Critical Thinking: Navigating the Complexity of the 21st Century
The 21st century presents various challenges. The Age of the Internet and social media, combined with socioeconomic upheavals like the 2008 depression and the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a challenging time for the younger generation to cope with new circumstances.
As someone born in 1988, from a generation of Iranians labeled the “booming generation,” my understanding of the cultural aspects and worldview of today’s youth is limited. However, I am still struggling to find better answers to the everyday social, economic, and political challenges we face. One of the main ways I have found to address the world’s upheaval – a way that is both useful and difficult – is by improving critical thinking.
Why critical thinking? How can it prepare us to deal with the challenges around us, such as high housing prices, unstable job opportunities, rising inequality, and the spread of hate speech regarding race, sexual orientation, and migration?
Our current complex life, where a major election on another continent can have a ripple effect on the European political and economic spheres, demands new and more comprehensive approaches to understanding. We must use a framework like “Systems Thinking.” In this approach, everything is connected, from the individual person to our natural environment. Here, “information” is the nervous system. Therefore, any group that “controls” this information – whether by using traditional media (like TV stations and magazines) or by controlling the “algorithms” of social media and AI – can guide our minds toward their own narrative. (Reference: https://www.economist.com/business/2025/10/01/americas-newest-media-moguls-the-ellisons)
This leads to critical questions:
- Why would a person with a net wealth of $500 billion criticize taxes on the rich, while a person on a fixed salary pays their taxes before even receiving their paycheck?
- While corporations like Amazon and Google use complicated legal frameworks to minimize their tax contributions, our public infrastructure, education, and health systems remain highly dependent on that tax revenue. (References: The Guardian – Amazon sales income / Irish Times – Google tax avoidance)
- How does the colonial past of European countries contribute to their current wealth? And how does that same past negatively impact less-developed countries like Congo, Morocco, and India?
- How did NATO leave the Afghan people to face Taliban oppression? Which corporations (military, mining, etc.) benefited from that war? Besides the Afghan people and the looting of Afghanistan’s natural resources, which NATO taxpayers also lost their money? (Reference: https://www.usip.org/publications/2017/05/industrial-scale-looting-afghanistans-mineral-resources)
These are the questions “between the lines” that the younger generation must explore. If they want to actively engage in solving their own challenges (like the housing affordability crisis, health conditions, environmental issues, and immigration), they need to look for answers beyond the daily narrative.
A major part of sustainable development is understanding the mechanisms working beyond the reality we see. If we are looking for a resilient society, we must enhance our critical thinking to see beyond the algorithms and traditional news narratives.
