The Art of Thinking 9e Ch03

C H A P T E R
3
Broaden Your Perspective
Have you noticed that many of the people who claim to be individu-
als dress, talk, and act exactly like other people? Is it possible that all
the people who shave their heads, sport tattoos, or wear earrings in
unusual places were not influenced by others?
In this chapter, we consider what it means to be an individual.
We also discuss the habits that will help you reinforce genuine individ-
uality and develop your capacities.
D o you know the story of the six blind men and the elephant? Able to rely
only on their sense of touch, they reached out and touched an elephant to
learn about it. One touched its side and decided that an elephant was like a wall.
The second touched its trunk and decided—a snake. The third touched its tail—
a rope; the fourth, its ear—a fan; the fifth, its leg—a tree; the last, its tusk—a
spear. Now each had a clear picture of the elephant in mind. But because all the
pictures were based on a limited perspective, all were wrong.1
All too often we are like the six blind men in our perspective on the world.
We see narrowly, and our thinking suffers as a result. The first and perhaps sad-
dest way we are victimized by narrow perspectives is in our view of our own
potential. Most of us never come to know ourselves fully. We see only what we
are and never realize the larger part of us: what we have the capacity to be. We
never appreciate just how much of what we are is the result of accident.
Our development, for example, and our degree of success are strongly influ-
enced by the way others regard us. In one experiment, researchers administered
an intelligence test to an entire elementary school. The researchers told the fac-
ulty that the test would identify students who were ready to undergo a “learning
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spurt.” Actually, the test did no such thing: the testers merely selected some stu-
dents at random and identified them as the ones whose learning would enjoy a
spurt. Teachers were subsequently observed using the same materials and methods
50
The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought, Ninth Edition, by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. Published by Longman.
Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Broaden Your Perspective 51
for these students as for others. Nevertheless, at the end of the year, when the
researchers again tested the student body, they found that the students who had
been singled out had gained twice as many IQ points as the other students.
What was responsible for this gain? Obviously, the teachers had formed
favorable attitudes toward these students and unconsciously transmitted their
attitudes to the students. The students’ self-images, in turn, were ultimately
changed.2
If that experiment seems surprising, the following one, similar in its design,
will seem astounding. Laboratory assistants were assigned the task of teaching
rats to run a maze. They were told the rats were in two groups: fast learners and
slow learners. Actually, all the rats were identical. After the test period, the rats
that had been designated fast learners were found to have learned the maze bet-
ter than the other rats. Like the schoolteachers, the lab assistants had formed pre-
conceived notions about the rats, and those notions had not only affected the
degree of patience and the amount of attention and encouragement the assistants
displayed with the rats but also influenced the rats’ performance.3
Studies show that confused, defeatist, helpless reactions are not inborn in us.
They are learned. In one study, people were given problems they were told could
be solved but that in fact could not be. As their efforts to solve the problems
failed, the subjects experienced increasing frustration, until they finally accepted
their helplessness and gave up. The real point of the study, though, came later.
When the same people were given solvable problems, they continued to act help-
less and to give up without really trying.4
What do these studies suggest about everyday life? That parents who are
inconsistent in their demands and unpredictable in their reactions, teachers who
focus on the negative rather than the positive, and coaches and activity leaders
who ignore actual performance or contribution can rob us of our confidence,
lead us into the habit of failure, and blind us to our real potential.
One of the distinguishing marks of many successful people is their refusal to
define themselves by other people’s assessments. Winston Churchill was
branded a slow learner. Martha Graham was told that she did not have the right
kind of body to become a dancer. Thomas Edison was urged to quit school
because he was considered hopelessly stupid. Later, on his first job, working for
the railroad, he set a train on fire with one of his experiments and was dis-
missed. And Albert Einstein’s early record was even worse. Here are some of the
details:
• He was not only an unimpressive student; he was told flatly by one teacher,
“You will never amount to anything.”
• At age 15 he was asked to leave school.
• When he took his first entrance exam to Zurich Polytechnic School, he
failed and was required to spend a year in a Swiss High School before he
could be admitted.
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• At Zurich, he did mediocre work and was so unimpressive to his professors

that he was rejected as a postgraduate assistant and denied a recommenda-
tion for employment.
52 Chapter 3 Broaden Your Perspective
• He eventually obtained a job as a tutor at a boarding school but was soon

