Positive 'Isms'

In response to Carrisa Sacherski's post "To End All Isms" (11/18/2012):

In her post, Carrisa argues that if everyone thought critically, negative 'isms,' like racism and sexism, would disappear.  I think it is possible to extend that concept to all 'isms' apart from non-normative ones (such as constructivism or Hinduism).

Today's so-called positive 'isms,' such as gender egalitarianism (or equalism) or cultural relativism, only exist in response to negative social conditions.  If gender-based discrimination did not exist, gender egalitarianism would not need to exist as a concept; it would simply be the default state for everyone.  If people were open to other cultures' traditions, they would not have to invent a special term for this recognition of cultural differences.  This, in combination with the point Carrisa makes in her post, would lead to the elimination of all normative 'isms.'

Some words with that suffix would remain, but they would not connect directly to ethics.  Religions such as Judaism would probably still exist; but without religiously based discrimination, they would have no positive or negative value.  Philosophical viewpoints such as realism or fallibilism would also exist; these might have an indirect connection to ethics, in that they might imply different things about how one should live, but they themselves would not be viewpoints on ethics.

Necessary Combination

I think that critical thinking without critical pedagogy is frequently useless, and critical pedagogy without critical thinking is dangerous.

Critical thinking requires one to critically analyse one's beliefs and ideals, subjecting them to objective logical scrutiny and determining their validity based on set, rational rules.  However, it does not require one to act on one's conclusions.  It is true that if one thinks critically about ethics one might conclude that it is ethical to do what is right and act on one's beliefs, particularly to intervene in unethical behaviour, but that critical thinking does not contain a normative value.  One might reach the above conclusion, but not be appropriately moved to act upon it.  Thus, all of one's critical thinking was useless.

Critical pedagogy requires one to identify injustice in society and work to right it and to teach others to right it.  However, a follower of critical pedagogy might base their assumptions regarding which social groups are being subjected to injustice on unreliable criteria.  The fact that a group is discriminated against does not necessitate that the discrimination is unjust, and groups can be minorities or 'underdogs' for very good reasons.  Thus, a follower of critical pedagogy who was not a critical thinker might end up aiding a group which perpetrated very unethical behaviour.

For this reason, I believe that critical pedagogy and critical thinking must work together in one's life to produce the best results.  The analytical power of critical thinking combined with the impetus of critical pedagogy can lead one to aid society and generally act in an ethical manner.  Alone, neither critical thinking nor critical pedagogy is necessarily sufficient to fulfil this goal.