The Curse of the Critical Analyst

Intellectual Subtleties Giving Perceived Authority to Stalwarts

Information:

A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking
The Foundation for Critical Thinking
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/a-brief-history-of-the-idea-of-critical-thinking/408
Sub-Reference:

The intellectual roots of critical thinking are as ancient as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates 2,500 years ago who discovered by a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or self-contradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty rhetoric.

Information:

Karl Popper
Author: Multiple Wikipedia Contributors
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
Sub-Reference:

Sir Karl Raimund Popper is generally regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest philosophers of science.

Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method, in favour of empirical falsification: A theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments. Popper is also known for his opposition to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy.

Popper coined the term "critical rationalism" to describe his philosophy. Concerning the method of science, the term indicates his rejection of classical empiricism, and the classical observationalist-inductivist account of science that had grown out of it.

Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive; it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false.

Information:

The Relativity of Wrong
By Isaac Asimov
http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm
Sub-Reference:

"John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.

Information:

Six Thinking Hats
de Bono Thinking Systems
http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm
Sub-Reference:

The Six Thinking Hats (or modes)
The White Hat - calls for information known or needed.
The Red Hat - signifies feelings, hunches and intuition.
The Black Hat - is judgment, the devil's advocate or why something may not work.
The Yellow Hat - symbolizes brightness and optimism.
The Green Hat - focuses on creativity: the possibilities, alternatives and new ideas.
The Blue Hat - is used to manage the thinking process.\

Defining the Problem

A critical analysis of a subject or an idea is often used as a counter to hopeful thinking, a bias towards optimism where problems are ignored, as a counter to misinformation and as a counter to belief based thinking and magical thinking. In this context, a critical analysis can level one's view back towards being more objective. However, what is happening here is that we are attempting to balance the bias of one subjective view of the world with the bias from another. We are trying to balance the positive with the negative which can create a pendulum swing of emotional themes within the discussion. Introducing any bias into a discussion can contaminate the emotional detachment needed to be truly, academically objective.

Within any discussion about building something or solving a problem, we need to be as objective as possible about what is known and not known, where there is potential and where there are real issues to be overcome. Spend too much time absorbed in what is known at the expense of questioning and seeking out what is not and we fail to incrementally advance past the limits of our current knowledge. Spend too much time on what we don't know and we have no base of knowledge to launch from. Here we get stuck in feelings of uncertainty that can erode confidence. Spend too much time on exploring what we see as opportunities, consumed by hope and we blind ourselves to seeing the things that will bring those opportunities crashing down. Spend too much time on the problems as if they are unresolvable and not a construct of the mind and we bring everything to a halt.

Where a person can see the need for objectivity and they understand the emotional balance required to seek out this objectivity, a critical analysis can be applied consciously to good benefit. Because of this, the mental ability that comes with being able to perform a critical analysis has been promoted as a virtuous skill amongst academics for what looks like a few thousand years. However, in part because of that history, the "Critical Analyst" as a personality type, a person who operates with a critical-by-default style of analysis, has been promoted as virtuous as well without having regard for the context that makes the practice virtuous. This promotion of the personality type and the bias as opposed the consciously applied mental practice brings less of a benefit to society and in my view, in places, can be thought of as a depression inducing curse that can bind the gears of problem solving.

Closely related to the critical-by-default analysis style is the concept of being sceptical. I use the word "being" here on purpose so that I can specifically talk about an intuited modality of operation as distinct from a consciously applied mental behaviour. Consciously applying scepticism when presented with a new idea can ensure we don't accept anything as true and factual and useful until the information or idea has been consciously tested. We shouldn't just accept things as fact just because someone said it is. People are inherently bad at absorbing and communicating facts and inevitably will weave in their own focus and interpretations into the account of what they observe. Operating with scepticism is operating with an awareness of this. Doing this consciously but objectively we can consider possibilities without accepting those possibilities as truth until further validated. Again, in context, the mindset of not accepting something as a truth until it is further validated is a virtuous behaviour but to a critical-by-default analyst, this concept of scepticism can quickly morph into a bias towards an automated idea rejection. Taken to extremes it can become a form of intellectual bigotry where no new idea is considered unless the person evaluating it sought it out as one of their own. Only if the idea fits with pre-established prejudices will the new idea be considered as valid and the person doing this may feel justified to reject all new ideas because they mistakenly think they are operating virtuously as a sceptic or a critical analyst.

