Blog 3- Critical Thinking

Alec Fisher listed a number of different definitions of what defines critical thinking. Typically when we think of critical thinkers, an image of old men and women with their hands poised under their chins with furrowed brows. However, that is not always the case. Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow are also critical thinkers in their own right. Their type of critical thinking follows Fisher’s last definition that critical thinking is a “skilled and active interpretation and evaluation of observances and communications, information, and argumentation” (Fisher and Scriven, 1997). Stewart and Maddow both actively analyze political headliners and relay their interpretation through satire. I feel that their form of critical thinking is much more difficult than old school methods of critical thinking. That is because not only do they need to understand the political jargon and what it implies, they also need to put it into laymen’s terms and connect it in a way that is humorous. Not everyone has the same type of humor, and for them to relate of a broad audience on material that not very many people can grasp is on a different level of critical thinking and its application.
The epithets that were hurled at congressmen John Lewis and Barney Frank are examples of fellow congressmen who were not thinking critically. Whoever decided it would be a good idea to throw around derogatory terms at their peers were not following one of Fisher’s rules for critical thinking—thinking about your thinking. Blurting out insults shows a lack of reflection of what you are talking about because it is an outburst rather than something methodical or analytical. It does not improve on the quality of their own thinking or anyone else’s thinking. In fact it depreciates it because of its immaturity it simply takes away from any kind of critical thinking credit you may have accumulated over your illustrious political career.