As I sit here on vacation, scratching bug bites and watching my mother's dog bounce around around the living room like a vegan at Burning Man a few things occur to me. One: the nap earlier must have done wonders for the dog. Two: it is rare that we think about our thinking. Lastly, without thinking about our thinking how can we improve our thinking?
I can't do much for the dog but my thinking is mine to control. Thinking is something we often do without reflection. Our day to day lives are filled with thoughts about the grocery, thoughts about work, thoughts about school, thoughts about family, thoughts about a million tiny things that make up our lives. I would argue that we spend more time thinking about things that control us rather than the things we can control. I don't know about you Wayward Internet Traveler but I think this is backwards. I am thinking I would rather think about the things inside my sphere of influence (and possibly expanding it) as opposed to spending my grey matter on things that control me. I want to trade more of the latter and gain more of the former. This degree is one step in that path. However, learning how to think in a critical manner will allow a person to better determine what the "truth" of a matter is telling you. Purely linear thinking leads to a world of black and white Many people find this comforting, and while it is anecdotal I find many veterans find this VERY comforting. However, once you spend some time thinking about our thinking the realization that the world is more shades of grey should start to sink in.
Mediocre novels aside, seeing shades of grey and determining a course of action from them is at the crux of leadership. Improving one's critical thinking competencies should increase the shades of grey one sees as well as provide the tools to discern a correct course of action. It is important that one internalize techniques for critical thinking such as action research in order to allow critical thinking to become organic. Simply seeing a concept as a concept isn't critical thinking though it is a start. Many people tend to view concepts as single issue concepts.
For example, poverty in the United States is such that 22% if all US children live below the poverty level. Without delving into the politics of the situation, examine the concept of poverty on its own. Then, from that concept try to think of what poverty means as it relates to education. Now gun violence. Now income inequality. Now Obesity. Poverty on its own just means that people live below a certain income level but the reality is so much more than that. Poorer people tend to have less educational opportunities. Many colleges have fees that prevent poor students from attending even if they are accepted. This means that the ability to move into different social strata is increasingly difficult. Moving from that, linking poverty to gun crime is fairly easy to do, however not all gun crime is committed by impoverished people. Mass shooters tend to come from middle-class white families.
Income inequality in the US has reached staggering proportions. This inequality has led to a downward spiral of wages, couple this a weakening of labor rights in the US and you are left with even fewer avenues for escaping poverty. For many professionals a sick day from work is paid. However, for the vast numbers of workers sick days are unpaid days. Add lost wages in with doctor visits and medication and many people simply cannot afford the doctor and missed work and still pay rent and utilities. This is just one example, poor public transportation systems, costly vehicle maintenance, and a multitude of other expenses that you and I may readily be able to handle and the poverty trap is almost impossible to leave. These people are still going to work and contributing to the GDP while their quality of life declines.
What does poverty have to do with obesity? SNAP benefits cannot be used at McDonald's so why the issue? Are they buying mounds of food with tax payer dollars? No...they aren't. SNAP benefits are about $4 dollars a meal. This is not a great deal of money. On such meager means poverty-stricken people are buying calorie-dense foods with not much nutritional value because they are cheaper than organic and natural foods. When you have to stretch every cent you go for quantity not quality. This means the body is hungry again sooner than if the person had eaten a smaller meal with greater nutritional value. As such people in poverty tend to gain weight for no other reason than they can't afford the better quality foods.
Poverty affects society on a multitude of levels. Obesity is just one level. Obesity drives up medical costs. Medical costs drive up tax burdens for John Q. Public and causes bankruptcy for the ill. Bankruptcy leads to poor credit which means no home loan and possible not receiving a better job (some employers check credit scores). All of this means that even more doors are shut for those trying to move up in life.
The point of this isn't to editorialize about poverty but rather to illustrate that poverty as a concept isn't as simple as it appears and that most all concepts can be approached this way. What does that have to do with critical thinking and ways that I can improve my thinking? Consider this; by examining a concept such as poverty from a critical thinking standpoint I have attempted to draw interlocking pieces of a larger puzzle. This is how critical thinking begins. Examining concepts as meta-concepts is how I plan on improving these skills. It is from there that I can begin to view ALL concepts as pieces of a larger puzzle. A leader that wishes to examine and reduce poverty needs to address all the components of the issue rather than focus on just one.
No comments:
Post a Comment