John Chaffee

John Chaffee: I think there's always been a range of people in terms of their thinking ability, but I think there are some very special circumstances today that really make it even more challenging to be a thoughtful and reflective person. We're living in a society now that has accelerated the pace of living to the point where everybody is running to catch up. It's a pace that's so frantic that it works against taking time out to be thoughtful and reflect on the important questions in life. Questions like Who am I? Who do I want to become? and What's the meaning of my life? The other aspect of today's society is the overwhelming amount of information and hyperstimulation we're subjected to that really militates against taking time out to be thoughtful and reflective.

TMA: I find from my work teaching meditation that by and large, people have never thought about thinking.

JC: It's like the fish are the last ones to know about water . . . and people are the last ones to know about thinking because it's always been with us. We spend virtually all of our waking time thinking. The problem is that in many cases we're not thinking very well. If you don't recognize that you're engaged in this process, and that you're doing it at a level far below how you could be doing it, then you don't recognize the need to change. You don't know how to go about improving it even if you do become aware of the fact that you can become a more powerful thinker.

The first step to improving your thinking abilities is to be aware of the fact that you're doing it, that you're not doing it as well as you could, and then developing a plan to refine and strengthen these abilities.

TMA: It seems to me that in times past, you could count on educated people to be critical, creative thinkers . . . whereas in our time, you have so-called educated people who really aren't. There are people who have letters after their names who don't even want to think. It's too much work. It's hard. [whines:] It hurts.
[laughter]
JC: That's true. To think well requires hard work, although once you've developed the habit of it, it's something that becomes very naturally integrated into your life. Regretfully, our educational system is not doing all it could do teach people to think in sophisticated ways. One of the problems is that the educational system emphasizes transferring information rather than developing one's thinking abilities. But information is not knowledge. It doesn't become knowledge until the human mind acts on it, analyzes it, applies it, synthesizes it, evaluates it and integrates it into one's life so that it can be used for productive ends: for making decisions, for solving problems.

We have an educational system that is like what one Brazilian educator called the banking model of education -- where the essence of education is seen as making deposits in the minds of students and then they regurgitate that information periodically to show how much they're absorbed. That's not really developing knowledge or understanding in the meaningful sense. To do that, you really have to use your mind. You have to actively engage in what you're learning, you have to be applying what you know.

TMA: It also seems that too often, especially at the lower levels, that the educational system prizes conformity over critical and creative thinking.

JC: Not just the educational system. Many of the institutions in the society of all cultures have a tendency to want people to conform to the existing norms and expectations. That has the effect of discouraging people from becoming independent thinkers. It also discourages them from expressing themselves in unique and creative ways.

TMA: A critical and creative thinker is going to be an individual -- and they don't want individuals.

JC: Yes, they believe, and perhaps from their perspective it makes some sense, that to control and manipulate people, it's better if they're not thinking. It's better if they're just passively accepting and responding to what they're told to do. But that's no way to live life. To live a life that's really your own, that is truly meaningful and successful, you have to think for yourself and you have to express yourself creatively in ways that reflect the unique person that you are.

TMA: I think there are a lot of instances in the societies of today's world and in the past, where an individual who thinks critically and creatively ends up punished. I'm thinking of the ghetto child who is punished by his peers for doing better than they, or an extreme example, the Jews in Europe in the Dark Ages, where they prized education and intellectual development even though the prevailing attitude was that only the priests of the Church were to be educated.

JC: It seems to be part of the human condition to resent people who get ahead, who distinguish themselves, who are really out of step with the way everybody else is thinking and doing things. There's a very powerful metaphor of crabs in a bucket. Supposedly, if you put one crab in a bucket, it'll eventually find a way to leverage itself out of the bucket. But if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, none will ever get out because as soon as one crab gets up near the top, the others reach up, grab onto it and pull it back. I don't think the crabs are really thinking critically about this, but it's a very human metaphor because people often, when they see someone getting ahead or see somebody who's taking a different path, the tendency is to reach out and try to pull that person back. And if they resist, then to punish them in a whole variety of ways.

