The Death of Critical Thinking

“You will recall how you were inspired to think critically and to question without fear,
to seek out radically different solutions and to voice them without reprisal,
to read widely and deeply, and to examine without end and grow intellectually . . .
What I ask is this: pass it on.”

- Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, June 11, 2009

“If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth,
I will forgive this city.”

- Jeremiah 5:1b

I heard the toll of a death knell the other day. It announced the death of Critical Thinking in our education system.

The funeral was solemn, but not tearful, because we still did not realize what we had lost. The man who stood up to deliver the eulogy said that, had he lived, Critical Thinking would have fathered a whole new generation of mature thinkers armed with the ability to engage intelligently with current issues, question given propositions, and respond intellectually to problems they encounter. This generation will then transform our nation. But this hope for a generation of thinkers has thus perished along with the death of Critical Thinking.            

“Alas,” the man concluded, “Critical Thinking was too good to be true. He was too good for our education system.”

I found out later that Critical Thinking was brutally murdered. He was attacked by a gang of Machiavellian politicians who only sought to retain power for themselves, while the indifferent and ignorant masses had left him out in the cold to die a slow and painful death.

In spite of the politicians’ efforts to portray him in the pink of health, I remember when Critical Thinking plunged into a steady decline. I was sitting in a Pendidikan Moral class then, holding before me a list of moral values that I had to memorize and regurgitate in all my exams regardless of whether or not I understood them; whether or not I agreed with them; whether or not they reflected my personal beliefs. I was told that, in order to excel academically, I had to accept unquestioningly all that my textbook said. There was only one correct answer: the one that echoed the politicians’ own words. And so, every “correct” answer that was generated struck a blow at Critical Thinking.

I also remember sitting in my Sejarah class on the day when we were supposed to learn about the May 13 Incident. I had heard about the racial riots from my mum who witnessed the riots herself but was too young to comprehend what was going on. I was anxious to discover the truth about what happened on that day so that I can decide for myself who was right and who was wrong. I wanted to see with my own two eyes what was written on that smeared page of our history book. But in class that day, my teacher merely told us that riots were bad, and therefore, we should take care not to approach these “isu-isu sensitif”—issues concerning race, religion, and special rights—lest we stir up yet another round of racial riots. She said those words “isu-isu sensitif” with a scandalized undertone as though they were taboos, and I could not help wondering if she herself knew what happened on 13 May 1969. The deathly silence that followed her comment delivered yet another blow to Critical Thinking.

But the final blow that effectively put an end to Critical Thinking was struck just a few weeks ago. Fearing that the Public Service Announcements on government-owned broadcast channels had not sufficiently demonized Bersih, the politicians deemed it necessary to feature the picture of a Bersih rally in an SPM trial exam, requiring students to conclude, at least on paper, that Bersih corrupted the morals of the nation. Their efforts paid off, because a friend* of mine told me that, in his Sejarah class, the students and the teacher agreed that Bersih was “an immature demonstration that [brought] humiliation to the country.” However, when he asked how was Bersih immature, neither the students nor the teacher managed to justify their conclusion.

Critical Thinking thus slipped stealthily into non-existence. The shrewd politicians orchestrated his death, but the ignorant masses buried his dead body. With the death of Critical Thinking, there is nothing left to redeem our education system from its sorry state. And so, our education system continues churning out generation after generation of robots that do not have the ability to think for themselves.

At the end of the funeral when everyone walked up to the coffin to pay their final respect to Critical Thinking, I turned around and walked out, because I could not bear the sight of a stillborn.

*Special thanks to Calvin Choong, whose brave act of defending the cause of Bersih in his Sejarah class inspired this post.