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The Age of Industrialization (1850 – 1950). Worldwide Empires and Worldwide Exploitation. Social Conditions in the Age of Industrialization. The World - 1911. Harper’s Index of the Gilded Age. Number of deaths or injury sustained by railroad workers in 1889: 22,000
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The Age of Industrialization (1850 – 1950) Worldwide Empires and Worldwide Exploitation
Harper’s Index of the Gilded Age • Number of deaths or injury sustained by railroad workers in 1889: 22,000 • Number of hours worked per day by railroad workers in 1900: 12 – 14 • Wages paid per day, in dollars, to Chinese railroad workers: 1 • Wages paid, per day, to Irish Workers: 2 • Amount, in dollars, paid by J.P. Morgan for Andrew Carnegie’s steel company in 1900: 492,000,000 • Amount then sold in stocks and bonds for the combined companies of Morgan and Carnegie: 1,300,000,000 • Commission fee, in dollars, Morgan gave himself for the consolidation: 150,000,000
Possible Significance to Critical Thinking • When the overwhelming majority of time and energy each day are devoted to work, little remains for the development of the mind. • When there is little to no access to schools or libraries, as was the case with many workers in the Industrial era, there are few opportunities for learning and intellectual growth. • A system which explicitly supports the development of vast fortunes of wealth and suppresses the ability of the lower class to improve their status is not conducive to a critical society.
Declining Standards at Oxford and Cambridge The middle of the 19th century was a period of tremendous change and transition at Oxford and Cambridge. Until this point, both had been first institutions for the training of the clergy and later places for the sons of wealthy elite to meet and establish business contacts. By the 1850’s their prestige as educational establishments were declining precipitously.
Reforms and the Tutorial Significant reforms in second half of the 1800’s largely resulted in the Oxford and Cambridge which exist today • The Oath of the 39 articles, a pledge of religious fealty which all Oxford and Cambridge students were required to take, was abolished • Medieval methods of memorization and regurgitation were replaced with tutorial instruction. This emphasized a low ratio of student to teacher and a high degree of reading and writing. The focus was placed on the thinking of the student. Students were encouraged to initiate and pursue their own questions, construct their own conclusions, and develop a unique and well reasoned point of view.
Significance to Critical Thinking • The tutorial system curtails passivity and promotes active engagement, an essential trait of the critical mind. • By requiring large amounts of reading and writing, it fosters a disciplined pursuit of knowledge and the development and refining of ideas. • However, it also has the potential to produce sophistic critical thinkers who are skilled at intellectual trickery and manipulation. • No educational system can be designed to foster strong sense critical thinking in all its students unless instructors have internalized a rich conception of critical thinking and explicitly teach it to students.
Trends in the 19th and 20th Centuries • Beginning in the middle of the 19th century and continuing to the present day, there has been a proliferation in terms of the diversity of critiques produced, making it hard to describe and generalize. • However, one trend that can be noted is that organizations and social movements are increasing in scale and consideration. • For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was founded in 1863 with the purpose of protecting war wounded, refugees, and prisoners, is not tied to any one country or polity.
Trends (contd.) • The League of Nations (1919), followed by the United Nations (UN) in 1945, were founded with the mission of preventing war, settling global disputes, and improving the general quality of life throughout the world. • The World Health Organization (WHO, 1948) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF, 1946), specialized agencies within the UN, were established for similar reasons.
Trends (contd.) • This era also marked the beginning of social movements based on helping those in other groups and nations. • In other words, instead of seeking to gain benefits for themselves, as much critique and activism had in the past, many humanitarian efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries have had the express purpose of giving aid to others who are not able to help themselves.
Significance to Critical Thinking • These organizations may point towards the development of a broader awareness, at least for the small percentage of people who engage in and support them. • As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and interdependent, the consequences of uncritical and weak sense critical thought grow exponentially.
John Henry Newman (1801 – 1890) • Key Idea: Newman critiqued the educational system in a profound manner, arguing vociferously for not simple piecemeal changes but a paradigm shift. His main targets were the medieval forms of instruction which emphasized rote memorization of masses of facts, and the more recent decline in standards for wealthy elite who essentially bought their degrees while spending the majority of their time amusing themselves and escaping intellectual work.
I will tell you, Gentlemen, what has been the practical error of the last twenty years – not to load the memory of the student with a mass of undigested knowledge, but to force upon him so much that he has rejected all. It has been the error of distracting and enfeebling the mind by an unmeaning profusion of subjects; of implying that a smattering in a dozen branches of study is not shallowness, which it really is, but enlargement, which it is not; of considering an acquaintance with the learned names of things and persons, and the possession of the clever duodecimos, and attendance on eloquent lecturers, and membership with scientific institutions, and the sight of the experiments of a platform and the specimens of a museum, that all this was not dissipation of mind, but progress.
All I say is, call things by their right names, and do not confuse together ideas which are essentially different. A thorough knowledge of one science and a superficial acquaintance with many, are not the same thing; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive view. Recreations are not education; accomplishments are not education. Do not say, the people must be educated, when, after all, you only mean, amused, refreshed, soothed, put into good spirits and good humour, or kept from vicious excesses. I do not say that such amusements, such occupations of mind, are not a great gain; but they are not education. You may as well call drawing and fencing education, as a general knowledge of botany or conchology.
