It was three in the morning when I awoke to the sound of my cockatiel squawking in her cage.
 "Knock it off, Quimby, I've gotta be up in four hours, I'll feed you then."  I huffed, and burrowed deeper into my blankets.  I was almost compelled to open a window, and "accidentally" unlatch the hook on the cage door.
 "That is incredibly kind of you, but I happen to be hungry now."
 I bolted into an upright position.  I had been teaching Quimby to say hello, but...
 "No, no.  Lay back down," the bird insisted with subtle sarcasm.  "I shouldn't inconvenience you; it's rude of me to disrupt you at this hour."
 After going through the classic "I-must-be-dreaming" rationale, I continued the conversation with Quimby.  Who knew when I'd get another chance to converse with my bird?
 "Your bird?  Not only do you decide when I speak and eat, but now I'm your possession as well?"
 Great.  Now she could read my thoughts, too.
 I apologized while scooping seed into Quimby's dish.  I held up the tiny door so she could exit her cage, but Quimby did not move.
 "Close the door," she sighed.  "Allowing me out of my cage is just a way for you to feel less guilty."
 She was right.
 "Look," Quimby continued, "we don't have much time, so I have to make this quick.  We aren't as different as you think.  Inside these bars is my world, and outside these bars is your world.  I do not have as much food or space as I would like, just as there are things you want that you can't always have.  You see me as a captive.  I do not see you any differently, for neither of us can escape on our own.  In the meantime, we try to make the best of what we have.  For me, it means "squawking" at three in the morning.  My song is all I have left.  For you, it apparently means sticking a bird on display in your bedroom..."
 "You aren't just a centerpiece--" I began in defense.  But I stopped to think.  She was pretty to look at.  She was an extravagance.  I didn't know why I purchased Quimby, except for the fact I had wanted her.  I had always liked animals...
 "Then why separate yourself from me?  I'm not trying to scold you.  I'm trying to point out how unaware of something as plain as your very own decision.  You probably care about my species more than the average person, though even you, someone who gives half a damn, unintentionally puts up another set of bars.  You face an obstacle that you blindly helped create."
 "Thankfully, you have also just had a realization.  We both know my ability to speak your language doesn't go beyond 'hello.'  This is you speaking.  This is you saying, "Wait...something's wrong with this picture."  Now, start squawking about it.  There are some who will accuse you of making a racket.  Others will listen to you, and a few might even join you in chorus."
 "But I wouldn't know how to start..."
 Quimby cocked her head, "Why don't you start with this dream?  It doesn't have to be just a dream, you know."
 I woke up to the sound of my bird singing.  Even though it was three in the morning, I climbed out of bed.  Humming to myself, I began disassembling Quimby's cage.  Next, I would attack my own.

         As I have spent the majority of my romantic life as a gay male, I have noticed some things about men.  More specifically, I've noticed what homosexual men who claim to be "straight" think when they are interacting with a gay male.  At one point in my romantic career I had an opportunity to have relations with a male police officer.  This man was indeed gay but claimed a straight label.  I found the idea of having a man who perceived himself as straight very intriguing, that is, until I actually had the experience and realized how the "straight" gay world thinks.

        This was going to be the first guy I had met who was not socially gay.  He was possibly going to be the first "man" with no stereotypical limp wrists and lisp.  Looking back, I am not sure why I thought this would be an improvement over "out" gay men.  Perhaps it was because I knew I could never go back to where I had come out from and so could myself never claim to have this duality.  In any event, when I arrived at his house I immediately thought I had to impress him in some way.  I thought that someone who was claiming to live in both worlds (but playing hide-and-go-seek with their true nature) was in some way above me.  Consequently, I tried to project the closet thing to what I thought he expected (another "straight" male).  I soon began to feel uncomfortable. He was drinking glasses of vodka, perhaps as a way for him to absolve his feelings of guilt for his homosexuality.  I realized that his behavior was not about knowing who I was but rather what purpose I could serve him  -- before he resented me.  While looking at him, I had been thinking about how he reminded me of the people from my formative years (in nature) who rejected me because I had come to terms -- and exposed -- my sexual preference.  A small part of me felt redeemed, as if I might finally gain acceptance from the same kind of person that shunned me when I was younger.  In a sense I could be using this socially "straight" man, just as he was using me, although I knew deep inside that there was always more to my social interactions than that.

        My relationships often involve the same emotional attachments as straight couples experience.  But this man was too deep in denial, I concluded.  He was too ashamed of himself.  He would awake insecure, I knew, and I would be forgotten.  Despite these thoughts, when the time came to leave, I knew that I was in trouble:  I did not want to say good-bye, to know it was a meaningless encounter, and I did not want to have leftover feelings for a guy hiding from himself.  I thought about how I could be this great hero who would help him to acknowledge himself.

        What I really needed, however, was to realize that he believed he cared for me no more than any other "straight" man would.  He was not ready nor looking for the part of the relationship that people who are gay and acknowledge it are looking for.  He was convinced that he was straight, despite his attraction to other men.  I learned that men who experiment with homosexuality and claim to be straight are almost an insult to the gay community, because they keep themselves "safe" by hiding behind a conventional straight label.  In this way they don't have (or at least they deny) the emotional attachment that gay men have.  They do not have to face the abuse or discrimination the society dishes out to gay me.  They take no responsibility for who they are and whom they represent.  I wanted something beyond physical, and he was not able to forgive himself for who he was inside.

    Our culture imposes a distinct, uni-dimensional image of what a "man" ought to be.  I was a threat to that image.  I was able to invoke non-conventional feelings from a masculine figure, and so I had to go.  I have learned to leave alone the ones who cannot accept themselves.  There is no room for others when one cannot make room for himself.

