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THINKING IS THE PROCESS using which we try to figure out how things—both physical and social—work. The process of thinking is successful when we accurately figure out how things work; it is unsuccessful when our understanding of the way things work is not actually how they work. Unfortunately, most people are bad thinkers: Most of the time, their thinking results in wrong understandings of the way things work.
Why, you may ask, are they bad thinkers? Well, there are several reasons. Firstly, to figure out how things work, to connect the dots, you need to already know things (these are sometimes called premises). If these premises are themselves false, then the results of a process of thinking will be wrong. For instance, if I ‘know’ and use the premise that gravity pulls upwards when trying to figure out where the ball in my hand will travel when I let go of it, my understanding will soon be proven wrong. Bad thinkers use false premises.
Secondly, even if your premises are broadly and generally true, you must verify if they hold true in the context of the particular problem you are trying to figure out. For instance, gravity may pull downwards but if I were about to let go of a ball in outer space, a zero gravity environment, I must obviously factor this in, otherwise once again I will soon be proven wrong. Bad thinkers do not verify if their premises hold true in the context of the particular problem they are trying to figure out.
Finally, things work the way they work regardless of the way you want them to work. Moreover, this is true regardless of how badly you want or need them to work a particular way. For instance, if I desperately want the ball to travel horizontally when I let go of it, and somehow convince myself to think that it will—it simply will not. Bad thinkers tend to engage in wishful thinking; their understandings are not reflections of the way things actually work but are instead projections of the way they want things to work.
Particularly in the context of the Third World, the first and third causes are the primary contributors to bad thinking. Utterly false premises passed down through the ages stubbornly abound whilst emotions and bias sit in the driver’s seat of the thought process, and both, together, lead thinking far astray.
Of course, developing the ability to both verify your premises and apply them appropriately, along with the strength to allow your mind to be impartially guided by them to the right conclusions takes much practice. The following guidelines, tips, techniques and case studies are intended to help you get started along the path of being a good thinker.
A fact is something that is true completely independent of the thinking of the thinker. That is, whether a thinker knows it or not, whether a thinker wants it to be true or not, whether a thinker denies it or not—a fact exists and works in its particular way. For instance, whether or not man discovered that the Earth revolves around the sun, whether or not on being informed of this some wanted it to be false and denied it, matters not one bit to the fact that the Earth does revolve around the sun.
We use our five senses and our reasoning to figure out what the facts are. Now, granted, our five senses and our reasoning even when aided by our ever-advancing technology are not perfect. Therefore it follows that we do not know all the facts and that some of what we think are facts, are not. Yet, the facts we do have—those which are the product of the expert work of authoritative sources (see definition below)—are the most accurate picture of the facts we have at hand, and we must use them if we are to be good thinkers.
Now that you have cleaned your slate and gathered your facts from authoritative sources, it is time to join the dots to come up with what is known as a theory. Do not be scared of this word! It does not belong exclusively to the world of complicated textbooks and boring classroom settings. It is merely your well-reasoned understanding of how something—anything—works. Your subject can be an everyday one. For instance, you may want to figure out why a particular shot or move you keep trying on the playground does not work.
First off, you clean your slate—you forget about everything everyone has ever told you about the sport you are playing and any particular direction or conclusion your emotions want your thinking to go in or end up at.
Secondly, you read and learn as much as possible from authoritative sources about the physics and biomechanics involved in your particular sport.
Now, beginning with your clean slate and using the facts that you have gathered, you reason your way to a theory using the following techniques and guidelines:
As we have learned, a theory is an explanation of how something works. A good theory, of course, is an accurate explanation of how something works. While knowing is in itself gratifying, the power of a good theory is that it can greatly improve our chances of achieving our goals. How does a good theory do this? Well, if you look back at the steps leading up to this one, the answer should become obvious to you. Before we learnt to use these steps—when we were bad thinkers—we were basing our actions not on the way the world actually works (truths) but instead, broadly speaking, on lies. We were in the position of a person who readies herself to step off a cliff (take action) believing that gravity pulls upwards (a lie or a falsehood). But now, we know better. So now, we can formulate actions which, at the very least, are more likely to get us what we want—in other words, actions which greatly improve our chances of achieving our goals. Let us then, use the theories we have come up with and learn.
Discrimination occurs where a person or group is treated in a disadvantageous manner based on a negative judgement of an inborn characteristic, their background, a life choice or a particular behaviour of theirs. Forms of discrimination that are both widely acceptable and widely practised across the Third World are discrimination based on race, caste, gender and sexual orientation.
