Judgment becomes cloudy in the absence of critical thinking.
By Mary T. O’Sullivan, MSOL
“When we stop giving students the opportunity to explore perspectives different from their parents, we pave the road toward the end of critical thinking.” – Caitlin Bailey, in The Ridge Review
People are asking themselves more frequently why reasoning and logic seem to evade so many of us. It’s in the news almost every day. We often wonder how our leaders come to the decisions that seem to be counterintuitive and contradict ideas we’ve considered truths for years. One example that’s been in the news lately is the halting of further research on the mRNA vaccine, the research that made the COVID-19 vaccine possible and saved thousands of lives. A University of Minnesota researcher, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm is quoted as saying “This may be the most dangerous public health judgment that I’ve seen in my 50 years in this business.” According to NPR, the research will now involve use of a dead virus, a process the researchers fear is taking us backwards, from 2025 to the 1940s when vaccine technology did not have the advantage of years of 21st century research. Desperate fear for public health and safety during another potential pandemic have now gripped the medical community.
This erosion of rational, evidence-based decision-making is not limited to science—it also appears in how we consume and interpret information in our daily lives. We’ve all grown familiar with the term “fake news”, reflecting false and misleading “disinformation” spread by bad actors both in the United States and abroad. The impact of exposing our phone-addicted youth to “fake news” has a direct consequence on why critical thinking matters. In fact, Bloomsbury Publishers cited a Standford study of 8000 students, concluding “The importance of critical thinking for students is reflected in research that shows how easily they can be taken in by fake news. In one study of nearly 8,000 students conducted by the Stanford Graduate School of Education, the majority consistently failed to validate an online information source (URL, video, tweet) and were ‘easily duped’ by false stories.” Furthermore, politicians continue to exploit the term to dismiss any reports that are unfavorable or that they just do not like. The traditional media sources became known as “fake media”, making people’s distrust of the newsworthiness of a story even worse. People became confused and after a while, didn’t know what to believe. Many people just gave up watching or reading the news, believing nothing could be true anymore.
The same pattern of undermining information and intellectual engagement is also evident in the growing wave of book bans across the country. In recent years, we’ve heard of books being banned or challenged in schools and libraries, even in public libraries. Most of the banned books are literary classics such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1984, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, The Catcher in the Rye, Romeo and Juliet, among many others. The books were banned due to parental concerns mainly about language and sexual content. In the 2023-2024 academic year, 4,231unique titles were banned across the United States, reports the PEN America Index of School Book Bans. Some of these bans have been rescinded, and others remain in place. The familiarity of these titles makes the bans shocking to many, since the majority of these books were required reading in high school back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and many still are. The confusion among parents, educators and students only adds to the uncertainty about what a suitable academic education amounts to. At least in some regions, educators are no longer left to select appropriate reading material for study, especially for college bound students.
In response to these restrictions, new forms of community-driven resistance have emerged. Across the nation, banned book clubs are forming and are becoming very popular. I taught one this summer at The University of Rhode Island’s Osher Life Long Learning Institute (OLLI) where we read Huckleberry Finn, 1984, Lord of the Flies and Romeo and Juliet. The major discussion point focused on how these books encourage critical thinking by presenting challenging circumstances that students may face in their own lives. Each book had situations that demanded questions about language, moral ambiguity, and societal norms. By reading these books, terms like “Thought Police”, “Doublethink”, “Memory Hole”, and “Thought Criminal” entered into the lexicon, along with the breakdown of civilization, and issues of violence, love, and moral and ethical dilemmas. High School students would learn to challenge their own thinking, situate themselves in the place of the characters, and make judgments on the right thing to do.
These books, along with others such as, Of Mice and Men, Flowers for Algernon, Brave New World, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hamlet, MacBeth and Twelfth Night are either banned or challenged in public schools in the United States. Some public libraries have displayed banned books prominently in the front of their stacks to promote the value of classic literature. Other libraries have been prohibited from doing so.
Halting lifesaving mRNA research, flooding the public with “fake news,” and banning classics like 1984 and To Kill a Mockingbird all stem from the same failure: abandoning critical thinking in today’s society. Without the ability to analyze evidence, question sources, and engage with challenging ideas, we weaken public health, undermine truth, and erode our social order. Protecting science, demanding honest media, and preserving thought-provoking literature aren’t just academic issues—they are essential to ensuring we remain a society capable of reason, resilience, and progress. If we fail to protect these mainstays of thought and inquiry, we won’t just lose debates—we’ll lose the capacity to determine our own future.
“Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
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