fired.
• He submitted a thesis on thermodynamics for a doctoral degree at Zurich.
The thesis was rejected.
• Four years later, he submitted his special theory of relativity for a doctoral
dissertation at the University at Bern. It was rejected.
“Wait,” you may be saying, “Churchill, Graham, Edison, and Einstein were
very special people. The question is whether the average person can overcome
negative assessments.” The answer is yes. To cite just one example, a teacher
noticed that when students saw themselves as stupid in a particular subject, they
unconsciously conformed to that image. They believed they were stupid, so they
behaved stupidly. He set about changing their self-image. And when that change
occurred, they no longer behaved stupidly.5
The lesson here is not that legitimate criticism or advice should be ignored
nor that one can achieve competency in any field merely by belief. It is that you
should not sell yourself short; your potential is undoubtedly much greater than
you have ever realized. So when you catch yourself saying, “I’ll never be able to
do this” or “I don’t have the talent to do that,” remember that the past does not
dictate the future. What people call talent is often nothing more than knowing
the knack. And that can be learned.
■
BECOMING AN INDIVIDUAL
All the philosophers and sages tell us that individuals are rare. Yet the curious
thing is that virtually all people consider themselves individuals. (Think about it:
have you ever met anyone who admitted, “I am not an individual”?) If the
philosophers are right, then most people are wrong in their self-assessment. The
source of the error lies in the assumption that having unique genes and a unique
collection of experiences guarantees individuality. If that were the case, no one
could be a conformist. But there are conformists. Therefore, the assumption is
unwarranted. Individuality is not inborn but acquired.
The key to becoming individuals is to look at ourselves honestly and objec-
tively. This takes courage because it often involves abandoning wishful thinking
and destroying cherished illusions about ourselves. How serious is your lack of
individuality? Let’s see. Ever since you lay helpless and gurgling in your crib, you
have been learning. The moment you were able to use your senses, impressions
rushed in on you. You received literally millions of impressions before you could
interpret them with any sophistication. By the time you were able to interpret
effectively, you had long since acquired a large repertoire of actions and
reactions—by imitation. You endlessly practiced speaking and walking and, yes,
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thinking as your parents and siblings did.

Later, you attended school, and accepted your teachers’ information and beliefs,
often imitating their habits and attitudes. You learned, too, from your friends and
classmates, and in time (when peer acceptance became more important), you said
Becoming an Individual 53
and did many things not because they seemed appropriate or mature or because you
especially wanted to, but because you believed those things would gain you the
crowd’s acceptance. If you are like most people, you are still selecting your words
and actions at least in part by what others want or expect from you.
But the greatest shaper of your attitudes, habits, and values has probably not
been your parents, siblings, teachers, or friends. It has very likely been popular
culture. According to a 2002 study of children’s TV viewing, the average boy
watches just under three hours a day, and the average girl, just over two and a
half hours a day.6 This means that from preschool through high school the aver-
age young person spends about 14,000 hours in front of the TV set, compared to
about 11,000 hours in the classroom. And this doesn’t take into account the time
spent reading popular magazines, playing video games, and listening to music.
How does popular culture affect people? By placing viewers in the role of
spectators, television tends to promote passivity. By bombarding people with print
advertisements and commercials—an estimated 750,000 by age 18—advertising
encourages people to be gullible and to accept biased testimony as fact. By
building frequent scene shifts and commercial breaks into programs, television
prevents viewers’ attention spans from developing. By urging self-indulgence,
impulsiveness, and instant gratification, advertising undermines self-discipline.
By devoting forests of newspaper and magazine space to entertainers and provid-
ing them with talk-show platforms to parade their opinions, the media make it
difficult for people to distinguish between excellence and mediocrity.
The process of being exposed to society—home, neighborhood, church,
school, and so on—sociologists call acculturation. Essentially, it involves settling
into our culture. The way we settle in, the way the culture shapes us, can be pow-
erfully affected by our families’ socioeconomic condition, their religious and
political views, and the quality of the care they give us.
Acculturation can occur subtly, creating the illusion that our values, attitudes,
and ideas were formed independently of other people and circumstances. Erich
Fromm was referring to this kind of illusion when he noted that much of the time
when we say we think something, we really ought to say, “It thinks in me.”7
It’s not hard to understand how we are deceived about our independence.
We are much more acutely aware of the fact of having ideas than of the circum-
stances in which we received them. What we feel and believe are current experi-
ences for us, so we tend to forget their origins. What we think, moreover, seems
as much a part of us as the beating of our heart. The idea that our thoughts are
borrowed from others is foreign and offensive, so we resist it.
To be an individual means more than claiming independence. It means achiev-
ing it. Here are three steps that will help you begin to achieve your individuality:
1. Acknowledge the influences that have shaped your thinking. Say to your-
self, “My mind is full of other people’s ideas and attitudes, which I received
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uncritically and accepted because I was young and trusting. Many of those
ideas and attitudes are now hardened into principles and convictions. Yet
some of them are surely erroneous or unworthy.” Identify the people you
have especially admired or been close to: your mother and father, an aunt
or uncle, a coach or teacher, a celebrity. Consider each person’s convictions

