Lack of Critical Thinking Could Be Fatal

 Lack of Critical Thinking Could Be Fatal

M. Bakri Musa

 

Excerpt from my Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

“If you are blind, describing an elephant is easy. You can call it, like the six blind men in the fable, a huge tree trunk; or perhaps a giant fan; or an enormous rope, and so on. But having eyes, far from making such descriptions easy, actually complicates them.”

 

Chinua Achebe “The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen” in The Education of a British-Protected Child

 

It is amazing how often our decisions are made through faulty analysis or without much thought. In many instances those may be excusable for if they were to be wrong, the consequences would be self-limiting or carry a low cost. Deciding which restaurant to patronize falls into this category. Likewise if we were to fall for the snake oil salesman’s slick pitch, we would be out only a few ringgit, unless his products were to be laced with arsenic or some such dangerous potions.

 

         However, when there is a raging Covid-19 pandemic or a deadly race riot, then those hitherto simple decisions could have life or death consequences. The first surge of Covid-19 in Malaysia was triggered by the mass Tablighi Jamaat gathering in a mosque at Kuala Lumpur in late February 2020.

 

         During the May 1969 riot, an otherwise inconsequential decision to go for an afternoon movie downtown cost a school girl her best friend, and for herself, endless nightmares both literal and figurative, as Hanna Alkaf related in her riveting autobiographical novel, The Weight of Our Sky.

 

         One cannot but be circumspect in making what may seem to be even the simplest and seemingly inconsequential decision. The decision may be routine as you have done it so often in the past, but the circumstance may have changed without your being aware of it, as on that fateful day in May 1969 for those innocent schoolgirls in that novel.

 

         Yet during the Covid-19 pandemic there were those who claimed that we should fear God more than this sub-microscopic virus. Or that Jesus would protect us more effectively than vaccines or face masks. Millions fell for those soothing words, from pious Muslims in Malaysia listening to their imams to evangelical White Christians in Midwest America their pastors. More than a few paid with their lives for their lack of critical thinking in assessing the veracity as well as wisdom of their faith leaders’ advice.

 

         This reluctance to think critically is not an affliction peculiar only to the poor, uninformed, uneducated, or those in the Third World. Being smart is no assurance that you would not be taken in. You may be so in one area but that does not necessarily transfer to another. Or you may be in an entirely new environment where your previous assumptions would be inoperative. Tourists are easy prey precisely because of this lack of awareness of their new environment or assuming that their old assumptions still apply.

 

         The otherwise wise and prudent could still fall victim. Their implicit assumption–that they could trust their skills and smartness, or the integrity of those they were dealing with based on nothing more than that nebulous entity as reputation, expertise, or familiarity–is often misplaced.

 

         In 2008 Bernie Madoff, a prominent Wall Street money manager, was arrested for running what later was proven to be but an elaborate Ponzi scheme. His clients were all smart and otherwise successful. He knew that they would ask tough questions. To discourage that, he gained their confidence the old-fashioned way. He “guaranteed” his early investors a steady stream of great returns. Except that they were not true returns, rather cash from new investors lured by the promise of generous profits. He blunted their critical faculties with cash, the old tried and true way.

 

         We are familiar with magic shows, or in Malay, silap mata. Literally, “a slip of the eye.” The magician would distract you, and in that split second slip out the pigeon from underneath his long baggy sleeve. The audience would gasp!

 

         Silap mata is a truer (anatomically) and much more evocative description of the trick than the English “sleight of hand.” The trick is with the eye, not hand.

 

         When we accept an assertion without exercising our critical faculties, we are allowing ourselves to be given a silap minda, trick on our mind, akin to the magician’s sleight of hand or the Malay silap mata, except that it is our mind and not eyes being played on.

 

         In a magic show or silap mata, our eyes are momentarily diverted; in silap minda we are distracted by what psychologists call information pollution, a glut of erroneous and misleading data, to lull us into thinking that we are making the right decision based on “facts.” Critical thinking guides us from blindly following others, as Madoff’s later clients did his earlier ones.

 

         Madoff’s later clients bring to mind the fable of the two donkeys; one loaded with bags of salt, the other, cotton. As they were crossing a creek, the salt-carrying beast slipped. As it got up, the load felt lighter as some of the salt had leached out. That prompted the donkey to continue slipping, for with every ‘slip’ its load became lighter. That in turn led the donkey carrying the cotton to do likewise, only to find that its load much heavier with every fall. The cotton had absorbed the water.

 

         Beware! Things may seem to be just similar enough to deceive you, and you would end with the very opposite of what you had expected or desired.

 

Next Excerpt:  The Big Lie of Malay Special Privileges