The problem with being sceptical as a modality of operation, as a part of one's personality, is that the person being sceptical sets the rules on how they can be convinced and the rules they set are always subjective and imposing work on another. Given my awareness of these subtle behavioural distinctions, the concept of "burdern of proof" as an invalidating point of logic, this is a notion I must consciously reject. In my opinion it needs to be seen as a modern truism that it is NOBODY'S job to convince you. It is instead your own job to seek out new ideas and new information, to test and question, to add knowledge and ideas to your own wherever they can be found to be valid and to remove beliefs, assumptions and ideas that have been invalidated. That said, pushing back the burden of proof onto a person who is clearly delusional, may serve as a tool and a technique to have them further investigate their views should they be so inclined to do so. The point here being that burden of proof should not be used as a way of "winning an argument" and instead if you are yourself interested in truth, you will take on the burdern of seeking truth for yourself.

Instead of being sceptical, I encourage you instead to be understanding. Seek to understand another's point of view. Seek to understand how they have arrived at a conclusion they have reached. Meet them half-way in terms of the workload needed to communicate a set of ideas. Then be objective with your evaluation of the validity of the ideas they present as opposed to being dismissive simply because they have not yet met your communication disrupting, subjective, emotionally themed criteria for being convinced. Try to seek any validity in their point of view that may be there. Having adopted this approach for a long time now, I have come to see validity in a large array of world views even if the conclusions reached or the actions proposed by individuals have issues.

Have you ever been in a situation where you are trying to explain an idea to someone and the person you are talking to just doesn't seem to be getting it? Have you ever been explaining an idea to them and instead of them seeing the opportunity, all they see are the problems? Have you ever felt like your well reasoned arguments have been dismissed summarily and for reasons that you could easily rebut? In situations like these, perhaps you are talking to a critical analyst.

An analyst is someone who will crawl their mind over a subject, considering in sequence, the different aspects of that subject. They generally will be open to seeing different points of view. If you get someone who is relatively unbiased, they will likely be able to consider both the opportunities and those areas of an idea that require careful and cautious attention. A critical analyst is someone that has a tendency to also crawl their mind over a subject but contrary to the very useful analyst, the critical analyst will show bias when it comes to highlighting those areas that require careful and cautious attention. This bias will often result in them taking a nay-saying, depressive, shut-you-down position and this is hardly ever useful.

I should point out that the critical analyst is also distinct from someone who can offer constructive criticism. Constructive criticism as its name suggests is generally constructive and it is therefor helpful. Constructive criticism is generally delivered at a time when one is working to develop something and it helps with the improvement process. Critical analysts on the other hand are generally not at all concerned with the creation side of things. Generally they are only concerned with finding an opportunity to tell you how flawed your thinking is.

The problem I wish to highlight here in this article is that in our society, the critical analyst has gained a an authoritarian foothold. Analysts have been celebrated for their ability to thoroughly acquire knowledge about a subject and rightfully so. If you point to any scientific or technological breakthrough you will find that the person most directly responsible for its conception will be someone who has strong analytical skills. The problem is that while we have been celebrating the presence of the analyst, a large number of critical analyst archetypes have been grouped in with the analysts and now they are in many positions of power and influence.

So how did it all go so wrong? Looking back over my limited knowledge of history and applying a summary opinion to it all I'd say that elitism and academia were to blame. Education for the masses has been a wonderful introduction into recent history but go back only a hundred years or so and education was only for the rich. To get ahead and to stay ahead, one needed to be educated. Knowledge is power and power brings the ability to earn a living, to survive, to thrive and to establish oneself within a position of privilege and influence. Once a position is gained, one has a need to defend their knowledge gained position even as one's understanding of that knowledge changes. One could theorise that this was once a matter of survival.

