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Humanities and the Importance of Critical Thinking

In the late 1970’s, two psychologists, Dr. Daniel Kahneman and Dr. Amos Tversky , set out to understand why “we” were failing ourselves in the rise (or fall) to Homo economicus – some semblance of a consistently rational, self-interested being capable of pursuing optimal decisions based on individual goals. It seems reasonable, right? Who doesn’t think of themselves as a more or less rational person able to make clear decisions? Or more accurately, who wants to openly admit to never really understanding why they make one decision over another going through life like a leaf in the wind? But the reality of the situation is much more complicated. Kahneman and Tversky’s work would take decades to unravel. Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2002, six years after Tversky died, and nearly ten years later in 2011 Kahneman published Thinking, Fast and Slow , an almost 500-page manuscript explaining the complex nature of a very simple concept – critical thinking.

We’ve all heard the phrase “slow down and think about it” or some disambiguation thereof, but it’s not always this simple. Kahneman details our fast thinking process, System 1, and slower, more critical process, System 2 , not as consistent adversaries but each serving a distinct purpose. Both have strengths and weaknesses: Our fast system relies on heuristics and bias (note that not all bias in inherently bad), while the other is slower, more compete, but needs more energy. Kahneman received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, and though the plethora of news stories about the rise of the NY Times Best-Seller List in 2011-12 are available all over the internet, his rise to fame appears to have quieted. So why now, in 2018, do we bring it up?

For starters let’s look at the current investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica . People are outraged – well, they were but they’re not ( it’s hard to tell ) – over the collection of data and use (some call manipulation or abuse) during the last election. But why? What Facebook did, and still does, is nothing new – we visited this topic earlier . We spoke about critically evaluating new stories as well with the all-important caveat that we’re probably the cause of fake news .

Everything you buy or use, more or less, comes with terms and conditions or user agreements but have you ever read one? In 2005, PC Pitstop included a line in their End-User License Agreement (EULA) which would award $1,000 to the first person to read the line and contact the company . That was it: read the contract you are “Agreeing” to, get paid $1,000. After thousands of downloads, it still took four months for anyone to claim the money. In the U.K., a Wi-Fi hotspot provider recently pulled a similar stunt but included wording that anyone using their service would be required to perform 1,000 hours of community service . The company never tried to enforce this clause, but users did agree unknowingly because there is a real problem with people not reading EULAs. So, why does this problem exist? Who wants to read the EULA or terms and conditions on every webpage they visit? Who has time? Next month the General Data Protection Regulation in the E.U. goes into effect to simplify this situation – for the E.U. And this presents an interesting paradox for the U.S. We are disgusted with the use of our data and simultaneously with regulation and laws. The simple solution is more critical thinking. Rather than automatically hopping on the latest app or website to join our friends in some digital mash-up, we need to think about what we are sharing and ask, what does the company do with what I give it? Mark Zuckerberg’s answer to U.S. Sen. Orin Hatch that Facebook sells ads to make money was comical to some as it demonstrated Sen. Hatch’s complete lack of technological savvy, but Zuckerberg’s answer beguiled the truth as well. Facebook does not only “sell ads” to make money, they clearly collect and sell data . But let’s move away from the digital world; we can only beat a dead horse for so long.

This critical thinking skill, the engagement of System 2, forces us to reconsider new or other perspectives, historical events, and new information: the humanities. This manifests in myriad ways that surface daily on our nightly news. Just recently, Nike faced an upheaval of executives at the highest level who were challenged by the women in its employ . After years of a “boy’s club” mentality and a toxic culture, the #metoo movement caught not one or two but numerous male executives at Nike. How do situations like this evolve? Heuristics and bias, our fast-thinking System 1. Critical thinking does not arrive at the conclusion with evidence to support the idea that demeaning anyone is “OK.” “Because it’s always been this way,” “everyone else does it,” or “Joe gets away with it,” is heuristical decision-making at its best.

Two Black men recently settled a case against the city of Philadelphia and Starbucks after they were forcibly removed from the store while waiting for friend – a hueristical decision made with race as a bias (Racism). On the same day, two Native American men were briefly apprehended by Colorado State University Police on campus because a parent was “nervous” . Nervousness, or fear, the unknowing, is a key trigger for our Fast System 1 processes – it is our flight or fight response and initial reaction to any given situation.

