{"ops":[{"insert":"This Saturday I will host a webinar here in the community focused on compartmentalize as a powerful deterrent to cultivating the mind. The topic of compartmentalization is complex. We will explore some of these complexities at the webinar. I hope you will attend and enjoy the lively and enlightening discussions we always have at our webinars.\n \nExploring the concept of compartmentalization is important, in large part, because the human mind does not "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"necessarily"},{"insert":" integrate skills, abilities, or characteristics from one domain of thought to other domains of thought within an individual person. This explains why someone may be, for instance, a highly skilled, disciplined engineer while at the same time being an undisciplined, irresponsible, irrational citizen. Or a person may be very logical at work and with her colleagues, but completely fly off the handle with her children. Why is this such a normal occurrence in human life? Why is it so difficult to bring our ability to adhere to, for instance, logicalness, from one domain (work) to another (parenting)? This is an important question for us to consider because integration of ideas, philosophies, principles, and tendencies across the important areas of our lives is essential to the person of integrity, the critical thinker and the self-actualized person. To cultivate our minds, then, we need to actively integrate important ideas from one domain of our lives to others where these ideas will help us live at a higher level.\n \nThere seem to be at least two primary reasons why the human mind has difficulty integrating important ideas and understandings across domains of thought. One stems from the fact that, though the human mind has great capacity for integration of ideas, we do not "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"intrinsically"},{"insert":" integrate ideas across the different domains of thought. In other words, humans on the whole simply have not cultivated anything near their innate capacities to achieve high levels of integration which, to do so would lead to more fulfilling thoughts, emotions, creations, and lifestyles. The capacities for integration largely lie dormant in human thought. People do not intrinsically know, and generally are not taught, how to cultivate these capacities. They lack the tools of criticality to do so. This problem is made infinitely worse with the drive toward overspecialization has become increasingly worse over time. \n \nThe second primary reason people tend to be highly compartmentalized thinkers is due to selfish and vested interests. When people have a selfish interest in not seeing the truth in a situation or context, or when people want more for their group than is their fair share, they can quite naturally employ any number of defense mechanisms such as rationalizing, projecting, or stereotyping to justify their actions; in this way they can hide from themselves what they are actually thinking and doing (hence keeping knowledge from themselves which they know to be true in one domain of their thought – their conscience, from another domain in which they are selfish or groupish). These phenomena come from the root twin problems of egocentric and sociocentric thinking, both of which we can learn to identify and mitigate through the tools of critical thinking.\n \nThrough commitment to critical thinking concepts, principles, and dispositions, and lifelong practice we can learn to integrate ideas and character traits across the areas of our lives. This leads to higher and higher degrees, over time, of intellectual integrity.\n \nA few caveats. Though the mind does to a significant degree compartmentalization, some processes in the human mind also naturally integrate across all domains. For example, humans tend to quite naturally be egocentric and sociocentric across all areas of their lives, though perhaps more so in one domain over another. And to some extent we do learn to integrate ideas, usually implicitly rather than explicitly, and usually minimally. And to some degree it is perhaps useful to be able to compartmentalize, as long as you are in full command of that compartmentalization (such as when choosing not to think about negative memories from your past). None of these caveats negate the need for each of us to better integrate ideas across this systems of our thoughts and the actions of our lives.\n \nAt this upcoming webinar we will explore, then, the phenomenon of compartmentalization and how we can achieve greater intellectual integrity through integration of ideas.\n \nTo prepare for this webinar, please complete the following activities:\n \n1. Read the partial copy of the "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"color":"#2c3b86","link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/viewDocument.php?doc=../content/library_for_everyone/47/HumanMindCOcopy.pdf&page=1"},"insert":"Thinker's Guide to the Human Mind"},{"insert":"\nfound in the Community Online. \n \n2. Complete the following statements in writing:\n\n\t\tWhen I look at all of the domains or important areas in my life, I realize that I compartmentalize in the following ways . . .\n \n\t\tFor the most part I reason well in the following areas of my life . . .\n\t\t\n\t\tHowever, I do not reason as well in the following areas of my life . . .\n\n\t\tThis is true because . . .\n\t\t\n\t\tTo become a more integrated person, I need to . . .\n \n"},{"attributes":{"color":"#010101"},"insert":"The webinar is this Saturday, September 25, 2021"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"color":"#010101"},"insert":"8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (5:00 pm Pacific)"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"color":"#010101"},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"color":"#010101"},"insert":"Logon to the webinar through this link: "},{"insert":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/webinarsAndAnnouncements.php \n"}]}