and actions. Decide exactly how those convictions and actions have con-
tributed to your ideas and attitudes.
2. Sort out and evaluate your ideas and attitudes, even your most cherished
ones. Ask, for example, what your political philosophy is. (That question,
of course, means more than “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” It
includes your views on the proper role of government and on citizens’
responsibility in a democracy.) Ask, too, about your views on religion, race,
nationality, marriage, morality, and law. Compare your ideas and attitudes
with other people’s. Make your beliefs prove themselves, not on the basis of
their familiarity or their compatibility with other ideas, but on their reason-
ableness in light of the evidence.
3. Choose the best ones. Decide as objectively as you can which ideas deserve
your endorsement and which attitudes are worth striving to acquire.
Remember that you are never being more an individual than when you
resist the pressure of habit and change the way you think about a subject or
issue because the evidence prompts you to do so.
Real individuality, of course, cannot be attained in a single sitting, or even in

a hundred. It is an ongoing task, the occupation of a lifetime, but one that every-
one who wants to be a good thinker must undertake.
■
HABITS THAT HINDER THINKING
In your effort to become more of an individual, try to identify any habits of mind
interfering with clear thinking. Some of these habits will be peculiar to your own
situation and depend on your unique background and experience. But there are a
number of habits that victimize everyone to some extent. The most significant
deserve close attention. They are the mine-is-better habit, face saving, resistance
to change, conformity, stereotyping, and self-deception.
The Mine-Is-Better Habit

This habit is natural enough. It begins in early childhood. As children, we all
said, “My bike is better than your bike”; “My dad is stronger than your dad”;
“My mom is prettier than your mom.” We believed what we said, too. Whatever
we associated with was an extension of ourselves. Asserting its superiority was an
expression of ego.
The habit does not go away easily as we grow up. “In later life,” writes
Rowland Jepson, “we are apt to think that the world in which we grew up was
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the best of all possible worlds, and to regard the customs and notions which
helped to mold our own selves as the acme of wisdom and sound sense, never
reached before or since.”8 And we tend to regard our present ideas, values,
groups, and political and religious affiliations as superior, too.
Habits That Hinder Thinking 55
Mine-is-better is undoubtedly as old as humankind. Primitive societies tend

to regard those who are different—foreigners, criminals, the mentally deranged,
the physically or emotionally handicapped, other races, other religions, and other
social classes—as lesser beings. “The creature who does not ‘belong’ to the tribe,
clan, caste or parish,” they reason, “is not really human; he only aspires or pre-
tends to be ‘like us.’ ”9 From that, it is only a short step to the decision that such
“different people,” being subhuman, have no human rights, as some cultures
have decided.10
We are appalled at such a view, yet our mine-is-better habit leads us to
similar—if considerably less extreme—thinking and acting. If a friend proposes a
change, we call her a reformer; if an enemy proposes a change, we call him a trou-
blemaker or a fanatic. Likewise, the differences between a traitor and a defector,
a religious denomination and a cult, a politician and a statesman or stateswoman
depend on how close the person or subject is to us and our view.
The mine-is-better habit hinders our thinking. It destroys objectivity and
prompts us to prefer self-flattering errors to unpleasant realities. If you wish to be
a good thinker, you must learn to control this habit and keep your ego from inter-
fering with your search for truth.
Face Saving
Like the mine-is-better habit, face saving is a natural tendency arising from our
ego. Unlike mine-is-better, it occurs after we have said or done something that
threatens to disturb our self-image or the image others have of us. Psychologists
call face saving a defense mechanism, meaning it is a strategy we use to protect
our image.
One common form of face saving is the excuse most children and many
adults employ at one time or another: “It wasn’t my fault—he [or she] made me
do it” or “It wasn’t my fault—I had no alternative.” This excuse, though an
obstacle to good thinking, at least has the virtue of acknowledging that some-
thing wrong or undesirable has occurred. The dishonesty lies in pointing the fin-
ger away from oneself.
A more dangerous form of face saving is called rationalizing. Rationalizing is
a dishonest substitute for reasoning whereby we set out “to defend our ideas
rather than to find out the truth about the matters concerned.”11 Let’s say, for
example, that you are a heavy smoker. As the evidence linking smoking to serious
diseases mounts, you begin to realize that your habit harms you. You feel like a
fool. But instead of admitting that smoking is harmful or at least examining the
evidence and deciding whether it is valid, you say, “The case against smoking
isn’t conclusive” and “The relaxation of tension smoking achieves for me more
than balances any minor harm it may cause me.” That’s rationalizing.
Although rationalizing sometimes resembles honest reasoning, there is a
simple way to tell the difference between them. You are reasoning if your belief
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follows the evidence—that is, if you examine the evidence first and then make
up your mind. You are rationalizing if the evidence follows your belief—that is,
if you first decide what you’ll believe and then select and interpret evidence to
justify it.12
The process of face saving and its effect on thinking are effectively summed
up by Rowland Jepson:
When we have once adopted an opinion, our pride makes us [reluctant]