We constantly talk about diversity, inclusion, acceptance, and equality, whether it is different cultural backgrounds, gender, race, religious beliefs, gender orientation, etc. but is this superficial? Could we be more critical of our biases and aware of the implications this has on racism to address the truth of situation? From Black Lives Matter to a Day Without Women, a Day Without Immigrants to #Neveragain, we see these protests and rallies come and go but Amy Alexander from NPR argues perhaps we are unwilling to engage in the “ tough work required to address the hard, cold facts of gender and racial inequality ” rather it is all too easy to rely on our immediate reactions and move on.

And how can we truly understand these problems if we are not willing to engage in the hard work of critical thinking? How can a middle-class suburban individual understand the plight a low-income urban family living in subsidized housing? How might a non-Native American person truly feel the pain and anguish of two centuries of demonization as the “savage?” How can a normal American male understand the gender norming and degradation of women in the workplace with ever having experience it? How can we in Wyoming, a relatively safe state all-around understand the fear of violence and missing essentials of life, like clean water in Flint, MI? We may not be able to experience this, but we empathize if we are willing to engage in the hard work of critical thinking about the situation and facts not readily presented in our 30-second news stories.

When we watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, do we see the parallels in our own political and cultural rhetoric about women’s rights, the environment, and civil disobedience or do we only focus on the totalitarian government in place and react with disgust? If we play games like Far Cry 5 , do we understand the very real consequences and appeal of fundamentalist religions misrepresenting a larger body of beliefs or do we react only to the idea of Americans being portrayed as evil ? When we enjoy the movie Black Panther do we consider the powerful implications discussed in Afro-Futurism and the opportunities this success brings to future African-American people, or do we only see yet another Marvel movie ? Moving from our initial reactions to see the deeper implications is tough. Critical thinking can be mentally exhausting when all we want to do is tune in and veg out, but it can be much more rewarding.

We are not yet Homo economicus , we are emotional, fraught with complex decisions and a lack of information, and imperfect in our processes. But there is hope; we have the ability to overcome this if we choose to so. It is our choice to rely on our biases and reactions in decision making, but we elevate our thinking and the outcomes by engaging in critical thinking. Done with intent, this is the purpose of the humanities and our humanity: to reflect without bias (or with a clear understand and admission of it), critically on the matter at hand. To read, watch, engage, and converse in matters of our daily lives and move past our reactions to consideration of information which does not readily present itself.

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Critical and Creative Thinking

Claire Adams

Key Concepts

We all view the world through a lens; one shaped by our personal experiences. So, to objectively analyze a news story, cartoon, painting, photograph, essay, song, or any number of ways we express our human experience, we begin by being aware of how our brain works.

You may hear the phrase “critical thinking” used many times in a humanities course. In the context of humanities, critical thinking is the process of reflection about our personal values, paradigms, and experiences. Creative thinking is another important tool for studying the humanities. By “creative thinking,” we mean challenging what you think you know and asking you to think outside the box. Creative thinking also acknowledges and explores how other people may see or experience the world differently from us.

Creative Approaches to Critical Thinking

What is critical thinking.

A key component of critical thinking is analyzing a person or event from multiple perspectives . The opposite of critical thinking would be characterizing a group of people based on a singular experience with one individual. Not only does this limited perspective interfere with critical and creative thinking, but it may also lead us to treat people or situations with unrealistic expectations.

Credit: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “ The Danger of a Single Story .” TEDGlobal 2009. July 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the damage caused by people’s limited perceptions. She starts by sharing her perceptions of people from her childhood in Nigeria. She then moves on to other people’s perceptions of her and Nigerian culture when she was a student in the United States.

Questions for Critical & Creative Thinking

• Have you ever been subjected to a stereotype?
• Where do you think the basis of this assumption came from? Is there any truth to the idea?
• Do you feel like these stereotypes limit you or encourage you?

What Do We Know?

Our reaction to information—whether it comes via images, sound, or words—is informed by our value systems. Our value systems, in turn, are shaped by personal experience and learned knowledge.

Consider something as fundamental as clothing. The sight of a man wearing a skirt in Salt Lake City would be unusual enough that he would probably elicit some stares. However, maybe not from people living in Scotland or the Pacific islands. This is an example of a response informed by cultural context. In this case, about what is regarded as normal or acceptable attire for men to wear in public. There are also historical imperatives. In present-day society, men and women frequently wear jeans or pants. However, 100 years ago, a woman wearing pants was neither a common nor acceptable fashion statement.

Can you choose which of the following historical factors were at play to allow women in the United States the freedom to wear “men’s” clothing?

• The suffrage movement for women’s right to vote
• World War I and World War II (Hint: military conscription of men necessitated a female workforce.)
• The birth control pill

Think about what people considered normal in earlier historical settings and reflect on your own reaction.

