[Part 4]Robert H. Thouless once invited his readers to imagine two civil servants faced with the same public report that questioned the success of a widely praised government programme. The first civil servant read the report with discomfort, because it challenged a policy he had publicly defended, yet he examined the data carefully, checked the sources, and acknowledged the weaknesses revealed by the findings. Although doing so risked criticism from his colleagues and superiors, he revised his position and argued that the programme required correction rather than celebration. Thouless would describe this response as straight thinking, because the man allowed evidence to guide his judgment, even when the conclusion was personally inconvenient.The second civil servant reacted differently to the same report. Before reading it in full, he decided that the programme must be successful, because admitting failure would threaten his reputation and political alliances. He focused only on passages that could be interpreted favourably, dismissed critical sections as biased or hostile, and repeated slogans about national progress to reassure both himself and others. His reasoning appeared confident and persuasive, yet it was driven not by a search for truth, but by a desire to protect an image. According to Thouless, this was crooked thinking because the conclusion came first, and reasoning was bent afterwards to defend it.Thouless used examples like this to show that the difference between straight and crooked thinking does not lie in intelligence, education, or rhetorical skill, but in honesty of motive. Both individuals were capable of reasoning, but only one was willing to submit his beliefs to reality rather than force reality to submit to his beliefs.In Straight and Crooked Thinking (1930, Hodder & Stoughton), Robert H. Thouless explains that straight thinking is the disciplined and honest process of reasoning in which a person seeks truth rather than personal comfort, social approval, or emotional satisfaction. Straight thinking requires an individual to examine evidence carefully, to distinguish facts from opinions, and to remain willing to revise conclusions when new and stronger evidence appears. According to Thouless, this form of thinking demands intellectual humility, because it recognises that one’s own beliefs may be mistaken, and intellectual courage, because it resists pressure from authority, tradition, or popular sentiment. Straight thinking, therefore, is not merely logical correctness, but a moral attitude toward truth that prioritises clarity, fairness, and responsibility in judgment.Thouless contrasts straight thinking with crooked thinking, which he describes as reasoning that is distorted by emotion, desire, prejudice, or self-interest. In crooked thinking, the individual does not begin with a sincere search for truth, but with a conclusion already desired, and then selectively uses arguments, evidence, or rhetoric to justify that conclusion. Thouless emphasises that crooked thinking often appears intelligent and persuasive, because it may employ sophisticated language or partial logic, yet it is fundamentally dishonest, as it avoids inconvenient facts and suppresses opposing viewpoints. For Thouless, crooked thinking is especially dangerous because it can deceive not only others but also the thinker himself, creating an illusion of rationality while reinforcing error and bias.In modern politics, crooked thinking frequently appears when political actors begin with a predetermined narrative or ideological goal and then manipulate facts to support it. Rather than allowing evidence to guide policy conclusions, politicians may cherry-pick statistics, exaggerate selective successes, or reframe failures as external conspiracies. Thouless’s concept is clearly illustrated when emotional appeals such as fear, pride, or resentment are deliberately used to override rational evaluation, encouraging citizens to accept claims not because they are true, but because they feel reassuring or validating. In such cases, political debate becomes a contest of persuasion rather than a shared inquiry into reality, and crooked thinking thrives by rewarding loyalty over accuracy.
In modern media environments, crooked thinking is often amplified by algorithms, sensationalism, and the economics of attention. Media outlets and digital platforms may prioritise emotionally charged headlines, simplified narratives, or polarising frames that confirm audience biases, rather than presenting complex and nuanced realities. From Thouless’s perspective, this constitutes crooked thinking because information is arranged not to illuminate truth, but to provoke reactions such as outrage, fear, or tribal identification. When audiences consume media primarily to reinforce their existing beliefs, they may unknowingly participate in crooked thinking themselves, mistaking repetition and popularity for evidence and confusing virality with validity.
Thouless’s analysis suggests that crooked thinking in politics and media is sustained not only by those who produce misleading narratives, but also by audiences who prefer comfort over truth. The responsibility for straight thinking, therefore, lies both with institutions and with individuals who must actively resist emotional manipulation and cultivate intellectual discipline in an age of information excess.
Thouless’s distinction between straight and crooked thinking provides a moral-psychological foundation for understanding why reasoning often goes astray, whereas John Dewey and Richard Paul develop systematic frameworks for how thinking should be disciplined and improved. Although their approaches differ in emphasis, all three thinkers converge on the idea that genuine thinking must resist habit, authority, and emotional comfort to serve truth.