One of the ironic things is that often the people who pull you back are those who are close to you. I think one of the reasons is because they see your accomplishments and achievements and individuality as a negative reflection on themselves. It's like holding a mirror up to themselves and by comparison they feel like they're suffering. Their way of dealing with it, instead of themselves trying to achieve, is to try to pull you back.

TMA: It seems that all too often the critical and creative thinker ends up remaining wisely silent.

JC: That's a temptation, but I also believe that, as John Stuart Mill posed the question, is it better to be a contented pig or a discontented Socrates? I believe that once you become a critical thinker, you don't want to become unreflective and unthinking. I also believe that being a critical thinker equips you to make the most informed and intelligent decisions in every situation. What that means is that if you are a truly an insightful and reflective person, you know when to express yourself, you know when to be tactful and you know when to keep your mouth shut. The point is, if you know how to make choices that don't compromise your own integrity and who you are as a person, you also recognize that even if you suffer some rejection or punishment because you're choosing to act on beliefs that are deeply rooted, you know that that's the only way to live a life. You know that that's the only way to have a life that you can look back on with pride and satisfaction.

The object of living is not simply to make it to the finish line. It's not to get to the age of 80 and say, "Whew, boy, I made it!" The idea of life, I believe, is to live a life that is really rich and fulfilling, a life that people will remember, will look back and admire you and say, "There's a person that really made extraordinary contributions and lived a truly distinctive and valuable life." That, to me, is the whole point of living.

TMA: It seems to me that critical and creative thought runs in families and at least somewhat genetic. If you grow up in a family situation where you're expected to be able to express yourself, to take a position and defend it at the dinner table, you just grow up with it and take it for granted. But it almost seems that people are born with it or they're not.

JC: It's very difficult to disentangle what is genetic and what is environmentally learned and conditioned. I believe, though, that we each have our own potential to become a really competent and productive critical and creative thinker. Those are potentials that everybody has. I think you're absolutely right: the environment in which you grow up has a dominant effect on how you turn out. If you grow up in a family, for example, that's very authoritarian, that doesn't permit or encourage you to question, to think for yourself, to express yourself creatively, well then, that's going to discourage you from being an independent and creative person. On the other hand, if you grow up in an environment where you're encouraged to think independently, to express your own creative ideas, to question, to engage in productive discussion, that's going to help you develop those potentials.

The good news is that regardless of the environment in which you grew up, it's never too late for you to change and start developing those intellectual abilities and attitudes that perhaps weren't encouraged previously but you've decided to develop now. There's a wonderful quote by the novelist George Eliot. She said, "It's never too late to be what you might have been." I love that quote because it suggests, first of all, that for each one of us there's a whole wealth of potentials and talents lying within us that are ours to fulfill. Secondly, I love this quote because it suggests that wherever you are in your life and whatever your past history, whatever challenges or obstacles you've had to overcome, it's never too late for you to say, "I'm going to start making different choices. I'm going to create the kind of person that I always envisioned for myself."

TMA: Clearly, anybody can improve the quality of their life. But is it your position that anybody can become a critical thinker? Aren't some people are born with more intellectual capacity than others?

JC: I think that intelligence is a very complex set of abilities. There are different kinds of intelligences. For example, there are people who think well abstractly, there are those who use language well, who think mathematically well, people who are visually talented, those who are kinesthetically talented in terms of dance or sports. There's a whole spectrum of talents, and each person has his or her own unique combination. When we talk about becoming a critical thinker and a creative individual, these are really broad strokes. I believe, and this is based on my two decades as an educator with many, many thousands of students, that every person has the capacity, in a very meaningful sense, of being an expert critical thinker and one who is very creative in many areas of their life as well.

TMA: There are eight points in The Thinker's Way. Can you go through the more important of them?

