WHY IS INDEPENDENT AND CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT?
HOW CAN WE ENCOURAGE IT?

(adapted from Vol.1, No.1 Independent Thinking Review)
by Sharon Presley, Ph.D., Executive Director, RIT

We live in a society that sometimes pays lip service to thinking for yourself but doesn't particularly encourage it. Instead we live in a culture in which irrational, uncritical conformity of thought is far too common:

• Parents who demand unquestioning obedience ("Why? Because I said so.") and fail in their responsibility to encourage self-esteem and teach their children compassionate moral values or the ability to stand up for their beliefs
• Schools that fail to teach critical thinking skills and instead encourage docility and mindless memorization of "facts"
• Churches that demand strict obedience to outmoded behaviors and values that are both individually and socially destructive
• Government agencies and politicians that manipulate the media and lie routinely to cover up their misdoings
• TV and other media that present biased and superficial "news"
• TV and films that perpetuate stereotypes about gender, age, racial, ethnic and other groups and portray violence as an acceptable solution to problems
• Trendy pop psych therapies that offer simplistic solutions to complex personal problems
• Educational institutions that cave into demands for trendy "political correctness" no matter what rights get trampled
• Intellectuals, writers and activists who want to enforce "politically correct" ideas on others through intimidation, censorship and the force of law

Grim picture? Hopeless cause? The end of civilization as we know it? If we thought so, we wouldn't have started this organization. Many individuals, journals, and organizations have made and are making valuable contributions to rational and critical thinking in many areas. But there's been no general, nonacademic source of information about all these efforts that's aimed at a lay audience. That's what we are trying to do.

The goal of Resources for Independent Thinking is to bring together these "pieces of the puzzle" and provide you - whether you're a parent, teacher, policy maker, or just a concerned individual - with information you can use to

• become more critical of what you see and hear
• question your assumptions, beliefs, and values - discarding the irrational and keeping the rational
• become more skilled at standing up for your beliefs while still being tolerant and fair-minded about the beliefs of others
• encourage critical and independent thinking in your children, students, friends, colleagues or others
• become more active in the struggle for rational, critical and independent thinking.

We have many projects planned for the future, including workshops, seminars and development of educational materials. Through our periodical, Independent Thinking Review, we pass on information about many kinds of resources that can help you. This includes book reviews, descriptions of journals and organizations and how to get in touch with them, listings of videos, tapes, and other products, as well as juicy tidbits such as quotes, cartoons, self-quizzes, and short articles that we hope will stimulate your thinking.

We "warn" you that we don't have a "party-line." Though all of us associated with RIT agree on the importance of critical and independent thinking, we're a diverse lot, philosophically and politically. We don’t always agree with each other nor do we always agree with the speakers and writers we present. That's as it should be. If everyone agreed, not much critical thinking would get done. The journey that we have embarked upon is exciting, a little overwhelming, but one that we think is vitally important. We hope that you will join us.

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you like everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
  - e. e. cummings   "A Poet's Advice to Students"

© Copyright 1996 by Resources for Independent Thinking