Preface
To be American in 2020 was to live in a country diminished in the world, unwilling to control the spread of disease, or face up to our racism, and looking over the precipice of abandoning the very democracy that was supposed to be the solid core of our national Identity.
- Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy U.S. National Security Advisor
Since 2020 the situation in the United States described above has not improved. Democracy in the United States continues in decline. This is a major concern of many U.S. citizens. There are a myriad of political, economic, and social factors contributing to U.S. democracy’s decline over the past two decades. This book focuses on two key factors related to the decline. First, I identify the lack of critical thinking, which includes how citizens gather truthful information pertaining to politics and government and then use this information with good logic and reasoning to create knowledge and make useful decisions about civic life. Second, I focus on the poor condition of U.S. civic education, which teaches citizens about the details and inner workings of the U.S. government and civic life. The most important decisions citizens make in civic life concern casting their votes for their preferred political candidates for governmental offices. Citizens hope their elected governmental officials will act in the best interests of not only the citizen, but also in the best interests of the citizen’s family, community, and state and national governments. This is not always the case!
There are several different frameworks for critical thinking. This book uses a critical-thinking framework initially created by the California-based Foundation for Critical Thinking.[1] I have added a few tweaks to this framework as will be explained in Chapter 2. As a bonus, critical thinking, as presented in this book, is applicable to all decision-making demands in a person’s civic, personal, and professional lives.
Civic life has varying definitions. At civic life’s heart are activities where a citizen interacts with the political and governmental systems affecting their lives. These interactions are often referred to as civic engagement—this definition will be expanded in Chapter 1. Some civic life definitions include community participation where citizens interact with their community (food banks, sports leagues, festivals, etc.), religious organizations, and workplace groups, among others. This book does not address the larger community participation aspects of civic life but deals mainly with the key factors of critical thinking and civic education guiding U.S. citizen interactions with our political and governmental systems.
In describing and offering actions to improve U.S. civic life, this book uses a combination of material from history, recent politics, logic, and reasoning, including a few scholarly theories. It goes into detail about improving critical thinking and civic education that could help arrest the decline in U.S. democracy and influence a better country-wide civic life. I have attempted to present this material for a broad readership. However, at times the material may seem too far “in-the-weeds.” For that I apologize. Upper-division undergraduates (juniors, seniors), college graduates, graduate students, those without college degrees but well-read in politics and government, or curious individuals who just desire to learn more, should have little problem with this material.
The book provides a logical progression for material presented. Chapter 1 better defines why civic life and critical thinking are vital to U.S. democracy. Chapter 2 provides historical information on human thinking and the latest comprehensive framework for applying critical thinking in all decision-making situations. Chapter 3 presents aspects of information literacy—skills related to finding, assessing, using, and documenting information. Identifying misinformation and disinformation is a major theme of this chapter. Chapter 4 identifies issues surrounding potential information biases, poor logic, and bad arguments frequently encountered in political and governmental narratives. Chapter 5 discusses basic civic education content that informed U.S. citizens should understand. It does not present the detailed structure or innerworkings of the U.S. Constitution or U.S. governmental organizations but provides a short history of democracy, insights on key issues in U.S. democracy, and how democracy can slide into decline (as has recently occurred). Chapter 6 develops the general context of world and U.S. politics by presenting a method to identify the political culture(s) at work in a situation. Understanding the influences of political cultures is important in citizens explaining and predicting political events worldwide. Chapter 7 provides techniques to analyze points of view, assumptions, and beliefs as part of a comprehensive approach to critical thinking. Chapter 8 develops a step-by-step sample voting analysis using the elements of the critical-thinking framework introduced in Chapter 2. Chapter 9 concludes the book with an argument for how we can move forward and improve critical thinking and civic education leading to improved democracy and a better U.S. civic life.
A short word on definitions used in the book. At times I use the word thinker (researcher, analyst, etc.) to define the person engaged in a critical-thinking project. I also at times use the word agent (actor, person, decision-maker, citizen, etc.) to define the person or groups of people who are the subjects of an analysis. A thinker is often the person on the outside of a civic event and is “looking in” to explain or predict the behaviors or decisions of agents. There are also times when the thinker is the agent and goes inside the civic event. This is for those who use critical thinking to make their own civic decisions. Chapters 2 and 8 provide examples of civic decisions where the thinker is also the agent.
The formatting for this book may be unfamiliar to some readers. Endnotes containing supporting references and additional comments on topics are at the end of each chapter. Words bolded in the text (less the headings) indicate key concepts or phrases the reader should hopefully master. The book does not include a final list of references or index.
This book includes material from my learning, teaching, and research in critical thinking and comparative politics over the last four decades. Like most U.S. citizens, I was never taught comprehensive critical thinking in my elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or graduate (master’s and Ph.D.) education. I did become a Ph.D. specialist in social science research methodology, which I used in my own research and taught for over 20 years at both the college undergraduate and graduate levels. It was not until I joined the faculty of Eastern Kentucky University in 2008 and engaged with its Teaching and Learning Center (for faculty development) that I was introduced to comprehensive critical thinking. This influenced me to develop a synthesized analytic approach combining comprehensive critical thinking with social science research techniques. This synthesis drives the content in this book.
At times the text references two of my recent books and sends readers to them for more in-depth material on a topic. Security Analysis, A Critical-Thinking Approach[2] (2023) provides guidance to intelligence and security policy analysts and goes deeper into critical thinking and associated social research techniques. Critical Belief Analysis for Security Studies[3] (2024) was co-authored with my friend and colleague Barnet Feingold and has much more material on critical belief analysis than is presented in Chapter 7. Both books are available for free online download through the Eastern Kentucky University Libraries.
To remain somewhat neutral in the U.S. political sphere, in the text I do not employ the words Democrat, Republican, or Independent (the three main U.S. political movements). Instead, I use the general terms liberal, centrist, and conservative at times to refer to those advancing certain U.S. political ideologies. I also tend not to use the names of political candidates or governmental officials, except in chapter-opening quotes and in a few situations not considered politically controversial. I do use examples from both past and recent U.S. politics. If you are well informed in politics, it should be obvious which political movements/parties and candidates/officials are involved in these examples.
I have done my best to provide attribution to the ideas and works of others included in this book. Ultimately, all mistakes in fact, examples, sources, and analytic techniques are mine alone. Nothing in this book should be used to assert or imply U.S. government authentication or endorsement of any material presented. Nothing in this book intentionally touches on classified material.
I hope you find this book both intellectually stimulating and entertaining. Its purpose is not to tell you “what to think,” but instead provides techniques for teaching students and adults out of school a systematic process for “how to think critically.” If more U.S. citizens learn “how to think critically,” and become more civically informed and engaged, it would greatly strengthen and improve both U.S. democracy and U.S. civic life.
Michael W. Collier, Ph.D.
Williamsburg, Virginia
Notes
Foundation for Critical Thinking, https://www.criticalthinking.org/. ↑
Michael W. Collier, Security Analysis, a Critical-Thinking Approach (Richmond, KY: Eastern Kentucky University Libraries Encompass, 2023), https://encompass.eku.edu/ekuopen/6/ or https://manifold.open.umn.edu/projects/security-analysis.↑
Barnet D. Feingold and Michael W. Collier, Critical Belief Analysis for Security Studies (Richmond, KY: Eastern Kentucky University Libraries Encompass, 2024), https://manifold.open.umn.edu/projects/critical-belief-analysis-for-security-studies.↑