Mid-term Paper. Critical Thinking. Critical theory: Old and New.

Critical Thinking
Student Name
Institution Affiliation
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the analysis of facts to form a judgment. It involves being rational and able to see both sides of an issue, being able to provide evidence that disconfirms your ideas, developing appropriate reasoning, demanding that an idea be backed by evidence, and generating conclusions from available facts to solve a problem. For instance, in the context of a capitalist society, business leaders who need more productivity, economic flexibility, and highly skilled employees have continuously pushed schools to improve the critical thinking skills among students to produce a well-educated workforce. 
Critical thinking comprises of two interrelated stages; Stage one includes; being analytical, problem-solving, and balanced objectivity while stage two comprises ethical, social engagement, and political commitment. Analytical and ethical dimensions support the holistic insights expressed by the ancient philosophers that critical thinking contains a socio-political imperative. The social context comprises the connection between contemplation and action and the relationship between analytical and ethical thinking.
Critical theory: Old and New
Critical theory was closely associated with western Marxism developed by Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin among other prominent members of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. The theory is a constructive enterprise committed to progressive social activism. However, it has evolved with successive generations and multiplied to cover conventional class-based perspectives that include a more contemporary identity-centered articulation of social review that involves feminist theory, queer theory, psychoanalytic theory, poststructuralism thought, postcolonialism, critical legal studies, and critical race theory. Critical theorists raised a vital concern by analyzing the cause of current forms of domination, exploitation, and injustices in a social society IN what they believe to be a result of globalization. They advocated for several changes in thinking and participated in the democratic contestation of corporate-led-globalization in 1990s, which impacted the evaluation of critical theory through the emergence of powerful social movements advocating for people-led globalization. It also led to the emergence of a worldwide community of critical thinkers that use digital communication channels to make it easy for the voices and opinions of everyone to be heard globally.
Basics of Critical Global Studies and The Responsibilities of Intellectual
Global scholars used the term global studies and globalization interchangeably in pursuit of their trans-disciplinary globalization projects. Robinson William and Richard Appelbaum introduced Critical Globalization Studies (CGS) that was based on an understanding of critical thinking, linking the analytical operations of the mind to concrete ethical-political application. They emphasized that CGS should be broad enough to house a diversity of methods and epistemologies. In their study, asymmetrical power relations derived from the capital-labor relation represented central logic for the systematic reproduction of unjust social structures globally. They argued that capitalism is undergoing changes from the current nation-state phase of capitalism to the transnational phase of global capitalism. The two adopted the ‘dialectical’ form of critical thinking developed by Antonio Gramsci. A global system theory by neo-Gramscians suggested a new transnational practice of global capitalism operating in economic, political, and cultural spheres. The elements of CGS were to integrate theory and practice, challenge unjust social orders, and contain a political dimension. The outcome of CGS analysis was social awareness and transformation, global engagement, and global citizenship.
Critical Global Studies and Global Thinking
 The dialectical approach embraced by critical global studies scholars sheds light on the connection of theoretical reflection with practical issues of social justice and makes it possible for investigation of crucial cultural dynamism within the related framework of global capitalism. One of the significant achievements of their CSG anthology is in the skill of its contributors to provide their critical assessment of contemporary globalization dynamics in a language understandable to socially engage scholars and activist movements, which are non-academic movements. The objectives of CSG to produce globalization theory emanate from global activists thinking. Many global scholars engage in global activist thinking to grow their global consciousness from their vastly enhanced contact with like-minded organizations and academics across national borders.
Educating Global Citizenship
In the 21st century, many advocacy groups, NGOs, education institutions, transnational corporations, community-based organizations, and various governments have embraced global citizenship. The uptake of global citizenship is a result of increased education initiatives seeking to inspire young people to grow into intellectually competent, morally responsible, and culturally perceptive global citizens. The initiative by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September 2012 dabbed ‘Global Education First’ aimed to foster global citizenship by contributing to the global movement for education. Global citizenship consists of three factors; social responsibility, global civic engagement, and global competence. The Hans Schattle’s typology of global civic engagement consists of the cultivation of thinking beyond imagined physical boundaries, a sense of global responsibility and shared moral obligations across humankind, the strengthening of democratic ideals of empowerment and participation, and global civic engagement.
Generating Emancipatory Knowledge for The Global Justice Movement
Critical globalization studies scholar-activists showed a strong attraction force for the global justice movement and contestation of the tremendous injustices and inequalities produced by neoliberal globalization. Therefore, their realization of global citizenship necessitates the search for emancipatory knowledge that helped the forces of global civil society to bring forth transnational forms of solidarity, especially the poor and underprivileged in the global south. The attachment of global studies in emancipatory practice provides the basis of the educational mission of public intellectuals to generate emancipatory knowledge in support of the struggles of global justice and global occupy movement. Various studies by different scholars have been conducted to justify the impact of critical thinking on the struggles of global justice and the global occupy movement. The critical thinking conceptualization of global studies fosters forms of social engagement between emancipatory practices for a social movement to political propositions committed to forwarding social justice in the global arena.
The intellectual scope of global studies and current status in several academic settings around the world are the most influential criticism in the field of critical thinking. Scholars have criticized global studies and its programs as ‘barely developed’. This kind of intervention opens the way for necessary corrections to idealized and romanticized accounts demeaning the rise of new academic scholars. Numerous indigenous theorists have also exa...