CAMPUS

Pipeline Delayed

A CRITIQUE OF LOVING THINKING Ryan Katz-Rosene and Gulden Ozcan

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Political puppets aren’t the only actors in this pipeline drama. To keep up with the recent Enbridge expansions, TransCanada is hoping to go ahead with those phases of the Keystone XL which do not cross international borders. This way TransCanada can avoid needing the approval of the US State Department. KOCH BLOCK According to California Congressman Henry Waxman, the infamous Koch Industries is expected to “benefit most from construction of the Keystone XL” by virtue of the company’s stake in the Alberta oil sands and the oil refinery business internationally. Koch Industries has invested heavily in the American political process. According to US government watchdog opensecrets. org, Koch Industries has spent $5.5 million USD on federal lobbies thus far in 2011. These contributions seem to have provided Koch Industries with a certain level of political immunity; earlier this year several prominent Republicans shot down Rep. Waxman’s proposal to assess the Koch connection with the Keystone XL project. Last month Waxman reasserted the need to investigate Koch Industries’ involvement, though it seems as if his calls for critical analysis will fall silent on money-stuffed ears. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Koch brothers, David and Charles, donated a total of $279,500 to 22 of the 31 Republican members of the US House Energy and

Commerce Committee and a total of $32,000 to the five Democratic members. These contributions are problematic considering Koch Industries’ history of disregard for the environment: between 1999-2003, the company paid over $400 million in fines and penalties, 75 percent of which were attributable to oil spills and leaks in pipelines. To put this amount in perspective, Koch Industries’ revenues totalled $98 billion in 2008. There is thus little incentive for multinational corporations to act responsibly. Accountability should take the form of government policy. CONCLUSIONS Opinion on the Keystone XL remains a matter of perspective. Depending on where you stand the postponement is either a David-and-Goliath story or a case of a besieged President trying to simultaneously salvage credibility and appeal to both sides of a divided electorate. The project would provide a boost to the US economy, but it would be short-lived. If job creation is the government’s top priority, it would be better off investing in developing alternative energy industries. While pipelines are the greenest form of transporting crude oil, and thus represent a desirable alternative to rail or road transport of fuel, they do little to attack the root of the environmental and political problem - consumption. Loosening big oil’s grip on the political process begins with curbing our own consumption.

6 The Leveller vol 4, no 3, Nov/Dec 2011

A new pedagogy is sweeping through the University of Calgary; it’s called “loving thinking.” We learned this after stumbling upon a recent TEDxTalk on YouTube by Patrick Finn, a drama instructor at the University of Calgary. Finn’s thesis is that critical thinking “now needs to be thrown into the recycling bin,” and that academia in the 21st century is better suited to “loving thinking”. Finn claims critical thinking is “a very linear and very violent way to think about ideas.” By introducing a policy of “loving thinking” as opposed to critical thinking, his hope is that creativity and dialogue will be promoted, not stifled: “If you say something from the audience, no bitter SOB is allowed to give you their witty, acidy retort that collapses your argument and leaves nothing for the group.” While we sympathize with Finn’s concern—nobody wants a “bitter SOB” in their classroom – we believe he is just as guilty as his students of misunderstanding critical thinking. As an educator in the post-secondary setting, it is his role to untangle critical analysis from purposeless faultfinding. Denying the value of critical thinking is a pathway towards complacency, acceptance of the status quo and a conservative world where change and transformation is not sought.

THE VALUE OF CRITICAL THINKING There are notable thinkers in history who have helped us see the value of critical thinking, such as Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault. Marx once argued that, “what we have to accomplish at present [is the] ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results [our criticism] arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.” Here Marx was not being the bitter SOB, but (to use another analogy) the well reasoned and witty kid who challenges the schoolyard bully in defense of her/his peers. In this sense, Finn is right to call critical thinking a kind of “martial art of the mind,” because it aims to fight against the violent nature of ignorant and avaricious thinking. Critical, dialectical thinking is always pulled into a fight because it challenges power and authority. As Adorno explained, “dialectics mean to achieve something positive by means of negation.” What is presented to us as truth in the classroom (or in society at large) is often a pseudo-reality that hides more than it reveals. By thinking critically, dialectically and even negatively (in the sense of negating what we are told is “the truth”), we can reveal the murky waters that underlie inequality. Foucault also advocated criticism as a form of trans-

gression by analyzing the limitations of dominant points of view: “[It] is a matter of flushing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest… [and then] trying to change it.” Finn argues critical thinking is linear, yet it is actually based on the idea of dialogue. It is meant to bring something new into existence through the interaction of thesis and antithesis. The goal is synthesis. Critical thinking questions, destabilizes and helps us better understand how the world in which we live has come to be this way. This is the first step in thinking of just alternatives. THE DANGER IN INSTRUMENTALIST “LOVING THINKING” Finn claims our universities are all about teaching critical thinking and laments that it has misguided us. Yet in our own experiences we have seen the growing dominance of instrumentalist thinking (the exact opposite of critical thinking), and we believe it’s dangerous. Instrumental reason is based on ends justifying the means; it disregards reason because subjects are expected to follow given procedures. This method of thinking conceals the contradictions that are intrinsic to social relations. More and more, students are cajoled into agreeing, complying, and accepting their

reality and chastised for challenging the way things are. “Loving thinking” resembles instrumentalist thinking. Loving thinking is responsible for the everpresent assumption that people in power mean well. It presumes that we’re being taken care of and protected by the authorities. It leads one to believe that if our government is invading another country, it must be for a good reason. The setting of post-secondary education should be one that moves students to question the socalled “truths” they hear every day from the mainstream media, teachers, government, parents and elites. The point is not to tell students what to think, but to demonstrate why critical thinking can be a valuable enterprise and consequently, why instrumentalist thinking can be dangerous. Let us not forget that totalitarianism has arisen in societies where criticism has been forbidden and instrumentalist reasoning has been encouraged. As Howard Zinn once said, “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Along these lines, we believe (dialectical) criticism is the highest form of social engagement. Not only is critical thinking valuable; we believe it is sadly disappearing and badly needed if we have a hope of making the world a better place.

The setting of post-secondary education should be the one that moves students to question the everyday “truths” they hear from mainstream media, teachers, government, parents, and elites. The point is not to tell students what to think, but to demonstrate why critical thinking can be a valuable enterprise and consequently, why instrumentalist thinking can be dangerous.

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