The Misuses of "Criticism"

This is taken from an articled titled Let’s stop trying to teach students critical thinking:

The misuse of the idea of “criticism” first became clear to me when I gave a talk about critical thinking to a large group of first-year students. One student said that the lecturers she most disliked were the ones who banged on about the importance of being critical. She longed for one of them to assert or say something, so she could learn from them and perhaps challenge what they say.

The idea that critical thinking is a skill is the first of three popular, but false views that all do disservice to the idea of being critical. They also allow many teachers to believe they are critical thinkers when they are the opposite:

1. “Critical thinking” is a skill. No it is not. At best this view reduces criticism to second-rate or elementary instruction in informal and some formal logic. It is usually second-rate logic and poor philosophy offered in bite-sized nuggets. Seen as a skill, critical thinking can also mean subjection to the conformism of an ideological yoke. If a feminist or Marxist teacher demands a certain perspective be adopted this may seem like it is “criticism” or acquiring a “critical perspective”, but it is actually a training in feminism or Marxism which could be done through tick box techniques. It almost acquires the character of a mental drill.


2. “Critical thinking” means indoctrination. When teachers talk about the need to be “critical” they often mean instead that students must “conform”. It is often actually teaching students to be “critical” of their unacceptable ideas and adopt the right ones. Having to support multiculturalism and diversity are the most common of the “correct ideas” that everyone has to adopt. Professional programmes in education, nursing, social work and others often promote this sort of “criticism”. It used to be called “indoctrination”.


3. “Critical theories” are “uncritical theories”. When some theory has the prefix “critical” it requires the uncritical acceptance of a certain political perspective. Critical theory, critical race theory, critical race philosophy, critical realism, critical reflective practice all explicitly have political aims.

Full article here: http://theconversation.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-students-critical-thinking-30321

As an institution which seeks to educate its members, I thought this was relevant. In the forums here we often see people asserting a particular strong view, and equally we see others criticising their inflexibility or uncritical approach. But in the context of an apprenticeship in which a teaching master is attempting to foster learning and thinking skills in their Apprentice, perhaps this is even more relevant.

I found this really interesting and certainly something I'll bear in mind myself should I become a teaching master. It is right and proper to have an opinion about things, rather than mistakenly attempting to cultivate every single perspective in the hope that this will allow us to see something inside out. However it's equally important to be able to recognise where our opinion may be wrong, and to take other perspectives seriously and potentially transformative.

Part of moving forward is picking a direction, even if it's the wrong one.

Thoughts, feelings, opinions?

Another article

No, You Are Not Entitled To Your Opinion

Every year, I try to do at least two things with my students at least once. First, I make a point of addressing them as “philosophers” – a bit cheesy, but hopefully it encourages active learning.

Secondly, I say something like this: “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion.’ Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it’s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.”

A bit harsh? Perhaps, but philosophy teachers owe it to our students to teach them how to construct and defend an argument – and to recognize when a belief has become indefensible.

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.
​The Conversation

Firstly, what’s an opinion?

Plato distinguished between opinion or common belief (doxa) and certain knowledge, and that’s still a workable distinction today: unlike “1+1=2” or “there are no square circles,” an opinion has a degree of subjectivity and uncertainty to it. But “opinion” ranges from tastes or preferences, through views about questions that concern most people such as prudence or politics, to views grounded in technical expertise, such as legal or scientific opinions.

You can’t really argue about the first kind of opinion. I’d be silly to insist that you’re wrong to think strawberry ice cream is better than chocolate. The problem is that sometimes we implicitly seem to take opinions of the second and even the third sort to be unarguable in the way questions of taste are. Perhaps that’s one reason (no doubt there are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think they’re entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views “respected.”

Meryl Dorey is the leader of the Australian Vaccination Network, which despite the name is vehemently anti-vaccine. Ms. Dorey has no medical qualifications, but argues that if Bob Brown is allowed to comment on nuclear power despite not being a scientist, she should be allowed to comment on vaccines. But no-one assumes Dr. Brown is an authority on the physics of nuclear fission; his job is to comment on the policy responses to the science, not the science itself.

So what does it mean to be “entitled” to an opinion?

If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial. No one can stop you saying that vaccines cause autism, no matter how many times that claim has been disproven.

But if ‘entitled to an opinion’ means ‘entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth’ then it’s pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred.

On Monday, the ABC’s Mediawatch program took WIN-TV Wollongong to task for running a story on a measles outbreak which included comment from – you guessed it – Meryl Dorey. In a response to a viewer complaint, WIN said that the story was “accurate, fair and balanced and presented the views of the medical practitioners and of the choice groups.” But this implies an equal right to be heard on a matter in which only one of the two parties has the relevant expertise. Again, if this was about policy responses to science, this would be reasonable. But the so-called “debate” here is about the science itself, and the “choice groups” simply don’t have a claim on air time if that’s where the disagreement is supposed to lie.

Mediawatch host Jonathan Holmes was considerably more blunt: “there’s evidence, and there’s bulldust,” and it’s no part of a reporter’s job to give bulldust equal time with serious expertise.