Imagine a hypothetical scenario from the past where some upstart in the village came in with a new idea for a water well in the middle of the village and this idea was popularly favored over a bucket transport system bringing fresh water to the village from a nearby river. The bucket transport system promoted by a land owner in a privileged position with land meeting the edge of the river. He is there collecting his income from the status quo, selling buckets and giving a job to a team of water carriers as he collects toll from them travelling across his land. He is comforted by the fact that the village will always need water. Faced with this new idea of a well and only he having enough wealth and influence to dig the well, he would have to quickly dismiss the new idea save losing his social position and his ability to survive. In this situation, critical analysis seems like the perfect intellectual tool for the wealthy and educated land owner. The perfect tool for the job of defense. Analysis is not something that everyone in the village can do therefore by being a critical analyst and highlighting all of the possible problems. Problems with digging the well, finding the best spot for it, keeping it clean, distributing it fairly, making sure it doesn't go dry and figuring out where we are going to put all the sand and rock that comes out of the ground. Promote these as insurmountable problems and cite your well-paid-for education as authority on the subject and there is a good chance that your rival will not be able to best you in a game of wits. With the critical analyst steering the conversation towards the negatives, any lookers on from the village are also not likely to be able to see around the negativity smokescreen and if they do they certainly don't have the power to act independent. Using this approach a critical analyst can successfully make it very difficult for any free thinking person to gain intellectual traction and it is all done to maintain a position of privilege.

This hypothetical speculation of mine takes scene within the early days of education and the early days of promoting the benefits of critical analysis within the emerging bureacracies of Europe. At a time where the forces against one's survival would have been far greater than today. So what about now? Well the plagues and the snake oil salesmen and the feuding peasants are still amongst us but in modern times with education being freely available to most of the masses and with the improved access to information and with social mechanisms in place to stop it getting out of hand, the threat of new ideas destabilising a person's position of privilege and power is no longer the most common promoter of the critical analyst archetype. In developed countries at least we have social mechanisms in place to ensure that most of us are kept comfortable and safe. That said, this hypothetical scenario shows how the critical-by-default behaviour might have established itself as a character trait, advertised as virtuous, becoming ubiquitous within our societies.

So why do some people maintain the critical analysis side to their personality? I'd say that in modern times it is less about maintaining a privileged position and it is more done as a part of a right-fighting, wanting to be heard, wanting to feel relevant, wanting to feel powerful over the situation kind of mindset. That coupled with perhaps the misguided idea, brought forward from the past, that being a critical analyst is inherently virtuous. Having in the past done it myself, I'd say that shutting down an idea can make oneself feel powerful and controlling whereas being presented with an open opportunity can feel like work and joy and happiness that we just don't have the energy for. Given that energy is conserved by being a nay-sayer and energy needs to be used to explore an opportunity, unfortunately, some might even make the point that the human condition favours a nay-saying, critical-analysis mindset. Truth be told, we could be here for the next six months analysing why some people have critical analysis as a go-to way of being and at the end of that six months we maybe could write a nice thesis for a psychology degree.

Cutting to the main point of this article... In part because of the history of academia, in part for personal and emotional reasons and in part because of energy conservation being built into the human condition, you will find that critical analysts as a personality type are everywhere. Many are our lawyers, our politicians, our doctors, our economists, our IT professionals. They are in every industry and they can be the gum that binds up the gearing of our society.

The Proposed Solution

So how do we deal with the critical analyst?

Well first of all, if you have seen yourself in my descriptions of a critical analyst then I encourage you to examine the emotional bias that you bring to your analysis. It is on the level of emotional intelligence that critical analysis as a personality type can be shifted to critical analysis as a consciously chosen tool of the mind. After that, I encourage you to seek out a book by Dr. Edward de Bono where he describes the Six Thinking Hats. I have to admit to having never read any of his books but having worked out similar theories of mind myself, I have found his six thinking hats concept to be one of the easiest ways to explain how to develop a fully-rounded, objectivity-seeking mindset. Should this article go viral Dr de Bono can thank me for the free promotion of his book and his thinking systems.