• Do you think they are silly? Funny?
• Or were their standards acceptable because they were based on the information available at the time?

Let us look at another example, this time a symbol most likely associated with negative reactions. The swastika symbol was adopted by the Nazi party during World War II. Because of this, most people perceive the swastika as a symbol of murder and destruction.

The origins of this symbol reach back much further than 20 th -century Germany. The oldest known swastika is estimated to be about 15,000 years old , which puts it in the Paleolithic Period (Stone Age). Throughout history, the swastika was used in regions all over the world, including China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. It has been used to represent good luck, prosperity, and the sun. If not equipped with this knowledge before traveling abroad, it would be easy to assume that Nazi sympathizers had lived in these countries.

Questions to Critical & Creative Thinking

• Prior to reading about the history of the swastika, what conclusions might you have reached if you visited a building displaying a swastika on the wall?
• A swastika symbol on Japanese maps indicates the location of a Buddhist temple. In preparation for the 2020 Olympics, Japan’s national mapmaking department is considering changing the map symbol to something else. Do you think they should or should not change the symbol? Why or why not? Can you think of another way to resolve this issue?

What Is a Creative Approach to Critical Thinking?

As you might imagine from the swastika example, challenging long-held values or beliefs can cause conflict among people, and perhaps discomfort for an individual person. However, it is important to remember that critical and creative thinking does not require you to change your mind but rather, evaluate how you got there. One way to look at it is to imagine that critical thinking is like taking something apart, while creative thinking is like recycling or repurposing something. In the end, you may still end up with the same beliefs. Or you may discover you have acquired some new values.

Again, the goal is to get you thinking about how you think. In an early scene from the movie, The Matrix (1999) , the character Orpheus offers the protagonist Neo a blue pill and a red pill.

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Likewise, by encouraging you to think critically and creatively, this course offers you a similar choice. You can superficially engage with the various artifacts presented throughout this book, skip the critical and creative thinking questions, and finish the book with your points of view pretty much unchanged. Or you can accept occasionally feeling uncomfortable as you delve deeper into how people across the centuries and around the world have tried to make sense of the human condition. Blue pill or red pill? You choose!

How to Approach an Artifact

Another critical thinking tool is the use and analysis of artifacts. A humanities artifact could be a piece of writing, music, painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, film, or any number of created works. In her article “A Method for Reading, Writing, & Thinking Critically,” Kathleen McCormick explains that we should consider the historical and cultural context when analyzing an artifact of written text. Additional contexts for approaching any type of artifact include economic, political, geographical, social, and religious, to name a few. These contextual pieces offer clues as to what may have motivated a person to compose or create an artifact. Analyzing context can also help us to determine how relevant an artifact is to our contemporary experiences.

In addition to considering context, it is important to ask a series of questions when approaching an artifact of the humanities. Critical and creative thinking encourages us to be actively engaged with a piece of text, music, or art. Some questions you should be asking yourself as you engage with the artifacts presented in this course include:

• Who is the author or creator of the artifact?
• What do we know about the artifact’s historical context, i.e., what was happening when the artifact was created?
• What was the inspiration or motivation for creating this artifact? For example, was it a commissioned piece or spontaneous creation?
• For written text, is there a narrative voice? If so, is it first person or third?
• Does who is speaking make a difference for a narrative?
• What is the main message the author or creator is trying to convey?
• Who, if any, is the author or creator’s intended audience?
• Does this artifact present a familiar concept or message? Is it something new for you?
• Does the author or creator’s message align or conflict with your values?

When we engage with humanities artifacts and then apply critical and creative thinking, we are not merely going through a process of decoding. Hopefully, this book helps you understand that analyzing the humanities using this approach is a sincere thoughtful process that helps broaden your understanding of what the humanities are and why understanding them is so important.

Looking Exercises: Visual Art

These exercises will help you practice using critical and creative analysis of a humanities artifact through visual art.

The visual arts are a broad umbrella encompassing artifacts that are appreciated by looking at them. These arts include painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, printmaking, crafts, architecture, textiles, and much more. These artifacts are the result of people trying to make sense of their physical and inner worlds, and conveying that understanding to other people.

An important first question to ask when considering a visual arts artifact is, was the work commissioned? Meaning, was the piece created at the request of someone else, such as a government, individual, nonprofit group, political group, or otherwise? Naturally, the sentiment embodied in the artifact and the intended audience will likely align with the values of the group or person who commissioned it rather than the artist who created it.

