just relative, but often meaningless. I have tried to stay connected and current with these trends, and I suppose most everyone has read or heard something of them in newspaper editorials and periodicals, or in television reporting or commentary. It's been out there.

And yet, I was surprised. I viewed--or preferred to view--these academic, intellectual exercises as phenomena unique and contained in academia. That's part of what they do. And I preferred to think that any better thinking on approaches to inquiry and evaluation that emerged would find its way to respect both within and without the academy. But I also trusted--expected, at least--that unconstructive practices, irresponsible or unaccountable thinking, or the evasion of intellectual integrity would be summarily relegated to the intellectual scrap heap. That is an academic and intellectual obligation owed to society and to self.

But upon reflection, I began to consider the many ways this unaccountable, unproductive brand of academic "critical thinking" has insinuated itself into cultural and political life outside the academy. And we are not better off for it. So, if this misdirection of responsible inquiry and analysis started in the colleges of arts and sciences--and especially the humanities--shouldn't they be responsible for offering a corrective, a constructive adjustment in the future teaching of "critical thinking?" Obviously, President Ross thinks so and offers these additional views:

The confident refusal to be affected by those with whom we disagree seems to have infected much of our cultural life: from politics to the press, from siloed academic programs (no matter how multidisciplinary) to warring public intellectuals. As humanities teachers, however, we must find ways for our students to open themselves to the emotional and cognitive power of history and literature that might initially rub them the wrong way, or just seem foreign. Critical thinking is sterile without the capacity for empathy and comprehension that stretches the self. 

One of the crucial tasks of the humanities should be to help students cultivate the willingness and ability to learn from material they might otherwise reject or ignore. This material will often surprise students and sometimes upset them. Students seem to have learned that teaching-evaluation committees take seriously the criticism that "the professor, or the material, made me uncomfortable." This complaint is so toxic because being made uncomfortable may be a necessary component of an education in the humanities. Creating a humanistic culture that values the desire to learn from unexpected and uncomfortable sources as much as it values the critical faculties would be an important contribution to our academic and civic life. 

If we humanities professors saw ourselves more often as explorers of the normative than as critics of normativity, we would have a better chance to reconnect our intellectual work to broader currents in public culture. This does not have to mean an acceptance of the status quo, but it does mean an effort to understand the practices of cultures (including our own) from the point of view of those participating in them.

http://chronicle.com/article/Beyond-Critical-Thinking/63288/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en