Ever since I decided to join this crazy world of academia, I’ve noticed that professors, deans, and administrators alike proclaim the value of education using one of two terms: “critical thinking” or “civic engagement.”
These terms are emblematic of what Richard Weaver calls “ultimate terms” and what Kenneth Burke calls “god terms.” They are terms equipped with heavy connotations that, while essentially devoid of precise meaning, nonetheless supply a discourse with its ultimate backing. The terms are suggestive and affective, not referential, and therein lies their strength. “It is thus by virtue of their being vague,” as Chaim Perelman puts it, that such terms gain their persuasive power.
To me, “critical thinking,” though admittedly used in other ways, suggests a certain logical skepticism and intellectual sophistication. It carries the force of the Western intellectual tradition, or at least the secular side of that tradition. It suggests that one who practices it will be able to cope with the myriad difficulties that modern life might present, be they intellectual, economic, work-related, familial, et cetera.
“Civic engagement,” on the other hand, carries a more socio-political connotation. It is often seen alongside (or used as a synonym for) other ultimate terms, such as “democracy,” “social justice,” “democratic citizenship,” among others. These are terms that suggest a certain egalitarian idealism. They conjure images of politically active citizens rallying around common causes.
I find it interesting that these terms, “critical thinking” and “civic engagement”, are used as appeals in academia because, when all is said, the suggestive connotations of these terms are essentially at odds.
Critical thinking can be applied to any content or context, and it seems that it carries weight precisely because it is (or purports to be) a transferable set of skills. (Of course, in reality, thinking critically about problems in literature is very different from thinking critically about problems in mathematics or engineering.) Regardless, critical thinking, in a specific context, means taking a god’s-eye-view of the context, looking at it from new angles, testing it from different positions, and making decisions based on thorough inquiry. The term’s persuasive trajectory pushes its hearers away from an immediate sense of commitment.
Civic engagement, however, receives its power from a completely different trajectory. It compels students to get “caught up in the politics of now,” so to speak: we can only become socially engaged with the society that history presents us and with the teams currently playing in the social arena. If educators encourage their students to become socially engaged, I don’t see how they can, at the same time, ask students to think critically. For example, a student cannot think critically about environmental issues while working for Earth First. Likewise, a student cannot think critically about the American political system while volunteering for a campaign.
Of course, a student can do both. I am simply letting my mind play round the subject to think about how the suggestive impulse behind “critical thinking” is not the same as the impulse behind “civic engagement.” They are working in opposite directions. The former suggests detachment; the latter, active involvement. The only way I see to bridge the terms, to forge the ultimate terms together into an Ultimate God Term, would be to say something about “critical thinking for specific social ends,” or something to that effect.
Insofar as the terms refer to practices rather than persuasive vagueness, the right way to talk about them is to say that they are steps in a process. First, a student thinks critically, then she acts on the outcome of her critical thought. However, I doubt that people who proclaim “civic engagement!” in collegiate quads mean, “Think critically and follow your critical conclusions where they lead!” They mean something quite different. They mean a particular kind of civic engagement in particular areas of social and political life.
I’m not fond of either term, but, insofar as I work with what the world gives me, I typically make appeals to “critical thinking” when forced to defend humanistic education. I’m not particularly impressed by notions of “civic engagement.” However, we all make appeals using different affective trajectories leading to different god terms, and I respect anyone who values humanistic education as a tool for creating involved citizens. However, I would hope that educators appealing to “civic engagement” leave the term alone in all of its suggestive generality rather than appealing to a specific kind of civic engagement. Students, like all free citizens, should be free to engage where, when, and how they see fit. I would hope that teachers and departments committed to “civic engagement” would support not only the student who wants to engage with the NAACP but also the student who wants to engage with the NRA, or the student who engages by refusing to vote.
Discussion
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