Ustaz Mark Bang
I’m sick to death of people telling me about how clever they are without demonstrating the activation of a single lonely brain cell. Don’t tell me to think for myself, show me some evidence you’ve ever had an original thought.
Don’t tell me to be critical, show me you are aware of the problems with your own ideas.
Don’t tell me to evaluate what I believe in, show me some evidence you’ve gone away and checked on your own sacred cows. If all you’ve got is empty platitudes you think everyone else needs to follow I’m not interested.
Thinkers think, doers do, gobs talk. I think for myself enough to ignore the gobs.
To be a free thinker is the best because lots of people who qualify themselves as free thinkers nowadays fall into the trap of conspiracy theories. When I get information, I try to evaluate how competent and trustworthy the source is and also how people with similar credentials react to it.
No, don’t accept everything but some things we pretty much have to accept, because they’re not important, or because if we accepted nothing, life would be impossible. “The bus is coming at 10? Prove it!” We can’t live that way. We need to set the dial at a reasonable level and trust some things.
As well, being ‘critical’ means considering things before accepting them, but it can be confused with cynicism or ego, “everything is a lie and a fraud,” or “look at me being wiser than all the gullible dupes”, and that might make you an unpleasant person to be around, as well as pushing you down an intellectual dead end.
In short, I think a critical mind is good if it leads you to humility: to realizing in good humor that you may sometimes be wrong too. It’s bad if it leads to arrogance. What I think most people that are for example antivaxx or anti masks do is that they seek for people and information that comfort them in their own opinions.
Sometimes they even twist the facts to make it fit the narrative they want to believe in. And this is aggravated with social media pushing towards you only info and posts of like-minded people, making it very easy to stay in your comfortable bubble.
Therefore, I not only use critical thinking about who, what, why, and when, but I also try to multiply the sources of info on the same matter by following different spaces and persons on social media that don’t always have the same political orientation, for example.
They might not highlight the same aspects of one event, but the combination of the two views on the matter gives me food for thought. Of course, I’m not talking about following political extremists. The point of view of a racist or Holocaust denier is worth something: it’s important to know that such people still exist, but I don’t think their theories are valid, and I don’t believe that hating people solves any issue in a society that wants to evolve.
And yet another is the emotional component. When proponents use things like popularity, visceral appeal, or any purely emotional justification, it should discredit them and weaken their case. It’s like a cheap shot. Akin to avoid the mention of facts or perspectives that weaken their argument. Decency demands a fair and just disclosure that strenuously avoids everything that risks polluting, distracting, or misrepresenting in any way the relevant information pertaining to a claim.
Once you begin to notice the “tells” that always accompany disingenuousness it becomes almost impossible not to notice how astonishingly stupid, incompetent, and mindlessly deceptive people who promulgate frauds always are. That’s why I find it so difficult not to refer to them as complete fucking morons.
Their stupidity is just too comically blatant. The single greatest hurdle in freethinking is the intrinsic latent human desire for public approval and conformity. It is always there, whispering in your ears that you need more people to agree with you, and if that is not the case, you are somehow wrong. It needs a very conscious effort to do away with that since we inherit all those genes of our ancestors that helped them survive in the wild because of their conformity in human tribes.
Throughout one’s life, there will be attempts made by the society at large to pin one down under one banner or another, to do neat classifications, and to create false dichotomies—which is epitomized by former US president Bush’s remark, “Either you are with us or the terrorists.” Freethinkers won’t usually find themselves under any of those banners and labels and therefore will be on the receiving end. A thick skin and a stoic temperament to see through a fog of emotions and opinions are indispensable. “Public Staunchest Ally”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.