JC: The first three steps are really the foundation. These are what I think of as the three fundamental principles of human transformation. If you can develop yourself in these three areas, they will enable you to be successful in all the other areas. The first three areas are the ability to think critically -- that is, to think clearly, to set goals and solve problems. The second is to live creatively -- and by that I mean to express your unique talents and potentials and to really reach deep within yourself and reveal your unique and creative perspective on the world. And the third step is to chose freely. That is, to make insightful and enlightened choices. These three human abilities are really at the core of who we are and define us as human beings. When they're working together, there's almost nothing a person can't do. They enable you to become successful in all the other areas of life: to develop healthy relationships, to construct a life philosophy, to be an effective communicator, to solve problems, make intelligent decisions -- and all those other things that go into making up our lives.

TMA: Let's look at step one. What are the thinking tools and strategies that will help people become better critical thinkers?

JC: To be a critical thinker, you need to bring a habit of thoughtfulness to every area of your life. You need to work at seeing issues and situations from many different perspectives, not just your own. You have to be willing to engage in meaningful discussions with other people and try to understand their point of view . . . to truly listen to what they have to say. To be really empathetic, to try to appreciate what they're thinking, what they're feeling. You have to be fair-minded: to be aware of your own biases as well as the biases of other people. And you have to work at supporting your points of view with reasons and evidence and encourage others to support their points of view as well.

There's a whole range of different abilities and attitudes that go into making a critical thinker. The first thing to do is to create a portrait of the kind of person you would like to be, and then to use that portrait as kind of a guiding light. Each day, the first thing you ought to be thinking about is not your first meeting or your first deadline -- but the question, "What choices do I want to make today so that I can become more the kind of person that I want to be?"

TMA: This sounds like a great deal more than just thinking exercises. It sounds like increasing consciousness, awareness.

JC: That's exactly what it is. It's increasing your awareness, it's raising your consciousness, it's deepening your insight and it's creating a meaningful philosophy of life and living by it.

TMA: So the prerequisites would be an awareness that such possibilities exist and then a desire to experience them.

JC: That's a very incisive point. You have to be motivated. You have to recognize the need. The problem with somebody who is not making full use of their thinking abilities, who is unreflective, is that they're not even aware that there's a better way; they're not even aware that there's a need, and they have no idea of how they would even go about improving their minds, their thinking abilities and their lives. The starting point is the recognition that wherever you are, you can do better, and that there is a path to becoming a more powerful, critical, and then creative thinker.

TMA: With any sort of evolved consciousness, it's easy to look at a person and see where they're making a mistake. If they ask for your advice, you can tell them, go out and do a, b and c. They go out and do a, b and c and it works fine for them but if they don't know d, e and f . . .

JC: That's exactly right, and that's why I think people should be very suspicious of all of the self-help recipes and formulas that people quote, unquote, "guarantee" will change your life. There's only one way to change your life. And that is to develop your thinking ability so that you have both the insight and the wisdom to make intelligent, more enlightened choices. There's no shortcut to that. There are principles of thinking that we can master, there are ways of behaving that will enrich our lives, but in order to really change who you are, you have to restructure the way you think and the way you approach your life.

TMA: I like step two a lot: "Live creatively."

JC: It's essential for living a life that really is vital and alive. So many people give in to the pressures of conformity; they are afraid of taking the risks that are inherent in taking a creative approach to their life. But the truth is, expressing yourself in a living, creative way is really at the heart of having a life that is rich, filled with mystery and surprise.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said, over 3000 years ago -- and this will show you the constants in human nature -- "You must expect the unexpected" -- because it cannot be found by search or trail. What he was saying was that you have to approach your life looking for the unexpected. You have to take every area of your life and try to approach it in a unique and inventive way. Don't settle for the mediocrity of conformity or inertia or habit or sameness. Instead, try to bring a fresh perspective to every part of your life.