Other important questions might include, when was the piece created? What political issues were prominent at the time? What historical events were happening? By gathering as much contextual information as possible about the artifact, we are better equipped to interpret the artifact’s message or intention.

Looking at a piece of art, we can ask whether what we see relates to our contemporary setting. Sometimes, in order to fully understand an artifact, we must be familiar with the historical, political, or social context surrounding its creation.

The painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso was first displayed in Paris on May 1, 1937. He painted it during the midst of the Spanish Civil War (July 1936–April 1939) as an artistic reaction to the Nazi’s bombing of the Basque town on April 26, 1937 . The painting is monochromatic, to show the misery inflicted by the aerial bombardment. The images in the painting present the tragedy and suffering of the war: a dismembered soldier and nurse; an all-seeing eye; and the Spanish symbols of a bull and a horse.

One contextual question to ask is, does Picasso’s painting only hold relevance to the Spanish Civil War? Two examples of contemporary situations demonstrate that this painting can be relevant beyond what Picasso may have originally intended. In fact, this artifact presents timeless relevancy to the perception, interpretation, and expression of our human experiences during a war.

On February 28, 1974 , Tony Shafrazi entered the Museum of Modern Art in New York  City, and red-spray painted the words “Kill Lies All” over the Guernica. Shafrazi said this was “ a protest against the release on bail of the lieutenant later convicted for his role in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.”  The red paint was easily removed, as Guernica was heavily varnished.

On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell delivered a speech at the United Nations (UN) headquarters to make the case for war with Iraq. He was standing in front of a tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica, which hangs in the UN as a reminder of the horror of war and the need for diplomacy first. The tapestry was covered with a blue sheet.

Reports of the UN’s position behind this action vary and the organization did not release an official statement. However, using contextual information, such as the painting’s history, we can deduce some logical reasons. The New York Times reported the UN started covering the tapestry because they were afraid a horse’s screaming head would be visible next to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix while he spoke.  The article offered an alternative reason , “Mr. Powell can’t very well seduce the world into bombing Iraq surrounded on camera by shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses.”

An article in the Toronto Star ran the quote, “A [un-named] diplomat stated that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings.”

Listening Exercises: Songs and Music

Our values shape our listening choices, both in conversations and songs. As described, we prefer listening to speech and music that agree with our values and ideas. In other words, we gravitate to news channels, influential people, and song lyrics that support our world view. This tendency to seek out similar viewpoints ends up reinforcing our world view rather than expanding it.

There are several reasons for this behavior:

• Consensual validation: When we meet people who share similar attitudes, it makes us feel more confident about our world view. For example, if you love jazz music, meeting a fellow jazz lover confirms that your love of jazz is OK and maybe even virtuous.
• Cognitive evaluation: We naturally form positive or negative impressions of other people by generalizing from the information we acquire through experience or absorption. When a person has common interests with us, we assume that we must also share other positive characteristics with that person.
• Certainty of being liked: We assume that someone who shares common interests and viewpoints will probably like us. In turn, we tend to like people if we think they like us.
• Preference for enjoyable interactions: It is just more fun to hang out with someone when you have a lot in common.
• Opportunity for self-expansion: We benefit from new knowledge and experiences as the direct result of spending time with someone else. Oddly, people seeking self-expansion will gravitate toward people who are similar to them, even though a person with dissimilar perspectives would likely provide greater opportunities for self-expansion.

Music presents an artifact with many contextual facets. Some people listen to music for entertainment value. Others listen to find meaning in either the music or lyrics, or both. Very often, we attach meanings to music depending on where we were or what was happening when we heard it. Composers will have an inspiration or recall their personal experiences when creating music. Therefore, when analyzing music, it is important to consider the context that includes our personal response, the composer’s motivation, and perhaps outside influences, such as historical events or political movements.

There are fundamental questions we can ask regardless of musical genre:

• When did the artist compose the music?
• How does the genre of music impact its meaning?
• Does the tempo make us feel a certain way, such as sad, energized, relaxed, or irritated? How about the lyrics?
• Who do you think the music was written for? The musician? The listener?
• What do you think is the message is? Is meaning fluid or changeable?
• Does your musical taste change over time? As you get older? Due to events in your life?

As you move through this course, you may discover information that is already familiar to you. Those cases are an opportunity to put on your critical and creative thinking cap and use it to reflect on your existing world views and values. Observe, and then, ask yourself lots of questions!