to admit that we are wrong. When objections are made to our views, we
are more concerned with discovering how to combat them than how
much truth or sound sense there may be in them; we are at pains rather
to find fresh support for our own views, than to face frankly any new
facts that appear to contradict them. We all know how easy it is to
become annoyed at the suggestion that we have made a mistake; that
our first feeling is that we would rather do anything than admit it, and
our first thought is “How can I explain it away?”13
To control your face-saving tendency, be alert for occasions when your ego is
threatened; and remember this adage: A person who makes a mistake and refuses
to admit it is thereby compounding the mistake.
Resistance to Change
Resistance to change is the tendency to reject new ideas and new ways of seeing
or doing without examining them fairly. It has been the recurrent reaction to cre-
ativity throughout the ages. Galileo came close to losing his life when he sug-
gested the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system. The inventors of
the plow, the umbrella, the automobile, and the airplane were scoffed at, as were
the individuals who first advocated using anesthetics during surgery, performing
autopsies to determine the cause of death, and extending voting rights to women.
Even the ending of child labor, which we now regard as eminently reasonable,
was initially scorned: critics called it a Bolshevik attempt to nationalize children.
One cause of our tendency to resist change is simple laziness. Having got
used to things one way, we resent being asked to regard them another way; doing
so makes us break our routine. Another reason is excessive regard for tradition.
The old ways must be best, we believe, because our parents and grandparents
used them. New ideas and approaches seem an affront to our ancestors.
But what is tradition, really? Is it the best way of seeing or doing? In some
cases, it certainly is. But in others, it is more like the path in the following verse
by Sam Walter Foss:
One day through the primeval wood

A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
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But still he left behind his trail,

And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep

Pursued the trail o’er hill and glade
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed—do not laugh—
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And thus, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.14
In situations where tradition is nothing more than “well-established prece-

dent,” or following in the footsteps of those who have gone before, it is more of
an insult to our ancestors to follow them than to explore new paths.
Another more significant reason for resisting change is fear. Each of us has
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developed habits of thinking and acting. These habits, like old shoes, are com-
fortable. The very idea of trading them for something new is frightening: “How
could I ever cope with daily situations?” Our imagination conjures up a hundred
apprehensions, all of them intensified by being nameless. So we choose to resist
the new rather than welcome it. Sometimes, we avoid feeling ashamed by pre-
tending we are really being honorable and acting on principle.
Unfortunately, if we are resistant to change, we are resistant to discovery,
invention, creativity, progress. Each of these, after all, first comes to the world as
a new idea. To resist change is to set our minds against our own best and most
worthwhile ideas.
Being open to change does not mean embracing every new idea uncritically;
many new ideas prove, on examination, to be worthless or unworkable. Rather,
it means being willing to suspend judgment long enough to give every new idea,
no matter how strange it seems, a fair chance to prove itself.
Conformity
Not all conformity is bad. We put our out-of-town letters in the out-of-town post
office slot, say hello instead of good-bye when we answer the phone, try to spell
correctly and not violate the rules of grammar, and stop for red lights when driv-
ing. Such actions, and thousands of others like them, are a sensible kind of
conformity. If we were to try nonconformity in such matters, we would waste
valuable time, confuse or annoy those around us, or threaten the safety of our-
selves and others.
Harmful conformity is what we do instead of thinking in order to belong to
a group or to avoid the risk of being different. Such conformity is an act of cow-
ardice, a sacrifice of independence for a lesser good. In time, it makes us more
concerned about what others think than about what is right and true and sensi-
ble. Once we begin to conform, we quickly find ourselves saying and doing not
what we believe is best, but what we believe others want or expect us to say and
do. That focus dulls our ability to think creatively and critically.
It’s not always easy to avoid conforming. Our friends, families, and associ-
ates may exert considerable pressure on us. It takes courage to say, “I disagree”
or “That’s wrong,” when the group is firm in its view. If you’ve ever tried it,
you know how painful that you’re-being-a-traitor look can be. That’s why so
many people give in again and again until they have completely surrendered
their individuality. One widely repeated laboratory experiment documented
this surrender dramatically. The experiment involved two subjects, who were
told they were participating in a memory test. One assumed the role of teacher;
the other, the role of student. When the student gave a wrong answer, the
teacher was supposed to deliver an electric shock. With each wrong answer, the
shock increased.
The situation, of course, was rigged. There was really no electric shock, and
the “student” was really an actor instructed to say he had a heart condition, to
plead with the “teacher” to stop, and even to claim chest pains. At the highest
level of shock, he remained silent, and since he was in another room, the
“teacher” must have considered the possibility that the shock had killed him.
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The result of the experiment? Fully 65 percent of the “teachers” adminis-

