Critical and Creative Thinking in Society Case
Critical and Creative Thinking in SocietyCarolyn MaguirePHL/458November 24, 2014Ingrid BayerCritical and Creative Thinking in SocietyCritical and creative thinking is important to the thought process as it allows us to make decisions based on our thoughts alone. We all have our own way of thinking and sometimes our thoughts may be hindered by things that we can control. Lastly, our perceptions about advertising messages can cause us to lose touch with reality. All of these topics will be discussed in short essays in this paper. Situation of Public InterestA situation that most recently occurred that critical and/or creative thought could have been used for a better outcome would be the announcement on whether or not the officer involved in the Ferguson shooting that killed Mike Brown would face any charges. The media announced that the grand jury had decided that the officer would not face charges. The aftermath of the decision caused the crowd to become very upset and it led to them rioting and setting cars and buildings on fire. Situations like these cause people to act irrationally and they have a total disregard for others. It is important to think critically and creatively in situations like this because it could have all been avoided. A young man died, but that does not mean that rioting will bring him back and if they would have thought about the consequences before allowing their emotions to take over, there may have been a different outcome.
Free Will, Truth, Knowledge, and OpinionFree will is when a person makes decisions on their own without the influence of outside factors. They are capable of doing so based on the fact that they have the option to do whatever it is they decide. Free will is used to form thoughts by allowing a person to think about the situation and freely decide their next step. According to Ruggiero (2012), “Truth is what is so about something, the reality of the matter, as distinguished from what people wish were so, believe to be so, or assert to be so.” We believe the truth to be something that is right. We use truth to form thoughts by deciding what we believe to be true and when in a situation, everyone has their own thoughts about what is true, so it is up to them to decide how they would like to proceed with the truth.Authentic knowledge is something that we can obtain in these three ways: personal experience, observation, and report from others (Ruggiero, 2012). We may think we know something, but we must experience it, observe it, or be told from someone else before it can become reality. We can use knowledge to form thoughts by allowing previous events to make decisions for us. When used to critically assess a situation, if the situation turned out badly before, our knowledge will tell us not to put ourselves in the same predicament again.