         Some students recently raised a question about whether opinions as such could be mistaken (as Descartes says he has found many of his former views to be in error).  I replied by asking whether, since our opinions often change in light of new data on the subject, we don't implicitly assume that opinions are right or wrong -- that they have truth value.  I suggested the example of the opinion that it is raining outside; new evidence, as might be gotten by looking out the window, would easily show the opinion to be either true or false.

        The students cleverly countered with an example of an aesthetic opinion, the sort famously resistant to rational disputation.  I conceded that this was a more difficult case to settle, that it presented a much greater epistemological challenge, but that nonetheless most judgments of taste probably do have reasons behind them (psychological, historical, physiological) whether conscious or not, and, therefore, possess as well truth conditions (correct or incorrect ways of characterizing or naming those reasons).  As evidence of this I observed that we often find our first impressions (hating opera) yielding to more nuanced views (liking opera, or being able to appreciate it even if we do not normally seek it out) when we are more educated about a subject, or have come to associate it with other experiences and ideas.  The multiple (and often invisible) reasons for an aesthetic opinion may often be beyond the reach of certain knowledge, but there surely are reasons for tastes.

        It struck me during this conversation that students who believe opinions are simply reports on their internal states (rather than claims to be explained and defended) are well-insulated against serious investigation of their views.  That is to say, their ability to think critically, to examine and test their own and each other's statements for insight or error, adequacy, or cant, is severely limited, since they hold a person's opinions as rightful possessions not subject to reason, like parts of their bodies or wristwatches.  This may help explain the common habit of writing "I feel" when what they mean is "I think."  Learning to think critically means stripping away some of the layers of self-protective insulation, a process that is understandably uncomfortable, and even threatening at first.

        Reflecting on this phenomenon led me to wonder how some of their teachers, among whom it is fashionable to deny that there is such a thing as truth, can possibly be teaching them to think critically.  How can we ask students to give reasoned accounts of what they think if we deny, in principle and in advance, that one view may be superior to another, one sequence of reasoning more adequate than another?  Of course such claims can be parsed in softer terminology:  one view is merely more complete; a line of reasoning more persuasive, but this only begs the question of our criteria for completeness or persuasiveness.  Like the students' instinctive defensiveness, it insulates us from having to explain and defend what we really think is true in any direct or perspicuous way.

        The American philosopher Charles Peirce famously observed that people normally avoid thinking critically until forced to confront a contradiction in their beliefs; then they exert themselves for only as long as it takes to restore a fixed state of belief, and stop.  What needs explanation, though, is why some of our students exert themselves so vigorously in their efforts to avoid challenging their settled beliefs.  They seem to work harder at not thinking critically than they would have to work if they engaged the texts and their opinions directly.

        I suspect part of the answer lies in a sort of inmates' mentality.  Years of compulsory education have taught many of them deeply defensive habits and attitudes, and the only thing that can displace such habits are potent new habits.  Thus it will help to consider critical thinking not just as a tool for academic purposes, but as a disposition, an entirely new orientation toward both intellectual tasks and daily life that must be cultivated habitually.  The essence of the habit is simple:  ask yourself at every opportunity whether your opinions are true, and why you think so.

         The United States currently has the largest gap between the rich and the poor of any major industrial country (Cecil, 3).  Since the 1970s, the top 1% of
households have doubled their share of the national wealth resulting in the top 1% now obtaining more wealth than the entire bottom 95% (Keynes, 2).  Arguably, we are seeing a shrinking of the middle class resulting in a dichotomous society with a few elite gaining most of the profit.  An even bigger issue is that we are sitting back and letting global stratification occur on an international level.

        Thomas Friedman defines globalization as "the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before -- in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations, and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before" (9).  While globalization breaks down some barriers, it is also exploiting third world countries that are not as advanced and wealthy as the industrialized nations.  As a result, researchers estimate that the income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth living in the poorest jumped from 30:1 in 1960 to 74:1 in 1997 (Keynes, 2).  Furthermore, the world's richest person, Microsoft boss Bill Gates, is worth over $60 Billion -- more than the gross national product of Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, and Bolivia (Keynes, 2).  One person is worth more than six countries!  So what exactly is causing not only fragmentation and decentralization of classes within the United States but also between countries around the world?

        Perhaps the most pertinent cause is the global spread of new technology and free markets (Bernasek, 1).  What we see happening is countries like the United States that have the capital, labor, and production, are moving forward while third world countries like Africa remain stuck and are falling behind.  Aside from the fact that countries like the United States have the financial stability to progress, they also are becoming immersed in a culture that glorifies monetary success over humanistic traditional values and morals.  On the other hand, we see several traditional societies that don't want to let go of their roots.  Friedman discusses this as the fight between the cosmopolitans and fundamentalists (30).

        Who will win this battle over values?  Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question, although I will offer my opinion.  I feel that westernized countries have become too entangled in the notion of being the most technologically and financially advanced and that traditional values are simply being forgotten.  Industrialized countries are using globalization to keep third world countries at the lower end of the spectrum.  This global stratification will continue to worsen if people do not realize that in the long run it can do potential harm to the majority of people around the world.

Bernasek, A. 1999. "Free Trade's Weak Spot, "Fortune.  December, Vol. 140, Issue 12, pp.
        56-57.
Cecil, A. 1996. "The Widening Gap Between the Rich and the  Poor: The Challenge of the 21st
        Century," Vital Speeches.  January, Vol. 62, Issue 7, pp. 197-202.
Friedman, T. 2000. The Lexus and the Olive Tree.  New  York: Anchor Books.
Keynes, J. 2000. "The Global Economy," New  Internationalist. January, Issue 320, pp. 24-28.