Strong-Sense Critical Thinking Exercise

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

Ruby Ridge, ID: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/incident-at-ruby-ridge

Waco, TX: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2045.html

Okalahoma City, OK: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/mcveigh/profile.html

I begin inductively.

Ruby Ridge, Idaho

August 21, 1992: Randy Weaver, his family, and friend Kevin Harrison squared off with US Marshalls Service and FBI. Weaver was a white separatist who had failed to appear in court on charges of selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to an undercover ATF agent.

“On August 21, 1992, after a period of surveillance, U.S. marshals came upon Harrison; Weaver; Weaver’s 14-year-old son, Sammy; and the family dog, Striker, on a road near the Weaver property. A marshal shot and killed the [family] dog, prompting Sammy [Weaver’s teenage son] to fire at the marshal. In the ensuing gun battle, Sammy and U.S. Marshal Michael Degan were shot and killed. A tense standoff ensued, and on August 22 the FBI joined the marshals besieging Ruby Ridge.

In the course of the standoff, Weaver and Harrison were wounded; Vicki Weaver was killed; Harris, Weaver, and Weaver’s three daughters surrendered nine days later.

“Later that day, Harris, Weaver, and his daughter, Sarah, left the cabin, allegedly for the purpose of preparing Sammy’s body for burial. FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi, waiting 200 yards away, opened fire, allegedly because he thought Harrison was armed and intending to fire on a helicopter in the vicinity. Horiuchi wounded Weaver, and the group ran to the shed where Sammy’s body was lying. When they attempted to escape back into the cabin, Horiuchi fired again, wounding Harrison as he dove through the door and killing Vicki Weaver, who was holding the door open with one hand and cradling her infant daughter with the other. Horiuchi claimed he didn’t know that Vicki Weaver was standing behind the door. Harris, Weaver, and Weaver’s three daughters surrendered nine days later.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncvHvUujX8 (till 7:37)

Waco, Texas

February 28-April 20, 1993: a 51-day siege. David Kuresh (who thought himself to be an angel and agent of God) had set up the so-called Branch Davidian compound. He had illegal firearms and explosives there, and the authorities also suspected that child abuse was taking place. On April 20th, the ATF tried to execute a search warrant. A gun battle broke out. Eventually, the FBI was called in. Eighty sect members, including two dozen children, were killed by bullets and fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3B7iWE1PrA

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Timothy McVeigh was a decorated Army veteran of the first Gulf War, a member of the First Infantry Division, a sergeant, a Bronze Star recipient, and the best shot in his unit. He even blew an Iraqi soldier’s head off from a great distance away. But then he realized that this man hadn’t ever done anything to him. I think that this may have been the start of his grudge against the federal government. Later, after failing a tryout for Special Forces, he left the military, drifted, attended gun shows, and preached against the evils of the government.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, the Murrah Building, with a truck bomb, killing 168 people, including 19 children in a day care center. He got away in a car with no license plate and was stopped and arrested. He was actually in jail for this traffic violation while the FBI tried to figure out who had committed the bombing. He was executed on June 11, 2001, by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haut, Indiana. There was live coverage of the execution during the Today show. I watched it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l08zD9Pn1jk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smLYgadzAHI

Here’s how what I just told you intersects with our course. Tim McVeigh did critical thinking.

· He had information on the deaths at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

· He had a context: His service in Iraq. His slow radicalization because of right-wing propaganda (like the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries, which he read like a Bible).

· He asked himself a question at issue: What would be a proper response on my part to Waco and Ruby Ridge?

· He made at least a couple of assumptions: 1) That if the government kills civilians, civilians have the right—indeed, the responsibility—to kill government officials. 2) That, as Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”: this statement was on his T-shirt when he was arrested.

· He thought in terms of alternative concepts: He considered himself a patriot and the government a tyrant.

· Patriotism and tyranny are also alternative points of view, but he disregarded the point of view of the private citizens he murdered and their families, not to mention the law.

· His purpose in blowing up the building was to avenge the deaths at Waco and Ruby Ridge and to call attention to governmental misdeeds.

· He concluded that the bombing was a justifiable response.

· The obvious consequence was mass carnage. 168 deaths, including non-governmental persons and children. The destruction of a building. Of a truck.

· Here are two alternative interpretations that depend on point of view: “For McVeigh, the act was not a crime but a soldier’s mission.” Or: It was the worst act of domestic terrorism prior to 9/11.