If you use the reasoning skills that you have learnt and should be practising, a few truths will become obvious. Focusing on the concept of discrimination and, using Step 1, starting with a clean slate—not presuming discrimination to be either inherently good or bad—you will realise two things. Firstly that for discrimination to have even a chance of being justified the negative judgement must be itself justified. Which means that the person or group should actually and undeniably possess the attribute. And secondly that in some real and material way the attribute’s existence can or does do harm either to the person or group in question or, particularly, to others. To illustrate these two essentials, picture a manager interviewing candidates to fill a vacant position that requires a high level of mathematical ability. A straight-haired candidate walks in, and the manager immediately dismisses him because the manager believes that straight-haired people have poor mathematical ability. Here the negative judgement is not justified because there is no scientific link whatsoever between the straightness of a person’s hair and their mathematical ability. The candidate (person) did not actually and undeniably possess the attribute (low mathematical ability) thus the first essential is not satisfied. Next, a purple haired candidate walks in. Again the manager immediately dismisses him. This time simply because he believes that sporting purple hair is just wrong. Here it is not the existence of the attribute (purple hair) that is in question but whether its existence in any real or material way causes loss or harm to anyone. Since without inventing very specific circumstances it does not, here the second essential is not satisfied. Hence in both these scenarios there is no right thinking justification to practise discrimination.
Now let us think about the four types of discrimination—race, caste, gender and sexual orientation—so acceptable and commonplace in the Third World. Let’s start with Step 1, and clean our slate of all of the following regarding race, caste, gender and sexual orientation (given under each category are some beliefs that I used to hold before cleaning my slate).
Any traditional beliefs or superstitions that you may hold.
Common beliefs that currently float around society.
Any particular beliefs that your parents or family have taught you.
Any beliefs that you have improperly formed without following the proper thinking process.
Any particular direction or conclusion that your emotions would like your thinking process to head toward or end up at.
Now follow Step 2, and gather all the facts. Remember to separate facts from opinions, and use only authoritative sources—the more of these sources, the better. Here are just some of the facts that I gathered from authoritative sources:
The human gene pool is remarkably unified.
Caste is a historical classification.
The status and perception of women is due to a male dominated past.
Strong scientific evidence indicates that homosexuality is genetic and not a choice.
Right, now that you have laid the foundation by cleaning your slate and gathering the relevant facts, you are ready to start Step 3—you are ready to join the dots. First off, start an internal dialogue. Here is my internal dialogue in brief:
ON RACE: Ok, this is what I know: The human gene pool is remarkably unified and the genetic variation within races is often greater than between races. Race is primarily a social construct. If this is so, then it follows that the differences, beyond a few visible characteristics, such as inferior intelligence that I assumed to correlate with race—in fact, do not. So then, it may very well be that the variations I assumed to be on account of race, are in fact individual variations. I was making the classic mistake of the bad thinker—I was mistaking association for causation. It is not that race causes the characteristics that I previously observed, it is that these characteristics can be associated with race.
ON CASTE: Given that it is true that caste is a historical classification. And given that the modern economic and social order is fundamentally different from the one within which the caste system evolved. Then it follows that the caste system is an obsolete classification. In the context of the country I grew up in, those particular characteristics and circumstances that seem to correlate with caste, may correlate because the historical classification that is the caste system has been imposed on people to the economic and social disadvantage of lower castes—not because of any inherent differences between peoples of the various castes.
ON GENDER: Given that it is true that men dominated women in a past where physical strength was more important than mental ability. Given that it is false that women’s brains are only suited to ‘nurturing’ roles and professions. And given that it is true that in the modern world mental ability is more important than physical strength. So then, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the prevailing negative judgements of women’s abilities may stem, in part at least, from the resentment and resistance of men who are faced with the prospect of losing their dominance.
ON HOMOSEXUALITY: What I’m trying to figure out is this: Considering that homosexuals are so hated and commonly abused, why would anyone choose to be a homosexual? Based on this and the scientific findings that a person is born gay, a significant proportion of any human population is gay and that this has been the case throughout history, I conclude that homosexuality is not a choice. If it is not, then, at the very least, it is not fair to blame homosexuals for making a problematic choice.
Notice how in the course of my reasoning I was sure to distinguish between causation and association and how I was sure to check the applicability of the facts I gathered to the context of my problem. Remember also to use aids to help you along in your reasoning. To assist me in the next part of the problem, I used a pen and a large sheet of paper to draw a mind-map.
This is a case study on discrimination, so while over the last few pages we have done some good thinking on race, caste, gender and homosexuality, we must return to the question of whether it is justified to discriminate based on these four attributes. To answer this question, for each of these four attributes we must consult the two essentials of justified discrimination. It will be useful if you flip back a few pages and re-read the paragraphs on these two essentials.
Firstly, let’s consider race. On applying the first essential, can it be said that a particular race (group) is actually and undeniably genetically inferior to other races? No, because the human gene pool is remarkably unified and the variation within a race is often greater than the variation between races. Given that the first essential is not satisfied, we need not go on to the second essential. We can conclude that it is not justified to treat people of a so-called ‘race’ in a disadvantageous manner—it is not justified to discriminate based on race.
Secondly, let’s consider caste. On applying the first essential, can it be said that a particular caste is actually and undeniably inherently inferior to another caste? No, the caste system is merely an obsolete historical classification—it has no usefulness to the modern economic and social order. Given that the first essential is not satisfied, we need not go on to the second essential. We can conclude that it is not justified to treat people of ‘lower’ castes in a disadvantageous manner—it is not justified to discriminate based on caste.
Thirdly, let’s consider gender. On applying the first essential, can it be said that women are actually and undeniably inherently inferior to men in mental ability? No, there is no scientific evidence to support this. The historical dominance of men was due to the greater importance of physical