Secondly if you ever are trying to communicate a new idea or a solution to a problem and you need to deal with someone else who is a critical analyst, here are a few things I have learned:

1. Never, ever, ever engage them on their terms. Do not ever answer their analysis by trying to find fault with their arguments. They won't get it and you will only start a long, boring, depressing conversation that will get you both nowhere and that is exactly where they want you.
2. Do always employ a dodge and divert tactic. If they bring up one criticism, you counter by pointing out an unrelated opportunity. This is not to say you avoid the criticism, it is just to say that you should avoid getting stuck on it. They may raise a genuine issue but where they raise it as a show stopper, you can re-frame it later as a challenge to be overcome and the work you can do to have it be overcome.
3. Never engage them for any length of time. If you do they will regroup their thoughts and come back to their critical analysing ways. Also you increase your profile on their threat assessment radar. Get in quick, deliver your opportunity and get out before they have a chance to find fault with it. They can then work through the opportunity without needing to have their nay-saying be socially validated.
4. Always, always, always be friendly and greet them with a smile but don't overwhelm them with your positivity. The less they see you as being bias by that positivity, the less they will feel they need to counter your emotion.
5. If you have already seen some of the issues with your solution and are already working to overcome those issues, do your best to communicate this efficiently. Beat them to the nay-saying but demonstrate the work you have already done to overcome it.
6. Never, ever let them get you down. You might think they are trying to make your life miserable by stifling your creative tendencies but if you are positive and you don't let them, they lose their power. Chances are they are not being negative on purpose anyway, its just a behaviour. 

As much as I'd love to have a complete answer here, truth is that some sticky minds just can't be unstuck. If you find yourself confronted by a stalwart of a critical analyst and you find no way of going through them, try to go around them. If you have no joy with one person, move onto the next. Hopefully in time, as your great ideas gain social traction, the nay-sayers will come around.

In Summary

• Scepticism and Critical Analysis represent useful, objectivity-seeking mental behaviours only when used in context.
• The valid context for use is as a counter to the following:
  • Hopeful thinking
  • A bias towards optimism where problems are ignored
  • As a counter to misinformation
  • As a counter to belief based thinking
  • As a counter to magical thinking
• Even in this valid context we are attempting to counter one bias point of view with another, potentially creating a pendulum swing of emotional themes within the discussion, from positive to negative.
• For the above reason, even the valid context should be avoided where possible.
• To maintain objectivity, instead of being a critical analyst, just be an analyst.
• When a person is being sceptical by default they are requiring that others be convincing.
• "Burden of Proof" cannot be used to invalidate an idea.
• It is NOBODY'S job to convince you. It is instead your own job to seek out new ideas and new information, to test and question, to add knowledge and ideas to your own wherever they can be found to be valid and to remove beliefs, assumptions and ideas that have been invalidated.
• Instead of being sceptical, seek to be understanding and then evaluate the idea you have now understood.
• Being an objective analyst is virtuous. Being a critical analyst is not.
• Instead of being a critical analyst, just be an analyst!

Proposed Implementation

Ideas are contributed to Politify as single idea sentences and arranged into hierarchical contexts to give them relevance and meaning. They can then be attached to other ideas with relationships to form more complicated constructions. This allows for each idea to be validated or challenged individually without affecting other, related or connected ideas.

Within the Politify platform, there are tools to challenge an idea based on the presence of an emotional bias. This can be any bias towards any emotional influence that causes objectivity on the subject to be displaced. With those emotionally themed ideas challenged, they can either be rephrased or reframed to bring them back to an objective expression so as to maintain any validity within the idea, or they can be replaced with an idea that can be validated objectively.

Because the Politify environment is a group effort, progress of any plan is not necesarily dependent on any one individual in any position of influence. So if a stalwart is encountered who can be reasoned with, they won't hold up progress. That said, valid arguments against an idea, must be addressed to remove a challenge.

There are tools to manage trolling, spamming, bot-posting and nay-saying practices. These practices being efficiently taken care of so as not to distract from the main purpose.

Suggested Discussion Topics

• Where is scepticism justified?
• Where is a critical analysis justified?
• When to apply a burden of proof?
• How to consciously and objectively apply criticism and scepticism.
• Constructive applications of criticism and scepticism.
• "Burden of proof" should NOT be on a list of logical fallacies as there can be no difinitive test of proof.
• Examples of misguided applications of the crytical analyst behaviour set.

 Author

Cameron Gibbs
Politify Founder

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