Critical Thinking

Part Four – Critical Thinking Pathways:

Research into the idea of malfunctions requires the insight of the arts well ahead of the imaginable political strategies around which there is so much negative sensitivity. Expanding “our reality” through others’ eyes and experience is often too esoteric and not goal-driven. Not to worry, there are lots of ways to work on community-building issues.

The visual literacy of our society, on the other hand, is expansive and growing. Because of this, a useful phrase in critical thinking is to say, ‘no one is as smart as all of us.’ Words are used to describe and share what we think we know with others, adding pictures to terms in structured settings will always enrich conversations about change.

We are experienced watchers, but everyone can be a better listener. Another useful phrase to use is “listen to be heard.” The habits of mind that manage ‘your thoughts,’ the sound of your voice, and the voice of others in conversation, represent three distinct wavelengths. Each one of them can block or overwhelm the other, building the skills for a disciplined separation of these frequencies produces a useful conversation.

In discussions of health, the word “critical” describes a “short term” condition. In economics, the phrase “short term” is a shareholder supremacy issue briefly discussed in discoveries (here). That led to lead to some ideas about malfunctions (here) in the second part. The third part had some fun on creative thinking. This one opens to a brief examination of critical thinking that speaks to the origins of the first three build trust and confidence in taking direct actions in the fourth part. These are exhibits of “crisis” under the heading of what I like to call, pick your own malfunction.

I take a brief “readiness” look at ‘thinking’ clearly when selecting a process. There are hundreds of them for sharpening up, so pick one, adapt as needed. Here is a quick exercise to run on yourself, with friends, colleagues, and co-conspirators in getting woke on a problem.

1. perspective
2. confidence
3. imagination
4. elasticity
5. inquisitiveness
6. integrity
7. intuition
8. open-mindedness
9. perseverance
10. reflection

There is little need to discuss this exercise as the point is to cause a moment of reflection. If you had a rapid similar word definition response to each one of them know three things 1) you have some or all the skills listed below and 2) if it took even a bit longer than ten seconds, you need more work on them when “critical” thinking is essential and 3) they are just words you can pick your own. Breeze through the following:

1. analyze
   1. break the whole into parts to discover correlation
   2. list the parts piece by piece
   3. sort the things into things, like with like
2. apply criteria
   1. judge using well-known rules
   2. apply professional and social standards
   3. compare and assess the means
3. differentiate
   1. recognize differences and similarities
   2. rank things together or separate in groups
   3. separate into categories or decern status
4. seek information
   1. evidence
   2. facts
   3. sources
5. logical reasoning
   1. inference stated
   2. conclusions made
   3. basis of evidence
6. predict (if that then this)
   1. envision events
   2. plan in the future perfect tense
   3. determine possible consequences
7. transform knowledge
   1. changing conditions
   2. converting function
   3. alter concepts

Pick Your Malfunction Caution

A brief, am I thinking critically outline like the one above is a fine thing between you and your own head. However, you will need a very different use of your thinking ability if you are contemplating a step directly into the change suggested by No. 6 – predict and No. 7 – transform.

Pathways to Justice

Not being curious enough is a problem. Inquisitiveness will take on the full exercise of your intuition on how to run some inference, demand integrity, and put contextual change in the imagination of ordinary people. Perhaps, the language used becomes more demanding or more visually inspiring to help people hear better to be heard well. Perhaps, direct actions and experiences help define and solve problems more directly because they can be given by the people who share them. In these cases, the process forces sharing experiences with reflection to lead to knowledge and getting better at new questions.  

Observers of this concept are encouraged to share the use of the Pathways Design. The one above is by Melanie Rayment. The design was published (here) and inspired the “never doubt” design on the idea of identifying malfunctions in parts two and three in this series. Be encouraged to share its use as part of the Creative Commons approach to social change globally, as has the Social Design Pathways network. Who knows, perhaps this too is a system change.

The chart captures the process perfectly. It is one of the easiest to read graphic illustrations of system change I have seen. It is the inspiration describing system change using malfunction identification in part two (here). Social Design Pathways offers its use, with attribution and the hope that changes and adaptation in initiatives are shared with them.

Closing Thoughts on Critical Thinking

Just after the election of POTUS45, the message about the need to produce change at the local law level was a loud one. The term system change is not often used, but ideas like “ranked-choice voting” could become law in the cities and expand to county state legislatures. The proponents can then argue for it to become part of a national election system as federal law. On the other hand, in localities throughout the nation, the conservative idea of “resentment” or that something’s being taken away leads strongly to a “ends justifies means” set of policies concerning regulations governing voting and voting districts.

The system change example given most often was the demand to make law governing marriage far more inclusive. The changes began locally but rapidly across the United States, concluding with a Supreme Court ruling. Marriage, women’s rights, voting, health, banking, consumer rights, and so on have important actionable components that go from local to national or global.

The progressive changes tend to get the most attention, less well known, and impact are changes law (or new law) that alters or removes environmental, financial, and business accountability and liability regulations. Not one effort toward a more civil society vs. a free one goes unchallenged in law or legislation. All of them require the leadership needed to demand improvements in civil discourse and faith in laws that protect people, not just values.

System Change Part Five: Pick Your Malfunction is next. As an added source of motivation, I offer the following twenty-six minutes as a parting thought for reflection.

The writer’s exhaustion as an agent of change is described in a post submitted in January 2019 (here). This post attempted to write about and seek writers on the future of democracy. The post reviews Ta Nehisi Coates, David Runciman, Stein Ringen, Philip Coggan, David Post in a search. It looks at one-hundred billionaires who may live in the altered state of blind anticipation of goodness and starts to list hot buttons and fades into exhaustion.

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