tered the shocks up to the highest level. Most protested to the experimenter that
they didn’t want to inflict pain on the student, but when the experimenter
insisted, they obeyed.15
Perhaps we would behave differently in that experiment. Perhaps not. In any

case, the effects of conformity are all around us. Abraham Maslow observed:
Too many people do not make up their own minds, but have their
minds made up for them by salesmen, advertisers, parents, propagan-
dists, TV, newspapers and so on. They are pawns to be moved by others
rather than self-determining individuals. Therefore they are apt to feel
helpless, weak, and totally determined; they are prey for predators,
flabby whiners rather than self-determining persons.16
It would be a mistake to fight conformity by refusing to believe and act as

others do, to be different for the sake of being different. That is no more thought-
ful than mindless conformity. The right way to fight conformity is to think for
yourself and not worry about how many people share your view.
Stereotyping
Stereotyping is an extreme form of generalizing. Generalizations classify people,
places, and ideas according to their common elements. Thus, we may say that
most basketball players are tall, that medical doctors study for years before being
licensed to practice, that Honda Civics get better gas mileage than Corvettes.
These are fair and reasonable generalizations. Some generalizations go beyond
the boundaries of reasonableness; these are called overgeneralizations. The
beliefs that, for example, city residents are less friendly than rural folk and that
athletes don’t do well in their studies are overgeneralizations.
Stereotyping, however, is a deeper and more serious problem than overgen-
eralization. A stereotype is a fixed, unbending generalization, irrationally main-
tained. As Walter Lippmann explains:
Stereotypes are loaded with preference, suffused with affection or dislike,

attached to fears, lusts, strong wishes, pride, hope. Whatever invokes the
stereotype is judged with the appropriate sentiment. Except where we
deliberately keep prejudice in suspense, we do not study a man and judge
him to be bad. We see a bad man. We see a . . . sainted priest, a humor-
less Englishman, a dangerous [communist], a carefree Bohemian, a lazy
Hindu, a wily Oriental, a dreaming Slav, a volatile Irishman, a greedy Jew,
a 100% American. . . . Neither justice, nor mercy, nor truth, enters into
such a judgment, for the judgment has preceded the evidence.17
The most common stereotypes are racial, religious, and ethnic. There is the
stereotype of the black, the fundamentalist Christian, the Italian. But there are
many other types as well, no less firm for being less common. There are stereo-
types of homosexuals, the clergy, college dropouts, feminists, male chauvinists,
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New York City, singles’ bars, motherhood—even God.

Stereotyping sets up a nice, neat mental warehouse for ideas. Everything has its
own compartment. There is no comparing, no sorting, weighing, or selecting, just
storage. Everything is presorted, predetermined, and prejudged. Thus, stereotyping
impedes the mind’s dynamic activity, forcing life’s infinite variety, the myriad people
and circumstances around us, into ready-made categories.
Many people find it difficult to overcome stereotypes because they tend to
see them as accurate descriptions of the world, even as insights. Yet it is impor-
tant to make the effort to expose them, for they distort our view of reality.
Self-Deception
A boy once went fishing with several friends. Someone suggested they all share
whatever fish were caught. It seemed a reasonable idea, so the boy agreed. Then, as
the day wore on and he caught more fish than his friends, his attitude began to
change. By the end of the day, he was violently opposed to sharing and objected
loudly, arguing that good anglers shouldn’t be penalized for others’ incompetence.18
That boy engaged in one of the many kinds of self-deception that tempt us
all. “One of the most disturbing habits of the human mind,” Katherine Anne
Porter observed, “is its willful and destructive forgetting of whatever in its past
does not flatter or confirm its present point of view.”19
One of my colleagues often begins his classes in informal logic by asking stu-
dents to do this exercise: “Think of the guy or girl you most resented in high
school. In a couple of sentences, explain why you resented him or her.” He has
read hundreds of students’ answers and has found that the great majority say,
“That guy had the terrible habit of . . .” or “That girl lacked. . . .” Only one or
two out of ten will say, “I was jealous (or immature or insecure).” In other
words, any resentment is clearly the other’s fault and not one’s own. A similar
kind of self-deception occurs when students who get low grades because of miss-
ing class, failing to hand in homework, or refusing to prepare for examinations
accuse their teachers of favoritism and prejudice.
People with symptoms of serious diseases—cancer, for example—sometimes
lie to themselves that the matter is not serious enough for them to see a doctor.
Many divorced people deceive themselves about the reasons for the breakup of
their marriages. Most alcoholics lie to themselves about their alcohol depen-
dence; “I can stop anytime I want to” is the common lie. And most marijuana or
crack smokers deceive themselves that they smoke because they want to, rather
than as a means of escape from unpleasant experiences and frustrations. If they
smoke heavily, they may also persuade themselves that they are not getting
burned out, even when their symptoms—loss of memory, listlessness, and confu-
sion, among others—are obvious to everyone around them.
In addition, many people deceive themselves about their competency, first
pretending to others that they are knowledgeable and then coming to believe the
pretense themselves. Edwin L. Clarke describes their behavior this way:
Persons who, for instance, would consider it the height of presumption

to advise an engineer how to plan a simple culvert, have no hesitation in
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speaking with an air of authority on far more complex questions such as

