Academic piracy: rebranding social criticism as critical thinking.

• Author: Martin, Robert E.
• Position: Report

A public function for the Liberal Arts? Is it the rise of an ideology of "critical thinking" that passes itself off as the core of the liberal activity, but, sadly, spends more of its time in being critical than being thoughtful?

--John Agresto, Do the Liberal Arts Serve Any Useful Public Function?

Everyone Loves Critical Thinking, but Social Criticism Not so Much

In both K-12 and higher education, parents, employers, and the general public consider critical thinking an essential education objective. (1) It is a common theme in K-12 education and college marketing literature. Unfortunately, advocates of the humanities rarely define what they mean by the term critical thinking. This is not an accident. A clear definition of the social criticism practiced in much of the liberal arts reveals that it rejects what most people mean by "critical thinking"--traditional Western critical thinking (Gross and Levitt 1994; Sokal 1996a; Sokal and Bricmont 1998; Boghossian 2000, 2006; Koertge 2000a; Hanson and Heath 2001). This rebranding allows social criticism advocates to sail, like pirates, under a false flag. By rebranding their social criticism as "critical thinking," they expect to draw the public support that would most likely not otherwise be there for social criticism. (2)

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, marveled that "[w]ith all the controversy over college curriculum, it is impressive to find faculty members agreeing almost unanimously that teaching students to think critically is the principal aim of undergraduate education" (2006, 109). Given the cantankerous nature of most faculty members, Bok is right to be surprised by such a consensus. A closer look reveals that "consensus" exists only as long as one does not define critical thinking. (3)

The most common defense for programs in the humanities and some social sciences despite low enrollment is that they teach "indispensable critical thinking skills" (Cohen 2009; Jaschik 2010; Nussbaum 2010). In a Newsweek article titled "The Death of Liberal Arts," Nancy Cook reports, "Among liberal-arts proponents, the concern is that students who specialize in specific careers will lack critical thinking skills and the ability to write, analyze, and synthesize information. While business education tends to prepare students to work well in teams or give presentations, it often falls short in teaching students to do in-depth research or to write critically outside of the traditional business communiques of memos or Power Points" (2010, emphasis added). Martha Nussbaum is more forceful in her book Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2010). She claims that the preservation of democracy is at stake if her version of critical thinking is not taught to students. (4)

If critical thinking will disappear when humanities programs disappear, then one must conclude that other academic disciplines are not teaching critical thinking; that is, economists, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, psychologists, and so on are not teaching critical thinking. That can only be true if the scientific method is not part of "critical thinking." Further, the proposition that "critical thinking will disappear without humanities programs" does not pass the market test because preferences are revealed by actions. Low enrollment and low public support for the humanities and some social sciences relative to the support for other majors reflects those preferences. Hence, the humanities must be worried about an alternative "critical thinking" model when they make this claim, a model other than traditional Western critical thinking.

The humanities and some social sciences are rebranding social criticism as Western critical thinking. In fact, they believe Western critical thinking is deeply flawed (Kaplan 1991; Portelli 1994; Fried 1995; Horn 2000; Kincheloe 2000; Cuypers 2004; Bailin and Siegel 2007; Mason 2007; Vandenberg 2009; Nussbaum 2010). Avoiding definitions, rebranding terms, and complex rhetoric are characteristic features of sophistry and essential postmodern strategies. (5)

What Is Critical Thinking?

Derek Bok's definition of critical thinking is "to ask pertinent questions, recognize and define problems, identify the arguments on all sides of an issue, search for and use relevant data, and arrive in the end at carefully reasoned judgments ... the indispensable means of making effective use of information and knowledge, whether for practical or purely speculative purposes" (2006, 109-10). This definition is consistent with the dictionary definition: "the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion" (Dictionary.com). (6)

Similarly, a textbook definition of critical thinking in psychology says that it is "reflective thinking involving the evaluation of evidence relevant to a claim so that a sound conclusion can be drawn from the evidence" (Bensley 1998, 5, emphasis in original). The common themes in these definitions are objectivity, the application of reason, and the evaluation of data, evidence, or information in solving a problem or reaching a conclusion. The definitions emphasize the need to be disciplined in the analytical and data steps.

The scientific method is a rationally derived hypothesis, claim, or argument that is subjected to an evidentiary test that is shown to be either consistent or not consistent with the hypothesis, claim, or argument. The scientific model assumes the issue addressed is not a supernatural claim that is incapable of being tested in this manner. Traditional Western critical thinking derives its emphasis on data, evidence, and information from the scientific method.

Western critical thinking has a long cultural history, but the modern scientific method evolved more recently. For our purposes, let modern Western critical thinking consist of the foregoing definitions plus the scientific method's emphasis on the responsible use of data when drawing conclusions. Specifically, this combination means that Western critical thinkers have strong analytical skills, professional objectivity, and training in the proper employment of supporting data.

The types of thinking that are not Western critical thinking include habitual thinking, which is "following past practices without considering new data"; prejudicial thinking, which is "gathering evidence to support a particular position without questioning the position itself"; and emotive thinking, which is "responding to the emotion of a message rather than the content" (Huitt 1998). Note that habitual thinking ignores new data, prejudicial thinking misuses data, and emotive thinking ignores data. A major component of the scientific method, in contrast, is robust data-acquisition and processing technologies. The scientific method is data driven.

Unfortunately, the scientific method is not perfect; it cannot settle what is right and wrong in moral terms, and individual researchers may falsify their results. The moral problem has not been resolved, and we may not be able to resolve it. However, the falsification problem is dealt with by the fact that the process requires reproduction of results by other researchers before a hypothesis becomes generally accepted, which tends to reveal fraudulent claims. Extensive replication also defines the limits within which a hypothesis can be considered correct.

Peer review and replication of results may also fail if a political agenda is introduced into the research. The "climategate scandal" (7) and postmodernism (8) are examples. In economics in the 1980s, political overtones drove the strong-form "efficient-markets hypothesis," (9) which may have fueled the dotcom bubble in the late 1990s and the housing bubble in 2007. Hence, the science paradigm can be undermined when systematic political bias is introduced into the review and reproduction process.

Humanities definitions of critical thinking are difficult to find, although one can construct a definition from texts (Kincheloe 2000; Nussbaum 2010). The texts, however, suggest that humanities critical thinking is really social criticism (10) and "social justice." Social criticism holds that cultures are based on power and on oppression of the Other by powerful elites who control politics and the means of production. The oppression is motivated by self-interest and bigotry based on class, race, gender, or sexual orientation. The elites hold "power" (11) because they are "privileged." Privileged positions lead to social injustice in the skewed distribution of wealth, opportunity, and privileges. Hence, the humanities critical thinker identifies oppression by the not-Other and acts to achieve social justice through redistribution. Humanities critical thinking means searching for bigotry and then taking political action to create social justice, which is defined as "justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society" (New Oxford American Dictionary) and thus follows the Marxist tradition. "Justice" per se is assumed to be reflected by extreme progressive values. In contrast, Western critical thinking admits it does not resolve moral issues. The hypothesis that individuals or groups may achieve a "privileged" status because they are productive or competent is unexamined; privilege is unearned "power."

The descriptions of critical thinking in the humanities are sometimes metaphysical. It is argued that defining critical thinking in terms of Western critical thinking leads to an aberrant form known as "noncritical critical thinking," and a model based on "other ways of knowing" leads to a superior "critical critical thinking" model (Kincheloe 2000). For example, Martha Nussbaum hypothesizes that a global conspiracy exists among capitalists to eliminate the humanities because they fear social criticism and social justice (2010, 23-25). One wonders...