VIII. At Our Best… ↑
67. We use critical thinking to tackle hard problems.
Modern society consists of an unfathomable intertwining of large and complex organizations, using a vast array of ever-advancing technologies, and now including over 8 billion humans.
Working and living together as we do in such a situation, we inevitably encounter hard problems.
These are generally problems that can be viewed from multiple perspectives, and decisions that often require difficult tradeoffs between competing values and conflicting perspectives.
In order to come up with the best possible solutions to such problems, we generally employ critical thinking, considering multiple perspectives and alternative answers before reaching a decision.
Words from Others on this Topic
There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible and wrong.
H. L. Mencken, 1920, from the book Prejudices: Second Series
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
I never hesitated to promote someone I didn’t like. The comfortable assistant, the nice guy you like to go on fishing trips with, is a great pitfall. Instead I looked for those sharp, scratchy, harsh, almost unpleasant guys who see and tell you about things as they really are. If you can get enough of them around you and have patience enough to hear them out, there is no limit to where you can go.
The great thing to remember is that the mind of man cannot be enlightened permanently by merely teaching him to reject some particular set of superstitions. There is an infinite supply of other superstitions always at hand; and the mind that desires such things, that is, the mind that has not trained itself to the hard discipline of reasonableness and honesty, will, as soon as its devils are cast out, proceed to fill itself with their relations.
Gilbert Murray, 1925, from the book Five Stages of Greek Religion
Mr. Campion was shocked. There are some people to whom muddled thinking and self-deception are the two most unforgivable crimes in the world.
Margery Allingham, 1938, from the novel The Fashion in Shrouds
Interviewer: What’s the most important meditation we can do now?
Dalai Lama: Critical thinking, followed by action. Discern what your world is. Know the plot, the scenario of this human drama. And then figure out where your talents might fit in to make a better world.
Dalai Lama, 2010, from the film I Am
The typical, and primary, root cause of [the Nirvana] AntiPattern is the misguided notion that conflict is bad, and therefore should be avoided at all costs. In reality, conflict in the form of tension … is a necessary part of any difficult task that involves intelligent people who care about their work.
Brown, William J., McCormick, Hays W., Thomas and Scott W., 1999, from the book Anti-Patterns and Patterns in Software Configuration Management
It would be a wonderful world were the Simple Truth Thesis true. Our political task simply would be to empower those who know the simple truth, and rebuke the fools who do not. But the Simple Truth Thesis is not true. In fact, it’s a fairytale—soothing, but ultimately unfit for a serious mind. For any Big Question, there are several defensible positions; it is precisely this feature that makes them big. Of course, to say that a position is defensible is not to say that it’s true. To oppose the Simple Truth Thesis is not to embrace relativism (which is itself a version of the Simple Truth view), nor is it to give up on the idea that there is truth; it is rather to give up on the view that the truth is always simple.
Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse, 04 Jan 2016, from the blog post “The Myth of Simple Truths”
Relevant Reference Models
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