tools not rules: the importance of critical thinking
More than once, Iâve talked about the negative implications of Evangelical/purity culture logic being uncritically replicated in fandom spaces and left-wing discourse, and have also referenced specific examples of logical overlap this produces re, in particular, the policing of sexuality. What I donât think Iâve done before is explain how this happens: how even a well-intentioned person whoâs trying to unlearn the toxic systems they grew up with can end up replicating those systems. Even if you didnât grow up specifically in an Evangelical/purity context, if your home, school, work and/or other social environments have never encouraged or taught you to think critically, then itâs easy to fall into similar traps - so here, hopefully, is a quick explainer on how that works, and (hopefully) how to avoid it in the future.
Put simply: within Evangelism, purity culture and other strict, hierarchical social contexts, an enormous value is placed on rules, and specifically hard rules. There might be a little wiggle-room in some instances, but overwhelmingly, the rules are fixed: once you get taught that something is bad, youâre expected never to question it. Understanding the rules is secondary to obeying them, and oftentimes, asking for a more thorough explanation - no matter how innocently, even if all youâre trying to do is learn - is framed as challenging those rules, and therefore cast as disobedience. And where obedience is a virtue, disobedience is a sin. If someone breaks the rules, it doesnât matter why they did it, only that they did. Their explanations or justifications donât matter, and nor does the context: a rule is a rule, and rulebreakers are Bad.
In this kind of environment, therefore, you absorb three main lessons: one, to obey a rule from the moment you learn it; two, that itâs more important to follow the rules than to understand them; and three, that enforcing the rules means castigating anyone who breaks them. And these lessons go deep: theyâre hard to unlearn, especially when you grow up with them through your formative years, because the consequences of breaking them - or even being seen to break them - can be socially catastrophic.
But outside these sorts of strict environments - and, honestly, even within them - that much rigidity isnât healthy. Life is frequently far more complex and nuanced than hard rules really allow for, particularly when it comes to human psychology and behaviour - and this is where critical thinking comes in. Critical thinking allows us to evaluate the world around us on an ongoing basis: to weigh the merits of different positions; to challenge established rules if we feel they no longer serve us; to decide which new ones to institute in their place; to acknowledge that sometimes, there are no easy answers; to show the working behind our positions, and to assess the logic with which other arguments are presented to us. Critical thinking is how we graduate from a simplistic, black-and-white view of morality to a more nuanced perception of the world - but this is a very hard lesson to learn if, instead of critical thinking, weâre taught instead to put our faith in rules alone.
So: what does it actually look like, when rule-based logic is applied in left-wing spaces? Iâll give you an example:Â
Sally is new to both social justice and fandom. She grew up in a household that punished her for asking questions, and where she was expected to unquestioningly follow specific hard rules. Now, though, Sally has started to learn a bit more about the world outside her immediate bubble, and is realising not only that the rules she grew up with were toxic, but that sheâs absorbed a lot of biases she doesnât want to have. Sally is keen to improve herself. She wants to be a good person! So Sally joins some internet communities and starts to read up on things. Sally is well-intentioned, but sheâs also never learned how to evaluate information before, and sheâs certainly never had to consider that two contrasting opinions could be equally valid - how could she have, when she wasnât allowed to ask questions, and when she was always told there was a singular Right Answer to everything? Her whole framework for learning is to Look For The Rules And Follow Them, and now that sheâs learned the old rules were Bad, that means she has to figure out what the Good Rules are.Â
Sally isnât aware sheâs thinking of it in these terms, but subconsciously, this is how sheâs learned to think. So when Sally reads a post explaining how sex work and pornography are inherently misogynistic and demeaning to women, Sally doesnât consider this as one side of an ongoing argument, but uncritically absorbs this information as a new Rule. She reads about how itâs always bad and appropriative for someone from one culture to wear clothes from another culture, and even though sheâs not quite sure of all the ways in which it applies, this becomes a Rule, too. Whatever argument she encounters first that seems reasonable becomes a Rule, and once she has the Rules, thereâs no need to challenge them or research them or flesh out her understanding, because thatâs never been how Rules work - and because sheâs grown up in a context where the foremost way to show that youâre aware of and obeying the Rules is to shame people for breaking them, even though sheâs not well-versed in these subjects, Sally begins to weigh in on debates by harshly disagreeing with anyone who offers up counter-opinions. Sometimes her disagreements are couched in borrowed terms, parroting back the logic of the Rules sheâs learned, but other times, theyâre simply ad hominem attacks, because at home, breaking a Rule makes you a bad person, and as such, Sally has never learned to differentiate between attacking the idea and attacking the person.Â
