Is Critical Thinking Welcome in Society? Should People Bother to Think Critically?

I teach critical thinking in college. This is held to be one of the most important skills students learn in a higher educational institution. Yet, lately, I wonder if critical thinking is welcome in society and if it is worth for anybody to bother to learn to think critically.

Critical thinking is encouraged as long as it does not collide with certain agendas. A good example is vaccination. No, this article is not meant to be a debate about whether vaccines work; instead, this is a debate about whether people are actually encouraged to think critically about this issue at all. Imagine if a person reads all the scientifically relevant material and, after the critical examination of the issue, decides not to be vaccinated. Is critical thinking welcome in this case? This person will most likely be labelled as misinformed, deviant or outright evil. Or, it could get even worse and the person may be accused of being a conspiracy theorist. Furthermore, the person may be pushed out of restaurants, forbidden to travel and even lose his or her job. Is it really worth thinking critically and making one’s own decision about this issue?

In the Medieval Time, there were people who tried critical thinking with very little luck. For example, some women tried natural healing remedies to heal the sick. These women were often labelled as witches and burnt at stake or drowned in rivers for trying to think in an independent way, looking at the issue of illness critically. Society often looks at this practice now as barbaric. Yet, one wonders if society has gotten seriously better at critical thinking. Certainly, one will not lose his or her life as a result of critical thinking in a democratic society, but is it really much better nowaday if one is labelled as misinformed, deviant or evil and if one is pushed out of restaurants, forbidden to travel and lose his or her livelihood as a result of independent, critical thinking?

The critics will say that independent, critical thinking is welcome, just not in certain cases–and the pandemic is one of these cases. Here, people are encouraged to suspend independent, critical thinking and just follow the govenment officials. They will decide for people what the right thing to do is. In this case, people just have to dutifully follow along and do as they are told. The majority has done so and I will not pronounce judgement on them. I am not here to debate the value of the vaccines. I am just pointing out the requirement for participation in a democratic society and whether or not it is encouraged–or even allowed–for people to think independently and critically about this matter. So, the majority has followed, the critics would argue, because the government officials should make the decision in such an important matter and people should not question the goverment and should not just go rogue doing what they think is best. So, critical thinking is normally welcome, just not in this case.

However, if critical thinking is welcome in society at any time except when the stakes are high, is critical thinking really worth having? Have society really progressed in this area since the Medieval Time? If people are encouraged to just follow along and do the right thing and if the goverment officials will determine what the right thing is, independent, critical thinking is not that valuable an asset after all. Maybe, people should not bother to think critically because it will cost them too much: being labelled, discriminated against and having an inability to sustain themselves. Maybe, critical thinking is not really worth it.

I will post this article now. However, I wonder if the internet thought-police will remove it because of its controversial nature, once again proving that critical thinking is not encouraged or even properly allowed in society.

Monika Mandoki