Often, people make the mistake of thinking that to be creative, you have to be artistic. Certainly, being artistic is one way of being creative but people can be creative in every area of their lives. Raising children, in their careers, their relationships with other people, activities that they engage in -- all of these different aspects of life can be approached in creative ways. When we make the effort to really invest our lives with a unique and inventive approach that reflects our distinctive personality, that makes life very fulfilling and really livens it up.

TMA: What are the statistics on people who hate their jobs?

JC: I think it's very disturbing! Ask yourself, how many people do you know who wake up in the morning looking forward to going to work? It's a pretty modest percentage. We even immortalize TGIF, Thank God It's Friday. For many people, their jobs are simply a way of earning money and they can hardly wait to get out of them. It's really unfortunate, because your career is at the center of your life. It's some of the best hours of your life and it ought to be one of your primary vehicles for expressing yourself, for making distinctive accomplishments and bringing meaning into your life.

TMA: Point three, "To choose freely." In order to choose at all, one has to have a level of consciousness that makes choice possible. Otherwise, one is just taking the easier of whatever two paths present themselves.

JC: That's exactly right. In other words, step three depends on steps one and two. A lot of people make choices, but those choices are not free in the sense that they don't reflect their deepest values and their highest aspirations. In order to make a truly free choice, you have to be thinking critically, you have to have insight into who you are and also the forces that are acting on you, the people who are trying to control and manipulate you. And also within yourself: the compulsions, the obsessions, all the weirdness that sometimes influence us to make choices that are self-destructive.

To be truly free, you also have to have the courage to express yourself creatively and to make choices that reflect who you are, not what the prevailing custom is. You have to have the courage to make choices that are truly unique and that often are different from what other people are thinking and doing. To make genuinely free choices requires that you're thinking critically and living creatively. That's why these three qualities work together. If you don't have one or more of these qualities, then it's very difficult to live a successful and meaningful life. If you can't think critically, then you're not going to be able to reach your goals or to solve problems. If you can't live creatively, then you're going to be like a worker bee, a drone, just going through the motions, meeting all the deadlines, but your life is going to lack that unique vitality that creativity brings. And if you don't have the will to make genuinely free choices, then it doesn't matter how powerful a thinker you are. You'll never be able to translate those ideas into action -- and so your life will be one of frustration and unfulfilled potential. These are three very powerful human principles of living that, when they work together, can accomplish virtually anything. When they're not working together or when they're missing, then they make living a successful and fulfilling life very difficult.

TMA: You make the point that freedom and responsibility are related. The way I usually put that is that freedom and discipline are really two sides of the same coin. That you really can't have one without the other.

JC: Right. A lot of the time, people have this fantasy of freedom. You know, "If I can only be free," thinking, "If I only had no responsibilities and all the money and time I needed" -- but that's not freedom, that's a fantasy.

Where we go wrong is that we don't see the options that exist beyond what's being presented to us. To truly exercise our freedom, we have to go beyond the status quo. We have to search out paths of behavior and living that transcend what's currently being presented to us. We also have to have the courage to accept responsibility for the choices we make. Don't try to blame other people. There's a Chinese adage, "Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan." What that suggests is that when things are going well, everybody wants to take credit, but when mistakes are made and failure exists, then people are always looking outside themselves, seeing themselves as a victim. They want to blame somebody else or circumstances. Every time you do that, you're running away from your freedom. You're surrendering your freedom. To be truly free, you have to be truly responsible. As you suggest, you have to exercise discipline, bring your critical and creative thinking abilities to your choices in order for those choices to have any real meaning.

To create the person you want to become, you have to be a clear thinker, you have to have the courage to express yourself creatively, and then you have to have determination to make intelligent and enlightened choices.

TMA: How do you see conditions in the world today -- as helping or hindering?

JC: Conditions in the world today discourage people from doing many of the things we've been talking about. They keep people from thinking independently, from expressing themselves creatively, from taking time to be thoughtful and reflective, to grapple with the central questions in life: what's the meaning of my life, and who do I want to become? From making reflective and enlightened choices.