The response from anti-vaccination voices was predictable. On the Mediawatch site, Ms. Dorey accused the ABC of “openly calling for censorship of a scientific debate.” This response confuses not having your views taken seriously with not being allowed to hold or express those views at all – or to borrow a phrase from Andrew Brown, it “confuses losing an argument with losing the right to argue.” Again, two senses of “entitlement” to an opinion are being conflated here.

So next time you hear someone declare they’re entitled to their opinion, ask them why they think that. Chances are, if nothing else, you’ll end up having a more enjoyable conversation that way.

This article originally appeared in The Conversation and has been republished with permission. Read the original here.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/brain/no-youre-not-entitled-your-opinion#dOMi0FLqdtoKPibR.99

I enjoyed reading that snippet of the article thanks Tzb,

It reminds me of something I read recently although to be honest I cannot remember where or in which book or article I found it in. Someone else wrote something very similar except not about 'critical thinking' but rather something about how if something is scientific-proven it's almost accepted blindly as fact. This strongly resonates with how 'critical thinking' now can be thought as almost mental restriction or as the article says- indoctrination.

I haven't much to write really here but as to your question of how we feel- I feel the idea expressed by the article about critical thinking is 'right', and that it's usually good to at least be aware (or wary) of popular or mainstream words or thinking.

Thankyou for your thoughts,

I'm not sure if that article is more about indoctrination of someone else's "authoritative view" than "critical thinking". I've always thought critical thinking had more to do with learning to think for one's self in a way that entails the most accurate reasoning and evidence, through both an equally subjective and objective accord.

I think it might have been helpful nab a quote that explains what critical and criticism is:

Criticism, according to Victorian cultural critic Matthew Arnold, is a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world. We should all be as “bound” by that definition as he was. We need only to teach the best that is known and thought and “criticism” will take care of itself.

To be critical is not to be skeptical or cynical, but rather to have an attitude of pursuing the best ideas available.

I think it's easy to see how one might easily start off in the pursuit of best ideas and, upon finding one that is agreeable at the time (say Marxism) and feel as though it is the best idea available. As one begins to be ideologically entrenched in the rhetoric of a Marxist it never occurs to them to ask, is this all there is? Is there nothing better than Marxism?

I am definitely one of those people who takes what I believe and will adamantly defend it as the most examined, critically thought out worldview even though it would only take someone of radically different life experiences to prove me wrong. I get ideologically gridlocked and that in part makes every criticism of my ideology feel like a personal attack as well as an attack on my intellectual prowess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

Someone else wrote something very similar except not about 'critical thinking' but rather something about how if something is scientific-proven it's almost accepted blindly as fact. This strongly resonates with how 'critical thinking' now can be thought as almost mental restriction or as the article says- indoctrinatio

Accepting something blindly, is not the fault of science, religion, or any other source. Such naivete and gullibility has to do with the person receiving the information.

Critical thinking is not a mental restriction, because if one were applying it to any source information heard they would be informed on whether or not they disagree The only "restrictions" in place would be application of the method, but this would be the same with any method applied to understand anything around you, science based or not.

As buddhists for example, would be restricted to Buddhism, etc, as a mental process.

Critical thinking however, is applied by skeptics, not those seeking to blindly agree.

I think there is a misapplication, and misunderstanding of the term critical thinking here.

I feel the article doesn't denounce actual critical thinking but what some people believe to be critical thinking. It makes perfect sense in a way, we've all seen it... People calling others ignorant or somehow not right in the head for the crime of thinking "inappropriate" things...


I just think whatever I like and if people like or dislike it, well, good for them either way. Our ability to have and share thoughts is quite amazing.

"...don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skilful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter and remain in them." - The Buddha

My experience of college-level critical thinking textbooks is that they over emphasize logical analysis, scientific reasoning and fallacious arguments. In addition to these skills, critical thinking courses should emphasize thinking about thinking, that is, philosophy and hermeneutics (the philosophical discipline that investigates how we understand and explores the varieties of interpretation). Teaching a logic course is something I have consistently resisted, but I did for the first time last semester agree to teach a 'critical thinking' course. And in a few weeks, I will start another. Indeed, each of my classes teaches critical thinking; it is simply the case that this class details some of the best practices before getting into the application. The first four weeks of the course involve reading a variety of pamphlets from Critical Thinking dot org. The remainder of the semester we work through Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

Below is from the web site of the Foundation for Critical Thinking

Why the Analysis of Thinking Is Important

Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. If you want to think well, you must understand at least the rudiments of thought, the most basic structures out of which all thinking is made. You must learn how to take thinking apart.

All Thinking Is Defined by the Eight Elements That Make It Up

Eight basic structures are present in all thinking: Whenever we think, we think for a purpose within a point of view based on assumptions leading to implications and consequences. We use concepts, ideas and theories to interpret data, facts, and experiences in order to answer questions, solve problems, and resolve issues.

Thinking, then:

•generates purposes
•raises questions
•uses information
•utilizes concepts
•makes inferences
•makes assumptions
•generates implications
•embodies a point of view

Each of these structures has implications for the others. If you change your purpose or agenda, you change your questions and problems. If you change your questions and problems, you are forced to seek new information and data. If you collect new information and data…"

(Source: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/elements-and-standards-learning-tool/783)