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Critical Thinking
You are engaging in process of critical thinking when –in response to issue questions — you weigh evidence, analyze points of view and perspectives, and evaluate the consequences of a decision. Critical thinking requires you to make reasoned judgement about issues by considering evidence and using clear CRITERIA to guide your decisions.
An effective critical thinker:
- consider all relevant evidence
- develops criteria for making reasoned judgments
- make judgments on the basis of these criteria
- works on developing the character traits, or habits of mind that promote effective decision making
Change can’t occur without action
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
December 31, 2008
Change can’t occur without action
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.
The year’s last day. Tomorrow we will awaken to the new year, 2009!
There were many things “wrong” with 2008. But no amount of money, no volume of words, no mountain of compassion can change what has occurred. We can learn from the past, but we mustn’t live there. A Sanskrit proverb says, “Yesterday is but a dream” and “tomorrow is only a vision.”
Tomorrow, the first day of the new, and hopefully with heaven’s help, improved 2009, will be upon us. It is we, with our qualities and frailties, who will or won’t make 2009 a different year. We can only ask God for help.
Many of us have compiled the annual list of New Year’s resolutions. Most of those are probably familiar commitments, recycled from past years’ versions.
The French say, “Man proposes, God disposes.” But humans tend to talk the talk but not walk the talk, to want something but not make steps to attain it with serious commitment, consistency and perseverance.
German-born American physicist Albert Einstein reminded, “Information is not knowledge,” and German playwright Johann von Goethe posited, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
And Asia’s great thinker, Confucius, said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance,” and “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find some time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”
Reflect on the good and positive
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
December 24, 2008
Reflect on the good and positive
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.
If you didn’t pay attention to the findings published in the British Medical Journal earlier this month — noted in my column last week — happiness is contagious; if you are connected to unhappy people, this is likely to increase your chances of being unhappy by about seven percent, on average.
Since smiling, singing and laughter tune up the positive emotions of the people near and around you, you can make this season the “most wonderful time of the year,” as the song goes.
The holiday season is also a time of reflection. Every year I replay memories of the past, near and distant. I sigh at some, shake my head at some, smile at some. And I remember the wise counsel: “Learn from the past, but don’t live there!”
I give thanks to all that happened, the good and the not-so-good — from the not-so-good I learned the good. And I follow the wise counsel: “Live life rather than let life live you.” Make life what I would like it to be; take ownership of my actions rather than blame or praise karma.
I dust off writings by Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) who teaches that we can live “sanely, happily, intelligently,” even in a world of conflicts inside ourselves and a world of frictions outside, at work, in the community, or in the world, by living the present “in goodness.”
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Cambodia’s New Intellectuals
by Geoffrey Cain
After France granted Cambodia independence in 1953, an impassioned renaissance swept Phnom Penh in the 1960s, a resurgent Angkorian nationalism alongside a potpourri of foreign influences tha included Beatlemania and existentialism. Many saw the city— once called the “Pearl of Asia”—a neutral safe haven from the havoc that rocked neighboring Vietnam and Thailand. Artists, writers and scholars frequented Phnom Penh’s beautified universities and cafés, discussing the great works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Picasso, while musicians and dancers revived traditional Khmer styles from the country’s Angkor-era height. Even then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the movement’s figurehead, was a filmmaker and singer who led a jazz band.
Fast forward a few years. Bombing campaigns, military coups and civil war rip the country apart. Intellectuals are targeted and wiped out under the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79 and their works destroyed. A former Khmer Rouge cadre named Hun Sen bullies his way into power in 1993 against United Nations-backed election results, and then orchestrates a coup against his co-Prime Minister Norodom Ranarridh in 1997. His ruling Cambodian People’s Party consolidates power in the media, and rampant corruption rankles the universities. Debate and discussion are left dead and a country is in ruins.
Yet today a brimming young movement of intellectuals resembling those of the 1960s is quietly—and sometimes anonymously— creating change in Cambodia. They mostly draw on the same inspirations and discuss the same topics of culture, politics and romance—the latter remains a highly taboo topic. Some even listen to the same music, writing about the classics of Simon and Garfunkel. Yet unlike their predecessors, these intellectuals do not mingle in French-style cafés and art galleries, but in the new wireless Internet cafés springing up in Phnom Penh.