Tinkering with things can be so fulfilling. Ever since I was little, I always appreciated how things can, somehow, magically function with each other to create something that could function in our lives. The freedom offered from taking things apart and putting things together didn’t only foster that kind of appreciation of, well, anything, but simultaneously helped me to develop how I approach something I don’t understand. Take, for example, politics. I simply don’t understand any of it. Politics — from what I attempted to glean — are confluences of opinions that often dive into eddying maelstroms that can suck out one’s moral or ethical principles. It’s one of the things in life that is both impossible to fully envelop oneself in without having constant mental crises and impossible to get away from in the sense that the decisions and deliberations of the powers-that-be affect everyone. Now I can cite on and on all the injustices caused by governments around the world within even the past week, but this isn’t a post about any of that. There is, believe it or not, a time and place for an apolitical discussion.
For someone who likes looking at opinions, you might ask, it’s a little counterintuitive that politics isn’t a main factor in your life. Well, politics, in essence, does not care about what the individual thinks. The origins of political life as we know it originate from the increase of emphasis on rhetorical skill, superseding what ought to be best for the people at large within the Senate hall of ancient Rome. Politics care less about the concerns and needs of individuals in a broad sense but more about the individual needs of the politician; i.e., looking good on paper, no matter if what you do in politics is “right” or “wrong” (depending on what side of the spectrum you position yourself). Even when democratic institutions tout the importance of “preserving democracy” at all costs — especially when it comes to criticising politics they don’t side themselves with — it isn’t true democracy as the pot sherd-throwing Greeks would picture it. The politician, while politicking, is more concerned with the needs of fulfilling their reputation or personal obligations rather than looking at what truly matters within their communities.
This post is also, however, not an attack on politicians, since it would be quite wrong to say that politicians cannot do any good in the world. If it weren’t for politicians bringing issues to the attention of their peers and the world, beneficial policies that extend beyond a select few wouldn’t be as important as they are now. The side of the “politician” I’m focusing on would be the de-emphasis of thinking about why you side with the policies you’re attracted to without questioning them or thinking they’re just the common-sense good morals all people ought to follow. It would also be wrong for me to say that all politicians believe this, since there are many devoted politicians wishing to look out for their communities or constituents without thinking highly of themselves. Rather, instead of accidentally generalizing things, we should ask a very important question, not only pertinent to politics but to what we as individuals believe: how do I know what I believe in is right or good?
The term “critical thinking” is more than just something to list on a resumé. It is an important skill, implying that people should consciously consider their actions and beliefs. While the term can extend to any belief that logically supports itself, true critical thinking is an individual practice; it is applied by the self, not groups. When you think critically, you voluntarily assess whether your actions are beneficial or harmful. Ultimately, critical thinking is an individual power, not a collective one, and the impact of your actions reflects the synthesis of your thoughts.
I think that the best way to understand how critical thinking and criticism in general function when it comes to the self is through an existentialist viewpoint. Of course, existentialism — being in the same milieu of popularity as stoicism — has many misunderstandings; often existentialism is conflated with nihilism concerning how they both ask “what’s the point of my existence.” But existentialism is a far more optimistic school of thought than nihilism, where it posits that our existence depends on the choices we make (what to existentialists is considered “objective” truth) and that the pursuit of a worthwhile and meaningful life (Todd May elaborates on the importance of these two terms) is more important than just thinking all the time, compared to nihilism’s surrender to the unknown. Both schools of philosophy rely on the relationship between what is known or unknown (dyadic or not) and, furthermore, the pursuit of knowing things. However, like I previously stated, knowledge isn’t this concrete, textbook thing to search entire lifetimes for, but it is rather finding fulfillment in our lives that we greatly appreciate. Depending on whether you lean more towards Sartre or Marcel, morality isn’t necessarily attached to our decisions, but our decisions are what dictate who we are. So understanding why we think the way we do reinforces the importance of our actions and how they affect broader society as well as our own lives.
Through the use of critical thinking, then, we can better our own existence by criticizing our beliefs that we might already think are the end-all, be-all, and absolute truth, where, in most circumstances, there is no readily definable absolute or universal truth. Nietzsche, in The Gay Science, warns the reader repeatedly about not falling into the trappings of absolute truth:
“Let us beware of positing generally and everywhere anything as elegant as the cyclical movements of our neighboring stars; even a glance into the Milky Way raises doubts whether there are not far coarser and more contradictory movements there…The total character of the world, however, is in all eternity chaos — in the sense not from a lack of necessity but a lack of order, arrangement, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever other names there are for our aesthetic anthropomorphisms.”
The Gay Science, III.109
Our understanding of why things are the way they are is not correlative to the actual state of things, and in order to obtain a fuller understanding of ourselves, we would need to abandon the thought that human intelligence or any other absolute system is reality.
Really understanding why our brains function the way they do is critical (no pun intended) to our comprehension of reality, and realizing through our cognition that humans are unable to truly grasp everything the universe has to offer — even through our feeble attempts at understanding what goes on around us — will make us better equipped to handle life’s uncertainties. However, an important distinction should be made: philosophy is not equivalent to or on the same level as self-help. Yes, at many times, philosophical thought is therapeutic, but treating philosophy as something that can only make us feel good is undermining the importance of truly thinking. It offers a deeper understanding of why humans function and how we understand our surroundings (like every other professional discipline), but more importantly, it delves into a deeper understanding of who we are.
Our meandering thoughts need somewhere to lay their head, and through taking our thoughts seriously — considering possible outcomes and consequences that could follow our decisions — our lives become much more worthwhile. ❧
