Critical Stories
Harnessing critical thinking to craft stories of service
In Spanish caves, around 64,000 years ago, neanderthals were painting images of the animals on cave walls, likely leaving art in locations they considered special.
Through drawings, gestures, vocalisations, and language, we human creatures have long woven our awe, terror, wisdom, hope, and imaginings into stories and gifted them to each other as treasures passed down through the generations: from overflowing oral poems that wend their way through the air between us to rendered stories in porcelain that grow in the telling as they age. But story-telling isn’t a one-directional act of creation; stories create us as much as we create them.
Stories daily weave our thinking, actions, and ways of being. Stories about what we care about, and why we care. What love is to us, and how we love. What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention. What life is, and how life should be. From wide, far-reaching stories about humanity (and humanity’s place in the world) and how and why the universe works (and our place in it), to the narrow, local stories about the interactions we have with our friends, neighbours, and colleagues, our thinking, actions, and ways of being are daily weaved by personal and collective stories.
What a wonder it is that we human creatures even exist, let alone that we explore, celebrate, laugh at, honour, and grieve every aspect of being alive through stories saturated with wisdom and warnings. That I sit here and pen this story about stories and pass it along to you, a reader I have likely not met, is a wonder. As this story arrives in your inbox, you will have a response to it; you might delete it or you might read parts of it. There might be something in what I’ve written that you disagree with and you might be moved to tell me so. There might be something in what you read that invokes a new story for you or inspires an old one to find new shape. And this will be just one small part of your day.
We human creatures live within and from a myriad of stories. What I spend a lot of my time thinking about are the stories that we don’t realise are stories, especially the unexamined stories that aren’t always of service; that can be erroneous, or callous, or unintentionally harmful.
In numerous countries, including the UK where I live, fascism, and all that is encompassed in a fascist worldview, is on the rise. Proponents of fascism weave stories of rightful hierarchies of human value, of rightful dominion over the more-than-human and vital, complex, life-supporting ecosystems. They weave stories that celebrate and justify a brutal subordination of social and environmental policies that centralise empathy, generous care, and interbeing, policies born from a shared understanding that our lives are deeply, irreversibly, wonderfully weaved together.
In times like these, noticing, naming, and, if needed, disrupting our stories so that we can choose stories that are of service is nothing less than a beautiful, vital, and enlivening act of love.
Moved By A Multiplicity of Stories
As I imagine many of us do, I have multiple expansive stories that permeate my life. I’ve chosen most of them carefully, and try to hold all of them lightly. I tend these stories much as I imagine a painter tends their paintings and test them much as I imagine a scientist tests their theses.
One of my stories is that we humans are ecological creatures, inseparably weaved into a deeply relational, highly complex, multispecies, multigenerational world. I cannot find any evidence that disproves this story - and I search for that evidence - so I celebrate it and commit to it as a guide and prayer.
This story ignites a desire in me to be accountable for what I can be responsible for, and to, and teaches me to let go of what I cannot. It informs how I think, what I do, how I am being. It arranges and rearranges me. It ignites enquiries into what service is to me and how I can be of service, which relationships matter to me and how I will be in them, what work I do and how I offer that work. This story reminds me that my life is just a tiny glimmer while at the same time reminding me that to be alive is a magnificent, almost impossible thing.
I also have stories that are more local and less encompassing. For example, I have a story that one of my close neighbours doesn’t like me. I don’t actually know if they like me or not but I’ve constructed a story that they don’t. It’s incredibly easy for me to confirm the story that my neighbour doesn’t like me and to leap to reasons why; even writing this, I had to write it multiple times to find a way to write about it without being in the story.
Daily, I can notice how my thinking, actions, and ways of being are being weaved by a multitude of stories; daily, I can open up some space between me so that I can hold them as stories and, if needed, disrupt them and choose new ones.
Finding Practices and Methods That Open Up Space
There are many practices and methods to help us notice, name, examine, and, if needed, disrupt stories so we can choose stories that are of service.
I utilise critical thinking to notice, name, and, if needed, disrupt my stories and then I choose stories that ignite a desire to be accountable for my thinking, actions, and ways of being.
As I’ve found writing this article, there are different ways of describing and approaching critical thinking. I like the brevity and clarity of the below, especially the recognition that the way we human creatures think about the world tends to favour us and our social groups:
Critical thinking is … self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.
(Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008)
I also really appreciate this description of critical thinking skills by Asana (which also offers a 7-step critical thinking process).
Some of the critical thinking methods and tools that I have learnt to utilise to notice, name, and, if needed, disrupt the stories that weave me include:
Correlation not causation
’Correlation not causation’ is the recognition that it’s incredibly easy to create stories that mistakenly see cause and effect relationships when actually there might simply be relationships at play. Do I have to painfully twist my brain to examine a story through this lens? Yes! Is it worth it? Absolutely. I found myself guided by ‘correlation not causation’ throughout the Covid pandemic to examine misinformation and paranoia-born stories.