And of course, because Sally doesnât understand the Rules in-depth, itâs harder to explain them to or debate with rulebreakers whoâve come armed with arguments she hasnât heard before, which makes it easier and less frustrating to just insult them and point out that they ARE rulebreakers - especially if she doesnât want to admit her confusion or the limitations of her knowledge. Most crucially of all, Sally doesnât have a viable framework for admitting to fault or ignorance beyond a total groveling apology that doubles as a concession to having been Morally Bad, because thatâs what itâs always meant to her to admit you broke a Rule. She has no template for saying, âhuh, I hadnât considered that,â or âI donât know enough to contribute here,â or even âI was wrong; thanks for explaining!âÂ
So instead, when challenged, Sally remains defensive: she feels guilty about the prospect of being Bad, because she absolutely doesnât want to be a Bad Person, but she also doesnât know how to conceptualise goodness outside of obedience. It makes her nervous and unsettled to think that strangers could think of her as a Bad Person when sheâs following the Rules, and so she becomes even more aggressive when challenged to compensate, clinging all the more tightly to anyone who agrees with her, yet inevitably ending up hurt when it turns out this person or that who she thought agreed on What The Rules Were suddenly develops a different opinion, or asks a question, or does something else unsettling.Â
Pushed to this sort of breaking point, some people in Sallyâs position go back to the fundamentalism they were raised with, not because they still agree with it, but because the lack of uniform agreement about What The Rules Are makes them feel constantly anxious and attacked, and at least before, they knew how to behave to ensure that everyone around them knew they were Good. Others turn to increasingly niche communities and social groups, constantly on paranoid alert for Deviance From The Rules. But other people eventually have the freeing realisation that the fixation on Rules and Goodness is whatâs hurting them, not strangers with different opinions, and they steadily start to do what they wanted to do all along: become happier, kinder and better-informed people who can admit to human failings - including their own - without melting down about it. Â
THIS is what we mean when we talk about puritan logic being present in fandom and left-wing spaces: the refusal to engage with critical thinking while sticking doggedly to a single, fixed interpretation of How To Be Good. Itâs not always about sexuality; itâs just that sexuality, and especially queerness, are topics weâre used to seeing conservatives talk about a certain way, and when those same rhetorical tricks show up in our fandom spaces, we know why they look familiar.Â
So: how do you break out of rule-based thinking? By being aware of it as a behavioural pattern. By making a conscious effort to accept that differing perspectives can sometimes have equal value, or that, even if a given argument isnât completely sound, it might still contain a nugget of truth. By trying to be less reactive and more reflective when encountering positions different to your own. By accepting that not every argument is automatically tied to or indicative of a higher moral position: sometimes, weâre just talking about stuff! By remembering that youâre allowed to change your position, or challenge someone elseâs, or ask for clarification. By understanding that having a moral code and personal principles isnât at odds with asking questions, and that itâs possible - even desirable - to update your beliefs when you come to learn more than you did before.Â
This can be a scary and disquieting process to engage in, and itâs important to be aware of that, because one of the main appeals of rule-based thinking - if not the key appeal - is the comfort of moral certainty it engenders. If the rules are simple and clear, and following them is what makes you a good person, then itâs easy to know if youâre doing the right thing according to that system. Itâs much, much harder and frequently more uncomfortable to be uncertain about things: to doubt, not only yourself, but the way youâve been taught to think. And especially online, where we encounter so many more opinions and people than we might elsewhere, and where we can get dogpiled on by strangers or go viral without meaning to despite our best intentions? The prospect of being deemed Bad is genuinely terrifying. Of course we want to follow the Rules. But thatâs the point of critical thinking: to try and understand that rules exist in the first place, not to be immutable and unchanging, but as tools to help us be better - and if a tool becomes defunct or broken, it only makes sense to repair it.Â
Rigid thinking teaches us to view the world through the lens of rules: to obey first and understand later. Critical thinking teaches us to use ideas, questions, contexts and other bits of information as analytic tools: to put understanding ahead of obedience. So if you want to break out of puritan thinking, whenever you encounter a new piece of information, ask yourself: are you absorbing it as a rule, or as a tool?Â