The world we live in today is one that pushes people, overwhelms them, frustrates them, manipulates and controls. That makes it very difficult for each person to carve out, to fashion and shape the individual that they want to become. The metaphor I like to use is that every person is the artist of their life; their brushstrokes are the choices that they make every day. What that means is that we often have to go against the pressures to conform, the inertia, the habits -- all of the elements of modern life that work against being thoughtful, reflective, independent and courageous.

TMA: A lot of people rail against media as it is, the explosion, the overwhelming amount of information that people are forced to process, but it seems to me that in a way, the sheer volume of information people have to process just to keep up, in effect drags them kicking and screaming into a higher consciousness.

JC: I think it's true that they're trying to process the information, but a lot of people have given up trying to process it. They either just accept it or they file it away. I think what's happened in many cases is, people have been overwhelmed by the volume of information; they really have reached the point where they don't even try to think critically about this information and transform it into knowledge. I saw a cartoon in The New Yorker that showed two people at a cocktail party. One person is saying to the other, "If this is supposed to be the information age, why doesn't anybody know anything?" That's the place that many people find themselves. There's limitless information on the Internet and libraries, 100-plus channels on television sets. The real challenge is, how do you find the information that you need? And then, how do you evaluate its credibility and its worth, and how do you integrate and use it in a way that's productive and useful?

TMA: What concerns me is that those who are able to deal successfully with their minds and with all the information that's out there are going to do very well and the rest of the people are going to be consigned to jobs where they're asking people, "Do you want fries with that?"

JC: [laughs, then:] I think that's right. I think we're going to see a real discrepancy, a divergence between people who are thinkers and people who aren't. Socrates warned us centuries ago, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I think there's a very compelling message there for the people who rise to the challenge . . . to develop the full powers of their mind and their being, to become truly enlightened individuals, to raise their consciousness to the maximum, to develop their full potential. They're going to thrive in this current world -- because it's a world where things are changing daily, where knowledge is evolving exponentially -- and they're going to have all the tools to take advantage of that.

On the other hand, the people who don't develop their minds fully and fulfill their potentials, they're just going to be at sea. It's going to be as if they're standing on a beach and a tidal wave overcomes them. They're just not going to have a chance.

TMA: I'm wondering what we're going to do with all these people. How many McJobs can we create?

JC: My hope is that we're going to inspire people to develop their mind. Human beings are programmed to think. Homo sapiens means "thinking man, thinking woman." We love to think, it brings us great joy and satisfaction. Every time I introduce people and encourage them to think, it's a process that they can't get enough of. It's my hope that by making people aware that there's a different path, a different way to live their life, that there are unfulfilled potentials within them, that people will respond to that and that we will create a thinking world.

Just consider how much more satisfying and rich, how much safer and productive living in a thinking world would be if everybody was a critical and creative thinker. It would be a truly extraordinary place. It seems to me that that's the challenge for each of us because each person is a potential teacher and educator. We need to encourage children to take responsibility, to be independent thinkers, to use their minds. That's another way we're going to create a thinking world. If we can inspire and teach the people around us, the people in our lives, to become more thoughtful and critical, more creative, to make more informed and intelligent choices, and if we're all working together and we're inspiring others, then I think that's our hope for the future.

TMA: What do you find encouraging out there right now?

JC: When I talk to people and engage them in the thinking process, they respond in incredible fashion. When I wrote my first book on critical thinking almost twenty years ago, nobody was talking about becoming a critical or creative thinker. Now, it is an issue in education, and it is an awareness that people have. Even though there's a long way to go, it seems to me that there's a heightened awareness in consciousness of the fact that we can do better. We can develop our minds more fully. We can fulfill our potential if we take the right path.

John Chaffee, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized leader in the area of intellectual development and is the author of several books, including the bestselling text Thinking Critically. He is Director of the New York Center for Critical Thinking and Language Learning and Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. He conducts Critical Thinking workshops and lectures around the country.

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