Portuguese immigration or the nature of a desirable currency, subjects
on which their knowledge is very superficial and only too often derived
from inaccurate and biased sources.20
Overcoming Bad Habits 61
To be a good thinker, you must be able to decide honestly what information

you need to solve a problem and then, after acquiring that information, to evalu-
ate it fairly. You will be able to do these things only if you have learned to be hon-
est with yourself.
All six of the habits that hinder thinking—the mine-is-better habit, face sav-
ing, resistance to change, conformity, stereotyping, and self-deception—can
become deeply ingrained and therefore difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, they
can all be overcome with desire and effort. The following section explains how to
attack them.
■
OVERCOMING BAD HABITS
The key to overcoming the bad habits we have been discussing is to examine your
first impressions of problems and issues, particularly strong ones prompting you
to take a stand immediately without examining the evidence or weighing com-
peting arguments. By closely examining such impressions, you will often be able
to determine that a particular bad habit—resistance to change, for example, or
stereotyping—is interfering with your thinking.
Marvin and Martha both read the same magazine article, which discusses a
scientific book on the subject of life after death.21 The article explains that the
book is a study of 116 people’s near-death experiences and their subsequent
memories of floating out of their bodies and, in some cases, traveling down a
dark tunnel toward a bright light. It also points out that the author is a medical
professor who began his study as a skeptic and conducted his investigations in a
thoroughly scientific manner. Finally, it notes that although the author personally
believes in life after death, he neither claims that his studies prove that it exists
nor offers his findings in support of any particular religious perspective.
As Marvin begins reading the article, a strong feeling rises in him: “Here it
is—proof that there’s life after death—just what we need to show the skeptics,
the doubters, those of little faith.” Because he merely yields to the feeling without
examining it, Marvin fails to realize that it masks mine-is-better thinking, stereo-
typing, and conformity. Later that day, he may be heard in the snack bar pro-
claiming that the book’s author is a champion of Marvin’s own religion and that
the “entire scientific community” has now “conceded” that Marvin’s view of an
afterlife is “unquestionably true.”
A very different, but equally strong, feeling rises in Martha as she reads the
article: “More nonsense from mindless religious quacks who can’t face the reality
of oblivion.” She, too, yields to the feeling unquestioningly and so fails to realize
that it is a mixture of the same errors: mine-is-better thinking, stereotyping, and
conformity. At lunch the next day, she tells her friends that the book says nothing
of value, calling it a “pathetic attempt” to brainwash people.
ISBN: 0-558-34171-3
Marvin’s and Martha’s self-deception may seem laughable, but it is really

sad. Without realizing it, each has read without profit, remaining in a state of
self-flattering ignorance instead of learning and growing. Each has substituted
what Henshaw Ward termed thobbing for considering and evaluating ideas.
The term combines the th from thinking, the o from opinion, and the b from
believing. Whenever people think the opinion that pleases them and then believe
it, they are thobbing.22
Your best protection against thobbing is to develop the habit of thinking
about your thinking. (The technical name for this activity is metacognition.)
More specifically, be aware of your initial impressions of problems and issues,
particularly those impressions that prompt you to take a stand immediately with-
out examining the evidence or weighing competing views. When such feelings
arise, control them instead of yielding to them, and force yourself to be objective.
WARM-UP EXERCISES
Remember that unlike the applications, the warm-up exercises have no special
relation to the chapter contents. They may demand creative thinking, critical
thinking, or both.
3.1 As soon as you enter the room, your roommate challenges you.
“You’re taking a course in thinking, so answer this: If perfection in
anything is beyond human attainment, what’s the point in striving to
be better in anything?” What do you reply?
3.2 Your little niece looks puzzled. You ask her what’s wrong, and she
says, “It doesn’t make sense: We blow on our hands to warm them
when they’re cold, but we blow on our food to cool it when it’s hot.
How can blowing make things both hot and cold?” Construct a clear
and meaningful reply.
3.3 In a dorm gripe session, Bertram advances the following argument.
Decide whether it is a reasonable one and explain your view thoroughly.
I could understand the teacher’s failing me in the course if I hadn’t
handed in my homework. But I did hand it in, faithfully.
Therefore, I didn’t deserve to fail.
APPLICATIONS
3.1 Read the following dialogue carefully, looking for flaws in thinking.
If you find one, identify it and explain what is wrong with it in suffi-
cient detail to persuade someone who has read the passage but sees
no flaw. If you find two or more flaws, identify and explain your
thinking about each.
ISBN: 0-558-34171-3
EDNA: Professor, I don’t like to complain, but I don’t feel I’m get-
ting as much out of this composition course as I should be
getting.
Applications 63
PROF.: Really? Where do you think the problem lies?

