Noble or robbery?

  Critical Thinking, Take 1

When you read the following statement, what is your emotional response:

“Take from the rich, and give to the poor”

Is it a noble act?  Or is it robbery?

WRONG!

Critical thinking isn’t about the answer, it’s about understanding perspectives, definitions of words, context.

How many parties are there in the phrase?

What is the perspective of each party?

How do we know when someone is rich?  How do we know when people are poor?

How often should they “take” from the rich, and do the rich have any input?

What’s in it for the 3rd person (the one between the rich and poor person)?

Do we need a 3rd person/party in the transaction?

Why should poor people (how ever we define them) get money?  What good does it do?

Here’s what we came up with:

Clearly, they didn’t want dad to get a win on the first day of Critical Thinking, so they acted bored out of their minds and grumpy during the whole 20 minutes of conversation.  But, I know inside (deep, deep inside) a light flickered…the flame is just around the corner!