The Smug Baldy Speaks

I use one of my favorite quotes as the tag line for this blog, and there’s a marginally funny story behind it. My wife and I were visiting my in-laws, and we brought our 20-pound cat with us. During the visit, we were going to visit some other relatives, so we left the cat with my mother in-law and asked her to keep him out of the bathroom. We asked this since he acted a bit more like a dog, and would occasionally drink from the toilet. When we returned, we found the bathroom door open, the toilet seat up, and water on the floor – evidence that the cat had taken a brief trip of his own, apparently to do some commode snorkeling. My wife and I gently confronted my mother in-law, and asked why she hadn’t tried to keep the cat out of the bathroom as we had asked, or at least why she hadn’t put the toilet seat down.

A little flustered, she replied, “Well, it’s hard to think when you’re not used to it.”

She knew immediately that she had misspoken, and was ready to correct herself when my wife responded saying, “Be that as it may, now is a good time to start”, or something like that. I know we all laughed, and we tell this story occasionally at family get-togethers, since it’s kind of silly, and it’s a little slice of our shared family history.

But that quote stuck with me, because it is so very correct. It IS hard to think when you’re not used to it.

For those of you who don’t agree with this simple truth, here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong.

Consider our educational system. In all grades from K though 12, children are provided with the basic skills and information that society generally hopes will get them through the rest of their lives successfully. In all by the rarest cases, children in these grades are taught what to think. In the primary grades and through high school, we stress the content of young minds – and the general goal is to cram as many facts, dates, biographies, anecdotes, and procedures into them as possible before it’s too late.

This continues in some colleges, although the focus in higher education is more often than not different from the primary grades. In many undergraduate programs, young men and women are being taught how to think. The content within the mind is (or should be) a given, and we stress the quality of the student’s thinking, how well they can synthesize myriad disparate facts into a compelling argument, or how they can apply diverse theoretical concepts to real world problems. So – one of the goals of our education system is to teach critical thinking.

Now consider our language. English is pretty damn expressive and generative, and I find it fascinating that our colloquial language is totally consistent with the notion of thinking as something that’s teachable, or at least trainable. When anyone discusses your ability to think critically, the language we use stresses your thinking skills. We don’t talk about thinkability, or thinking talent, or thinking instincts. Nobody praises children saying, “Wow, you really can think!”. We have no linguistic equivalent – no word in the infinitely generative English language – that brings to mind the notion that thinking is related to innate ability. We have words and phrases like cunning, treacherous, mind like a steel trap, and really bright. These all speak to the thinkers skill, personality, and how they bring their thinking skills to bear.

Skills, my friends, are a far cry from talent, or innate ability. Certainly, and you can quote me on this, intelligence helps when it comes to thinking (I actually got to correctly use the word “duh” once when someone asked me if I thought I was smart, and I enjoyed the brief moment of their befuddlement at my reply). But intelligence alone isn’t enough. Have you ever heard of smart people doing – or saying – something stupid? Ever wonder how that’s possible? I have, and I think I know part of the answer: Thinking is a craft, one that requires diligent practice to master.

So, rather than go into all sorts of detail about how you go about practicing, I’ll instead leave you with a bit of advice. Don’t worry about how smart or dumb people say you are or how intelligent you believe you are. If I’m right (and I often am) and we can train ourselves to be better at thinking critically, then it should be possible for just about anyone to do it. For some of you, it may be enough to simply believe you can learn to think better. For others, you may have to just act like it’s possible, and start reading, and writing, and expending the mental effort needed to fit big ideas into what you believe is that puny head. However you choose to motivate yourself, just do it. Do it for yourself, and for the rest of us too. Because we all rely on the people who think they’re correct – and sometimes they’re not – and it takes someone with real skill to point out the errors in someone else’s thinking. If you’re not doing it for altruistic reasons, do it for selfish ones – critical thinking isn’t needed in the lower levels of of many professions, but it’s always in demand at the very top.