EDNA: Well, you’ve got us writing just about every other day if we
include the brief responses to the readings as well as the
longer compositions. Yet so much of the writing seems
wasted: You only correct about half the assignments.
3.2 Look back at the exercises for Chapters 1 and 2. Recall your
responses. Decide whether those responses were influenced by any of
the bad habits discussed in this chapter. Discuss your findings. (Note:
In doing this assignment you should expect yourself to resist admit-
ting such influences. Overcoming that resistance is a mark of think-
ing effectively.)
3.3 Reread the paragraph beginning “How does popular culture affect
people?” (page 53). Then examine television programs, commercials
and print advertisements, and magazines to determine the extent of
the influences specified in that paragraph. Be prepared to share your
findings with the class.
Note: In doing the following applications, your first objective should be to

examine the ideas that occur to you and to decide whether they are the
most reasonable responses to the problem or issue. Modify flawed ideas;
where appropriate, change your mind completely. The more carefully you
conduct this examination process, the more impressive your written and
spoken contributions will be.
3.4 When Rae Landau and Isaac Perlstein were divorced, Ms. Landau
won custody of their 8-year-old son. The boy’s observance of Jewish
dietary laws was one provision of the divorce agreement. Ms. Landau
admittedly failed to honor that provision for a period of five years.
As a result, a New York Supreme Court justice ruled that Ms.
Landau had to surrender custody of the boy to his father.23 Do you
agree with the judge’s ruling? Explain your position.
3.5 An 18-year-old San Francisco resident sued the high school from
which he graduated, contending that the faculty were responsible for
his inability to read and write adequately.24 Do you think such a suit
is reasonable? What factors would you consider if you were responsi-
ble for judging its merits?
3.6 It is common for high school coaches to forbid their players to drink
alcohol. If a coach has such a rule and catches a player drinking, is it
reasonable for the coach to dismiss the player from the team for the
rest of the season? Should the coach treat the team’s star player dif-
ferently from a benchwarmer?
ISBN: 0-558-34171-3
3.7 Apparently, a sizable number of Americans believe in astrology and

think the stars govern their lives. How reasonable is this view?
Explain your thinking.
3.8 A minister in Pontiac, Michigan, was arrested and charged with prac-
ticing medicine without a license—a felony—after he sprinkled blood
from a freshly killed rooster on an ailing person. The minister said
the authorities were stifling his constitutional rights. Do you agree
with him? Explain your position.25
■
ISSUE FOR EXTENDED ANALYSIS
Following is a more comprehensive thinking challenge than the others in the
chapter. Analyze and respond to it, following the instructions for extended analy-
sis at the end of Chapter 1. Also, review “The Basis of Moral Judgment” and
“Dealing with Dilemmas” in Chapter 2.
THE ISSUE: PEDOPHILIA

The Oxford English Dictionary defines pedophilia as “sexual desire directed
toward children.” Technically, a person can be a pedophile without acting on his
or her desires. But the designation usually denotes action—for example, taking
sexual photographs of children, exposing one’s genitals to them, or having sexual
contact with them. All such actions are classified as crimes. In recent years, there
has been considerable public outcry for more protections against pedophiles,
even after their release from prison.
THE ESSAYS
Protect the Children Pedophiles Deserve Fairness
By Daleesha Ford By William Murphy
To take advantage of anyone is Today’s psychology community
wrong. To take advantage of a child is takes a more tolerant view of
more offensive. To do so in a way that pedophilia than it once did. Many ther-
causes lasting emotional pain is repre- apists argue that its effects on victims
hensible. In fact, the only thing more are less severe and lasting as was once
reprehensible is society’s refusal to thought. Such therapists reject the
prevent such offenses from occurring. image of pedophiles as monsters bent
The harm done by pedophiles is on corrupting young people, seeing
well documented. They violate inno- them instead as lonely people searching
cence, destroy their victims’ trust in for closeness and intimacy. A few thera-
adults, and leave them in a state of pists go so far as to approve pedophilia.
fear. In many cases, they also create in Dr. Ralph Underwager, for example,
their victims a sense of shame and guilt sees pedophilia as an “acceptable
and make it difficult, if not impossible, expression of God’s will for love and
ISBN: 0-558-34171-3
for them to achieve intimacy later in unity among human beings.”