• Does your gender, race, sexuality, socio-economic status inform your interpretation of an artifact?
• What was happening historically when you read, listened to, or observed the artifact?
• Are (or were) there external circumstances, such as laws or events, that may have informed your interpretation of an artifact?
• Do you have acquired knowledge that helps deepen your appreciation or understanding of an artifact?
• Do you agree or disagree with an artist or creator’s message? If you disagree, can you appreciate why they felt compelled to create their message?

Remember, these questions are not intended to force you to shift your ideology. However, they do require you to consider how your personal perspective affects your interpretation of artifacts. And hopefully, these questions will encourage you to look at things from a different perspective than the one you are used to using.

The examples, questions, and descriptions in this book are designed to help teach you to:

• See and interpret patterns in people’s behavior.
• View situations from a variety of different perspectives.
• Realize that there may not be definitive answers to questions that arise from the human experience.

For our last example, use your critical and creative thinking skills to reflect on the following quote by Lawrence Wright:

“We prefer an ordered world, regular patterns, familiar forms, and when flaws or distortions occur, provided they are not too gross, our mind’s eye tidies them up. We see what we want or expect to see.”

• Do you agree with Wright? Do you prefer to categorize contemporary and historical events so they fit in with your world view?
• If you disagree, in what way?
• Is it possible that you could be misinterpreting information? Is it possible you do not have possession of all the facts?
• Do you operate in a clearly defined narrative within a clearly defined paradigm?
• Could you possibly change your mind?

Modified from Claire Adams’ open-access pressbook: From Human Being to Human Doing

Critical and Creative Thinking Copyright © by Claire Adams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Humanities in Class: A Guide to Thinking and Learning in the Humanities

With the generous support of the GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, the National Humanities Center’s Education Programs are undertaking a project to develop a deeper portfolio of curricular materials and help set standards for humanities education that highlight differences among humanities disciplines.

Central to this effort is an acknowledgment that each discipline engages its own unique lens through which to approach scholarship and learning — that there is a way of knowing that is equally as important as a specific body of knowledge.

For instance, thinking and teaching like a historian requires a certain set of intellectual and instructional tools to effectively work in the discipline; and, while work in U.S. history and world history have similar qualities, each requires a cognitive shift specific to its geographic focus. Similarly, while thinking and teaching like an English or American literature scholar, a philosophy or geography educator, an artist or a political scientist all share common features as fields in the humanities, each domain draws on a specific and unique set of core tenets.

Humanities in Class: A Guide to Thinking and Learning in the Humanities  is a compilation of guides in ten different humanities disciplines that identify the key qualities and practices of those disciplines, considering:  What questions are asked? What tools and resources are invaluable? What processes occur?  Created to be accessible and flexible and to meet the needs of educators and classrooms at all levels, the guide features media and digital content that helps clarify and establish fluency for each discipline.

• art history
• environmental humanities
• humanities and science integrative studies
• literature studies
• philosophy and ethics
• political theory and civics
• U.S. and global history
• A web-based collection of instructional guides that focus on ways of knowing and ways of teaching in each discipline
• A series of media-based reflections by lead scholars and educators in each field, including podcasts and video dialogues
• A set of resources and bibliographies that offer additional avenues into these instructional approaches

Now Available

Daniel Palazzolo and Patrick Touart, “How to Think Like a Political Scientist”

Edward kinman and megan webster, “how to think like a geographer”, michael fontaine and skye shirley, “how to think like a twenty-first century classicist”, teresa assenzo and morna o’neill, “how to think like an art historian”, elizabeth mulcahy and​ ​molly warsh, “how to think​ ​(and teach) about world history in the digital age”, michael burroughs and allison cohen, “how to think like a philosopher in the digital age”, ben wides and warren zanes, “how to think like a musicologist”, omar ali and andromeda crowell, “how to integrate humanities and stem in the classroom”, nancy gardner and patricia matthew, “how to teach english literature and writing in the digital age”, matthew booker and kim gilman, “how to think in the environmental humanities”.

Meet the Humanities in Class Team

Omar h. ali.

Teresa Assenzo

Matthew Morse Booker (NHC Fellow, 2016–17)

Michael D. Burroughs

Allison Cohen

Andromeda Crowell

Michael Fontaine

Nancy Gardner

Kimberly Gilman

Edward L. Kinman

Patricia A. Matthew (NHC Fellow, 2022–23)

Andy Mink (NHC Staff)

Elizabeth Mulcahy

Morna O’Neill (NHC Fellow, 2012–13)

Daniel Palazzolo, Ph.D.

Skye Shirley

Libby Taylor (NHC Staff)

Patrick Touart

Molly A. Warsh

Megan Webster

Warren Zanes