Newman’s Significance to Critical Thinking • Newman contributed a rich and substantive model of education which, despite its flaws, nevertheless would be a powerful force for fostering critical thinking if it was taken seriously and widely applied. • He represents a mind concerned with lifelong learning, systematic and disciplined thinking, applying intellectual skills to multiple subjects, to problem’s in human life, and to oneself in an effort to take charge of one’s life. He had with a healthy respect for freedom of thought and human reason. He was not afraid to exercise his autonomous thought by speaking out against received views.
John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) Key Idea: Mill contributed much to the history of critical thinking, but the most important of his works are those focused on civil liberties. In these essays, he argues that all liberties are connected in an integral way, if one should be removed then the others will be, at the very least, diminished.
“[The appropriate region of human liberty] comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological…The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions…is practically inseparable from it…Second, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong…No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified.”
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course, deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure it is false, is assuming that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility…on any matter not self-evident, there are ninety-nine persons incapable of judging of it for one who is capable; and the capacity of the hundredth person is only comparative; for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things which no one will now justify.
Mill’s Significance to Critical Thinking • Mill’s many treatises explicating and defending the rights of citizens exemplify the importance of thinking through an idea deeply and following out the implications that result. He thus characterizes the critical traits of thinking in a disciplined and systematic manner. • He is, in this regard, an excellent example of applying intellectual skills to human problems in an attempt to alleviate suffering and pain. He was committed to thinking within multiple points of view and to speaking out against established systems of power. • Additionally, he firmly believed that reason should guide human thought and behavior, and that learning is a lifelong process of growth and development.
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) Key ideas: Einstein did not think of himself as being particularly gifted or intelligent, but credited his success to a questioning mind which could focus on an idea intensely until it was solved. He refused to follow along with the scientific status quo and was able to shift the paradigm in terms of our understanding of the universe as a result. Apart from his considerable contributions to the scientific world, Einstein was also a strong voice for the creation of a world with more equality that was more just and more peaceful. Additionally, and most significant to critical thinking, he grasped the importance of a general education and intellectual traits in the development of the mind.
I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments, which one has to use later directly in life The demands of life are much too manifold to let such as specialized training in school appear possible. ..The school should always have as its aim that the young man leave it as a harmonious personality, not as a specialist…The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge. If a person masters the fundamentals of his subject and has learned to think and work independently, he will surely find his way and besides will better be able to adapt himself to progress and changes than the person whose training principally consists in the acquiring of detailed knowledge.. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good.
Einstein’s significance to Critical Thinking • Einstein was a scientist in the highest sense of the word. Far from being locked into the details of his field, Einstein recognized that every human discovery and invention has implications and consequences, some of which are negative or harmful. His horror at the use of the atomic bomb on humans and his attempt to curtail nuclear proliferation do him credit. • In arguing for the development of traits and a general education, Einstein comes very close to describing a strong sense critical thinker. • Einstein was a consummate specialist, yet he applied his intellectual skills to many subject areas and to human problems as well.
Emma Goldman (1869 – 1940) • Key Ideas: Goldman critiqued established governments as not living up to the values which they professed to uphold. She was especially critical of the U.S. government and was imprisoned for vocalizing her thoughts.
It has often been suggested to me that the Constitution of the United States is a sufficient safeguard for the freedom of its citizens. It is obvious that even the freedom it pretends to guarantee is very limited. I have not been impressed with the adequacy of the safeguard. The nations of the world, with centuries of international law behind them, have never hesitated to engage in mass destruction when solemnly pledged to keep the peace; and the legal documents in America have not prevented the United States from doing the same…Far from the Constitution playing any liberating part in the lives of the American people, it has robbed them of the capacity to rely on their own resources or do their own thinking. Americans are so easily hoodwinked by the sanctity of law and authority. In fact, the pattern of life has become standardized, routinized, and mechanized like canned food and Sunday sermons.
Goldman’s Significance to Critical Thinking • Goldman’s contributions to critical thinking lie in her unwavering devotion to human rights and her willingness to critique governments which do not protect those rights. • She was a living example of intellectual autonomy and courage, not backing down from her views even in the face of oppression and imprisonment. • Writing at a time when women had very little legal or social power or recognition, she is also an example of someone who was able to develop her mind largely independently of outside help.
Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) Key Idea: A philosopher/logician/mathematician who, after making seminal contributions to professional philosophy, shifted more and more to addressing virtually every major human problem in a series of publications and public addresses. The extent of his influence is suggested by the fact that he published nearly 100 books and was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Russell’s Significance to Critical Thinking He demonstrated command of the complexity of the major problems of the 20th century world, but illustrated at the same time how a careful critical analysis of those problems lent themselves to the possibility of practical solutions. Virtually to the end of his life, he demonstrated the power of critical thought to cut through propaganda and modern sophistry and to highlight the potential of intellectually disciplined integrity. He was a 20th century paradigm of critical thought in the strongest sense.
