What I find disturbing in this country is that positions are taken on many issues and ideas and the presumption seems to be that there is none out there with the critical faculty to evaluate the merits of those positions, and that if even there were, such critical evaluation is of no consequence.Consider the illogic of some recent developments: the new leadership of the COP is canvassing that it will rise when all evidence points to an organisation virtually dead; 20 million to remove marine wrecks when the lives of many seem wrecked for want of food and shelter; rampant corruption in a body but the head remains unscathed and the identity of one in a media clip fairly unquestionable, yet no one dares to file a question; public outcry against legislation for exorbitant increases for public officials yet a committee to review such legislation comprises many who are for it.
More: public servants denying the public the service it so desperately needs and a former labour leader at war against labour; virtually the best spinner in the world dropped from the WI team which eventually loses against New Zealand; principals of failed conglomerates left unscathed while taxpayers are made to pay for their profligacy; clear instances of insider-trading with no apparent conviction even as the offending institution tries to sweeten its image with an indifferent public; a commitment to find the killers of Dana Seetahal yet no arrests 60 days after, and the list can go on and on and on.But why it is that there is such unquestioning acceptance of such illogic? Is it because the critical faculty involving due consideration to the hard facts of causation and evidence has never been the driving force in the way we teach and the way we learn as obtains in metropolitan countries?
Lacking in that interrogative spirit, is it any wonder that we continue to accept the kind of illogic above, participating in our subordination without realising it? If we are to progress as a people, critical thinking as an intellectual processing of behaviour must become cultural practice, indeed the personal culture of individuals at every level of the society.Visionary and idealist you may say, and with just cause, for this society, with all that is bandied about to the contrary, thrives on ignorance and the mental servitude of unquestioning acceptance, but we must continue to strive for this vision for a better tomorrow.
Dr Errol Benjamin,
via e-mail