For Thouless, crooked thinking arises primarily from the corruption of motive, because the thinker begins with a desired conclusion and then bends reasoning to justify it. John Dewey, in contrast, frames the problem as a failure of reflective thinking, which he defines as the active, persistent, and careful consideration of beliefs in light of their grounds and consequences. Where Thouless diagnoses dishonesty in reasoning, Dewey diagnoses intellectual passivity, arguing that many people accept beliefs uncritically because they have never been trained to suspend judgement, question assumptions, or trace implications. In this sense, crooked thinking corresponds to what Dewey would call unreflective or routine thought, shaped by custom and impulse rather than inquiry.
Richard Paul extends and formalises these concerns by defining critical thinking as disciplined, self-directed reasoning governed by intellectual standards such as clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, and fairness. Unlike Thouless, who emphasises moral integrity, and Dewey, who emphasises reflective inquiry, Paul focuses on the structural elements of reasoning itself, including purpose, assumptions, evidence, inferences, and point of view. Crooked thinking, from Paul’s perspective, is not merely emotionally driven or unreflective, but systematically flawed because it violates these intellectual standards while often masquerading as rational argument.
The three thinkers also differ in how they assign responsibility for intellectual error. Thouless warns that crooked thinking is especially dangerous because it deceives the thinker into believing he is being reasonable, thereby creating moral self-deception. Dewey sees the root of the problem in educational and social conditions that discourage questioning and reward conformity, suggesting that reflective thinking must be cultivated through democratic habits and experiential learning. Paul, meanwhile, argues that critical thinking requires conscious self-regulation and the deliberate identification of bias, egocentrism, and sociocentrism, making intellectual discipline an ongoing ethical obligation.
Taken together, Thouless explains why people want to think crookedly, Dewey explains why they fail to think reflectively, and Paul explains how they can learn to think critically. Their combined insights reveal that the struggle for sound thinking is not merely technical, but moral, educational, and cultural, especially in modern societies saturated with political messaging and media persuasion.
Robert H. Thouless’s concept of crooked thinking offers a powerful lens through which contemporary practices of image-building, populism, and digital propaganda in Indonesia can be critically understood. In the context of political pencitraan, crooked thinking manifests when public figures prioritise the construction of a favourable image over honest engagement with reality, policy substance, or accountability. Rather than allowing facts to shape public narratives, carefully curated visuals, slogans, and symbolic gestures are deployed to produce emotional resonance, encouraging citizens to respond to appearances rather than evidence.In Indonesian populism, crooked thinking operates by simplifying complex social and economic problems into emotionally appealing stories of “the people” versus vaguely defined elites or external enemies. This form of reasoning aligns closely with Thouless’s description of starting from a desired conclusion, namely the moral purity of one group and the moral corruption of another, and then selectively assembling facts to support that narrative. Emotional identification replaces critical evaluation, and loyalty to a leader or movement becomes a substitute for rational assessment of policies and outcomes.
Digital propaganda further intensifies crooked thinking by exploiting the architecture of social media platforms. Algorithms reward content that provokes outrage, fear, or admiration, while nuanced analysis is often marginalised due to its lower emotional impact. In such an environment, repetition, virality, and influencer endorsement are easily mistaken for truth, creating what Thouless would recognise as an illusion of rational consensus. Citizens may feel informed and engaged, while in reality their reasoning has been subtly steered by emotionally engineered information flows rather than by careful examination of evidence.
From Thouless’s perspective, the danger of these practices lies not only in misleading the public, but in cultivating a culture where crooked thinking becomes normalised and even rewarded. When political success is measured by visibility, emotional mobilisation, and digital dominance rather than by coherence and honesty, the moral discipline required for straight thinking is gradually eroded. The result is a public sphere in which critical reflection is replaced by performative belief, and political judgement is shaped more by affect than by reason.
The intellectual struggle undertaken by Dr. Roy Suryo, Dr. Rismon Sianipar, and Dr. Tifa in critically questioning the authenticity of President Jokowi’s academic credentials can be appreciated not primarily in terms of the final correctness of their claims, but in terms of the reflective and moral stance they embody, when viewed through the frameworks of John Dewey and Robert H. Thouless. From this perspective, the value of their actions lies in the willingness to subject an authoritative public narrative to scrutiny rather than to accept it passively.
