Kevin Baldeosingh - How Not To Think Clearly

How Not To Think Clearly

10 April 1998, 1034 words

I expend quite a lot of energy trying to think clearly. I don't know why. There's no money in it. Observation and deduction have convinced me that unclear thinking is a necessary attribute for success in Trinidad (but there I go thinking clearly again.) At any rate, for those readers who prefer success to satisfaction, here are the guidelines you should follow:-

Avoid inductive reasoning: To reason inductively means to form a conclusion from an adequate number of instances. For example, the dog rice scandal at NFM which resulted in the firing of the Board, the retention of Ken Soodhoo at NP, the contracts secured by Ish Galbaransingh for the Cherokee jeeps and the Airports Authority project - all this might suggest that the UNC administration is guilty of nepotism. But not if you're Anil Mahabir.

Similarly, Patrick Manning's decision to call early elections, the challenge by Keith Rowley, the defections of Messrs Lasse and Griffith, the failed decision to try and have them expelled from Parliament by the courts, the inability of the PNM to raise one million dollars to pay Manning's resulting debt, the furor over Penelope Beckles - all this might lead one to conclude that Manning is an incompetent political leader. But not if you're Ken Valley.
Redefine terms: This method allows you to say that you didn't really say what you said. For instance, when Prime Minister Basdeo Panday addressed students of the Princes Town Senior Comprehensive School last month, he asked them if they should have the right to argue with their teacher. The students vociferously responded "Yes!" This display of an independent attitude among young people clearly surprised Mr. Panday and, when asked by the Independent reporter afterwards if he expected the students' answer, Mr. Panday said they probably thought he meant "discuss."

Thus, one might reasonably assume that, with exemplars like our Prime Minister to follow, the students should soon lose whatever habits of democracy and honest thought they may have accidentally acquired.
Change frames of reference: This is similar to technique #2. At the same function, Mr. Panday bemoaned the number of television advertisements for drinking and smoking which young people are exposed to. Then, without missing a beat, he continued: "It is a great tragedy that the media has such enormous power in shaping our values. It is an even worse tragedy when they use that power to rumour-monger, to denigrate and destabilize."

The Prime Minister was thus able to imply that advertising and editorial are one and the same and that free speech was a "great tragedy" for Trinidad and Tobago. With sufficient exposure to such doublespeak, those young people who lose their powers of clear thought may soon become fascists, too.
Resort to metaphysics: If you want to be a success in an academic milieu, you must give the impression that you are thinking clearly even when talking unmitigated rubbish. Metaphysics is the best method of doing this. For example, one of Trinidad's most prominent intellectuals, Lloyd Best, writes, "Thought...is the joint product of physiological, neurological and psychological impulses...They are managed by the metaphysical entity we call the will, the mind, the soul...Can we conclude anything but that these processes are 'divinely' driven by the ultimate law of thermodynamics...?"

The thing is, there are four thermodynamic laws and only the zeroth law could possibly be considered to have anything to do with identity. This law says that if System A has the same temperature as System B and B has the same temperature as C, then A and C have the same temperature. This, by a really long stretch, might translate into the Law of Identity (A=A) but you'd probably get a hernia doing it, unless your thinking is so obscure that it provides adequate protection from logic.

The Second Law is that of entropy, but this has to do with the structure of the universe, not identity, unless you assume that cosmology has some transcendental relation to psychology. However, assuming as a premise what you assert as a proof is defined as circular reasoning, and there is absolutely no better method for unclear thinking. Hence our next guideline.
Accept religious authority: This method allows you to avoid hard solutions to serious problems. Kamal Persad, for example, argued in one of his columns that a Hindu government would be better for India than a secular one because Hindus have an obligation to be open to everyone and treat everyone equally. The fact that many Hindus do not act this way in real life, that non-Hindus would be automatically suspicious of a Hindu fundamentalist party like the BJP, or that a secular government can find common ground where no religious one would - all this is ignored by Persad. Readers should note that Persad is a history teacher, which tells you that even knowledgeable people can ignore their knowledge quite easily once religious bias provides them with "higher" knowledge.
Embrace contradiction: Say you are promoting Christian love by supporting hanging, and you can have your very own church like Reverend Dave Alleyne. Argue that ethnic pride should replace democracy while asserting that this will lead to a "shared peoplehood", and you can get your very own newspaper column, like Burton Sankeralli. Say you're a champion of your people but call them douens, and you can be a respected artist like Leroy Clarke.
Assume that one corbeaux a rubbish dump makes: In other words, any small rise in rapes, robbery, murder, etc. must lead to draconian measures like castration, longer prison sentences, lowering the hanging age. This is part of making life simple for, otherwise, one would have to try to find long-term solutions to difficult problems like poverty, unemployment and education. Such shallow thinking qualifies you to be a judge, like Sat Sharma, or even an Attorney-General like Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.

Follow these rules and you'll be a success in Trinidad, no matter what your field. Try to think clearly and all you might achieve is intellectual satisfaction, inner peace or an interesting life. Wouldn't you rather have a good income and be prominent in society? I thought so.