Socratic Questioning
Socratic Questioning helps us explore the validity of personal and collective stories through both self-led enquiry and dialogue with others. I find Socratic Questioning to be an invaluable, fascinating, enjoyable, and enlightening way of examining every aspect of a story, whether expansive or local.
Occam's Razor
Occam's Razor reminds us that the more complicated and fantastical the story, the less likely it is to be what’s actually happening. Of course, this needs to be held lightly so we can be open to new information no matter how fantastical it might seem, and we need to be careful about how we navigate ours and other’s biases (see Occam’s Broom, for example) but I find Occam’s Razor a useful starting point when navigating social and mainstream media, especially in times like these when sensemaking can be so challenging. It also reminds me to keep my imagination directed in healthy and helpful ways.
Active Listening
Active Listening is the practice of finding enough space between us and our stories about another when we are with them so that we can pay close attention to what is not only being said but conveyed. I often need to intentionally bring myself into active listening and find that this practice is elevated by summarising what I think is being communicated, and sharing this back through my language and framings so I can check that I am hearing and sensing correctly.
Open Endedness
Although as far as I know ‘open endedness’ isn’t an official method or practice, critical thinking relies on open ended thinking. Open endedness helps us stay curious, mentally flexible, welcoming to new information, and emotionally comfortable with having ideas, conclusions, and stories disrupted.
Wise Counsel Through Wise Councils
Also not an official method or practice, I cannot imagine talking about critical thinking without talking about wise counsel through wise councils. Over the last few years, I have gathered a constellation of individuals, authors, mentors, and creators that bring me wise counsel. Ranging from my dearest husband to close friends and collaborators, as well as authors and practitioners I’ve never met, my wise councils actively challenge my thinking and offer me different ways of seeing personal and collective stories, either directly or at a distance.
Stories Of Service That Move Us Into Being More Accountable For Our Thinking, Actions, And Ways of Being
I’ve noticed that my story of being an ecological creature, inseparably weaved into a deeply relational, highly complex, multispecies, multigenerational world, activates a desire and a commitment to being more accountable for how I am being an ecological creature. I notice that in choosing this, or a similar, story, others also find that they are moved into being more accountable for their thinking, actions, and ways of being.
And when I enquire into what being of service means when it comes to our stories, I land on where those stories lead us. Do they lead us into empathy, compassion, care, generosity, maturation, relationality, reverence, gratitude, or love? Do they help us have meaningful and depthful lives? Or do they lead us towards blame, hate, superiority, isolation, greed, delusion, dehumanisation, or othering? Do our stories always have us right, and others wrong?
After all, if our stories don’t move us to take more accountability for our thinking, actions, and ways of being, how are they of service?
If they don’t ignite us to take more ownership of what we can be response-able for, and to, and teach us to let go of what we cannot, how are they of service?
If our stories don’t move us to see past the all-too-human story of ‘I’m right and they’re wrong’ and don’t move us to take more accountability for discovering new ways of seeing and responding to a situation or experience, how are they of service?
If our stories don’t move us to take more accountability for finding replacements for the collectiave stories we know don’t serve humanity, the more-than-human, or this planet - whether racism or colonialism, capitalism or the story of separation - how are our stories of service?
When we choose stories that are of service, we can be moved to be more accountable for our thinking, actions, and ways of being.
In times like these, noticing, naming, and, if needed, disrupting our stories so that we can choose stories that are of service is nothing less than a beautiful, vital, and enlivening act of love. May we understand the importance of our individual and collective stories and find ways to shine a light on those that aren’t of service so that we can choose ones that are.
Over the last few years I’ve been developing ecological enquiry as a way of noticing, naming, and, if needed, disrupting personal and collective stories about what it is to be human. There are three enquiries that together form this living practice:
What is it to be an ecological creature? Here, we hold curiosity about what it means to be an ecological creature living within the rich, complex relationality of a multispecies, multigenerational world, and how this ecological nature occurs for each of us.
What stories are informing and being informed by thinking, actions, and ways of being? What are the roots of these stories? And are these stories serving us, individually and collectively? Here, we utilise critical thinking to notice, name, and (if needed) disrupt the stories that inform our thinking, actions, and ways of being so that we can choose stories that serve what matters to us.
What are we choosing to be response-able to, and for, as ecological creatures? Here, we take accountability for the way that we move through - and are in relationship with - this multispecies, multigenerational, richly complex world.
Until now, I've mainly been developing ecological enquiry within three-month, small-group circles. However, I find it to be just as rich within 1:1 sessions so I’m now offering these too. In recognition of 1:1 sessions being a new and developing offering, I'm offering 4 individuals a 4-session package at the cost of 3. This offer will be live until the end of March and there are still some places available. If you're sincerely interested in this package, please book your free 20 minute call.