life. All this for a momentary selfish, Admittedly, Underwager’s view is
perverted pleasure. extreme. But it is not extreme to view
Issue for Extended Analysis 65
Also well documented is the fact pedophilia as an illness and pedopo-

that pedophilia cannot be cured—once hiles as victims of urges beyond their
a pedopohile, always a pedophile. control. And where there is no con-
Thus, the idea that once a criminal trol, there can be no legal or moral
pays his debt to society, he should have responsibility for the action.
his liberties restored is not applicable The fairest and most sensible
to pedophiles. In fact, when released approach to dealing with convicted
from prison, pedophiles are likely to pedophiles is rehabilitation in a thera-
be even more dangerous—they will peutic facility rather than imprisonment
have learned to be more stealthy and, with criminals. And when treatment is
in many cases, have added violence to completed and pedophiles learn to con-
their repertoire. trol their urges, their rights as citizens
For these reasons, upon release should be fully restored.
from prison, pedophiles should not We don’t place restrictions on
only be required to register wherever rapists, thieves, or even murderers
they reside, but they should also be after they pay their debt to society.
forbidden to live near any places Nor do we subject them to the humili-
where children congregate, such as a ation of segregation, registration, or
school or a public playground. Most wearing tracking devices. And the
important, they should be required to crimes of such people are arguably
wear a tracking device so that their much more serious than the crime of
movements can be monitored by the pedophilia.
police. To those who say this consti- Fairness demands that we treat
tutes an unfair burden, I say not as rehabilitated pedophiles with an equal
great as the lifelong emotional burden measure of mercy and compassion.
they inflict on their victims.
CLASS DISCUSSION
WARD: I agree with most of what Daleesha Ford has written. My
only objection is that her stand isn’t tough enough. I don’t
think a person who is convicted of pedophilia should be let
out of prison at all.
DOROTHY: I can’t believe you think Daleesha Ford isn’t tough enough.
She’s much too tough. For example, she says pedophiles
should not be allowed to live near schools, playgrounds, or
anywhere else children congregate. By my estimate, that
leaves only three places: deserts, jungles, and deserted
mountaintops. Such a requirement is patently ridiculous.
WARD: It’s the government’s job to protect the rights of citizens,
especially those least able to protect themselves. That
means children. If it is established that someone is certain
ISBN: 0-558-34171-3
to or even highly likely to prey on children, as it is in the

case of pedophilia, the government has an obligation to
keep that person off the streets.
DOROTHY: Most of the talk about how to treat convicted pedophiles

is filled with statistics about repeat offenders and psychi-
atric opinions about the impossibility of curing pedophilia.
Such information obscures the fact that people can beat
the odds and overcome all sorts of compulsions and addic-
tions. To say that pedophiles cannot change is to deny
them both hope and opportunity. And that is wrong.
HANK: There’s another factor to consider. From what I’ve read on
the subject, the effects of pedophilia may not always be as
dire or as lasting as most people think. If the harm of
pedophilia has been exaggerated, we may not need either
indeterminate prison sentences or special requirements
after release from prison.
DOROTHY: I’m personally revolted by the very idea of someone using
a child for sexual gratification against his or her will, so I
am not against punishment for pedophiles. I’m only
against unreasonable extremes.
WARD: I don’t know what you might have read, Hank, other than
more of the bilge that Murphy quotes Dr. Underwager as
promoting. I’ve never seen the slightest evidence that the
effects of pedophilia are anything but horrific and lifelong.
ISBN: 0-558-34171-3

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C H A P T E R

• At Zurich, he did mediocre work and was so unimpressive to his professors

• He eventually obtained a job as a tutor at a boarding school but was soon

thinking as your parents and siblings did.

or uncle, a coach or teacher, a celebrity. Consider each person’s convictions

Real individuality, of course, cannot be attained in a single sitting, or even in

The Mine-Is-Better Habit

Mine-is-better is undoubtedly as old as humankind. Primitive societies tend

When we have once adopted an opinion, our pride makes us [reluctant]

One day through the primeval wood

But still he left behind his trail,

And then a wise bellwether sheep

In situations where tradition is nothing more than “well-established prece-

The result of the experiment? Fully 65 percent of the “teachers” adminis-

Perhaps we would behave differently in that experiment. Perhaps not. In any

It would be a mistake to fight conformity by refusing to believe and act as

Stereotypes are loaded with preference, suffused with affection or dislike,

New York City, singles’ bars, motherhood—even God.

Persons who, for instance, would consider it the height of presumption

speaking with an air of authority on far more complex questions such as

To be a good thinker, you must be able to decide honestly what information

Marvin’s and Martha’s self-deception may seem laughable, but it is really

PROF.: Really? Where do you think the problem lies?

Note: In doing the following applications, your first objective should be to

3.7 Apparently, a sizable number of Americans believe in astrology and

THE ISSUE: PEDOPHILIA

for them to achieve intimacy later in unity among human beings.”

Also well documented is the fact pedophilia as an illness and pedopo-

to or even highly likely to prey on children, as it is in the

DOROTHY: Most of the talk about how to treat convicted pedophiles

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