· And then something complicated. I call it an interpretation of a consequence via a concept: He considered the death of 19 children at the day care center to be “collateral damage.”

Now, in CRTW, perhaps we assume that if we use the elements, check ourselves with the standards, and foster the critical thinking traits, we will achieve “strong-sense” critical thinking, ETHICAL thinking, which means not blowing up buildings with people in them. Weak sense critical thinking is sophistry; it is thinking in the service of egocentrism or sociocentrism or violence or evil.

Remember what I said to you on the first day of class? I said that the purpose of CRTW—of studying the elements and standards—is not to make you more elegantly agile in shoring up your preconceptions. That is not sophistry; it is deep learning.

But here you have McVeigh. I just showed you that his thinking breaks down according to the elements. His plan also was broad, clear, deep, important, precise, and sufficient. He also had confidence in his reason, was intellectually courageous, had intellectual integrity of a sort, was intellectually engaged, and showed intellectual perseverance.

Would history be different if he had realized that his conclusion was inaccurate because it was based on a false assumption (namely, if the government kills civilians, civilians may kill government workers)? If he had been intellectually humble, empathetic, and especially fair-minded would he still have bombed the Federal Building?

Let’s talk about fair-mindedness.

Paul and Elder 194: “Fair-mindedness entails the predisposition to equally consider all relevant viewpoints, without reference to one’s own feelings or selfish interests, or the feelings or selfish interests of one’s friends, community, or nation. It implies adherence to intellectual standards (such as accuracy, sound logic, and breadth of vision), uninfluenced by one’s own advantage or the advantage of one’s group.”

McVeigh pretty clearly violated fair-mindedness because his view was limited to one point of view, his own military, mission-driven view, which gave rise to vengeance.

Is the problem really that McVeigh didn’t use the elements and the standards correctly and completely and that he did not foster all of the CT traits, especially fair-mindedness? Yeah, maybe, in a perfect world the toolbox might have saved lives.

His response might be the following red herring: But what was fair-minded about killing innocent people in Ruby Ridge and Waco? And should a critically thinking SOLDIER even care about fair-mindedness if carrying out the mission is all important?

And so he did the very thing whose commission in Idaho and Texas gave rise to his murderous project. His is a case of critical thinking in the service of barbarism.

I tell you his story and the two back stories to get at the following question:

Does using the toolbox 100% properly mean that we will do the right thing? In other words, is critical thinking necessarily and inherently ETHICAL thinking? I think not. As McVeigh’s example illustrates, it is possible to use the elements and standards for evil and to ignore the ethical—the strong-sense—implications of fair-mindedness and other traits. To mix metaphors, it’s possible to “cherry pick” the toolbox in the interest of egocentism.

Maybe that’s because there were some ethical components in his world view: like the importance of fairness and justice, though they got caught up in a whirlwind of megalomania: Tim McVeigh, lone avenging ranger. It’s sort of like how everybody wants a healthy baby, but Hitler’s eugenics program was too extreme. In Nosich’s terms, conflicting systems were at work: one said that one should not kill innocent people; the other said that one should avenge the killing of innocent people.

Here is the POINT: WU wants you to use the toolbox to promote the RIGHT KIND of critical thinking, namely, ETHICAL thinking. University-Level Competency #2 says: “Winthrop graduates are personally and socially responsible.”Social responsibility is ETHICAL responsibility and requires strong-sense CT.

If parts of the CT toolbox have a kind of neutrality, but if we are called on to think ethically, then what informs and undergirds strong-sense CT?

Here’s a question to consider:

· WHAT DETERMINES THAT YOU WILL USE YOUR TOOLBOX FOR STRONG-SENSE CRITICAL THINKING?

· If strong-sense CT fosters moral correctness, what standard is being invoked, and where does it come from? What kind of overarching principle underlies the tools that Nosich offers? And what shifts them from neutral to ethical? In brief, what lines your toolbox?

· Take a few moments to jot down the sources of your critical-thinking systems. Whence comes moral authority?

Here are some of the answers that I have received:

· Upbringing, parents

· Past experiences

· Our society

· Cultural traditions

· Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom (I’m not sure how that one got on the list)

· Religion, God, philosophy

· Do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone.

· The Golden Rule

· Social contract

· Sacrifice for the greater good.

· Utilitarianism

· Education