In John Dewey’s conception of reflective thinking, genuine inquiry begins when a belief that is commonly accepted is treated as a problem to be examined rather than as a settled truth. Dewey emphasises that democratic intelligence depends on the courage to suspend judgement, to ask inconvenient questions, and to demand grounds and consequences for claims made by those in power. Seen in this light, the efforts of these figures can be understood as an exercise in reflective thinking, insofar as they refuse to treat institutional authority or official statements as immune from examination, and instead insist that public trust must be earned through transparency and evidence.
Robert H. Thouless’s distinction between straight and crooked thinking further sharpens this appreciation by focusing on the moral orientation of reasoning. Straight thinking, for Thouless, requires honesty of motive, a readiness to follow evidence wherever it leads, and resistance to social pressure that discourages dissent. To the extent that these critics frame their arguments as appeals to evidence, documentation, and rational examination, rather than mere character attacks or emotional mobilisation, their actions can be seen as an attempt to resist crooked thinking, especially in a political culture where image-building and reputational immunity often replace substantive accountability.
At the same time, both Dewey and Thouless implicitly remind us that the ethical standard of such criticism lies not in loyalty to a cause or hostility to a person, but in fidelity to method. Appreciation, therefore, does not require agreement with every conclusion drawn, but recognition of the civic and intellectual risk involved in questioning dominant narratives. In societies shaped by media saturation and political polarisation, the act of questioning itself becomes a form of democratic discipline, provided it remains open to correction and governed by intellectual integrity.
In contemporary Indonesia, the controversy surrounding the questioning of Joko Widodo's (the 7th President of Indonesia) academic credentials can be more fruitfully understood through the concepts of image-building and symbolic immunity of power than through a narrow focus on documentary authenticity alone. Image-building, or pencitraan, operates as a political strategy in which legitimacy is maintained through carefully managed symbols, narratives, and emotional identification, rather than through continuous public scrutiny of evidence. Within such a framework, the leader’s image gradually acquires a protective aura that discourages questioning, not because the questions are inherently unreasonable, but because they are perceived as socially or morally inappropriate.
From John Dewey’s perspective, this condition represents a weakening of reflective thinking within democratic life. Dewey warned that when public opinion is shaped more by habit, admiration, and emotional attachment than by inquiry, authority becomes insulated from criticism. Symbolic immunity of power emerges when official narratives are accepted as settled truth, and when questioning them is framed as an attack on stability, unity, or national dignity. In this environment, reflective inquiry is replaced by what Dewey would describe as routine acceptance, where citizens are encouraged to trust appearances rather than examine grounds and consequences.
Robert H. Thouless’s concept of crooked thinking sharpens this analysis by revealing how image-building and symbolic immunity rely on distorted reasoning rather than open evaluation. Crooked thinking flourishes when a favourable conclusion about those in power is assumed from the outset, and all subsequent information is filtered to protect that conclusion. In the Indonesian context, symbolic immunity allows political images to function as substitutes for evidence, making scepticism appear immoral and compliance appear rational. The result is not the absence of reasoning, but the presence of reasoning that serves emotional comfort and social conformity rather than truth.
When critics challenge such immunity, the resistance they face often illustrates Thouless’s warning that crooked thinking is defended not through argument, but through social pressure, ridicule, or moral accusation. The controversy thus becomes less about facts and more about boundaries: who is permitted to ask questions, and which symbols are exempt from scrutiny. Appreciated through Dewey and Thouless, these moments expose a deeper democratic tension between the need for stability and the obligation of continuous critical examination.
In this sense, the struggle is not merely about a single document, but about whether political authority in Indonesia remains accountable to evidence or gradually retreats into symbolic untouchability. Dewey and Thouless would both suggest that a healthy democracy is not one in which leaders are endlessly admired, but one in which even the most powerful images remain open to reflective and honest questioning.
Thouless might have ended the discussion with a simple irony. When a report arrived showing cracks in a celebrated policy, one official sighed and said, “Let us read it carefully, even if it embarrasses us.” Another smiled calmly and replied, “No need to read it; we already know it is wrong.” The first was accused of being troublesome, while the second was praised for being loyal. Thus, straight thinking was treated as disloyalty, and crooked thinking was rewarded as wisdom.
[Part 2]
