“If we are uncritical, we shall always find what we want: we shall look for and find confirmations,” Karl Popper, cited in: Critical Thinking byTom Chatfield

No one is protected or immune from criticism and, actually, only by criticism can we achieve more certainty and gain more knowledge and, ultimately, wisdom, understanding and insights, if we act on the knowledge we gain. It is, therefore, human stupidity to shield oneself criticism and only seek approval of your choices, ideas, and standpoints.

It is people who are not confident in themselves that resist or fear criticism. Criticism is to be seen in its opposition to dogmatism. Dogmatism is the attitude that there are eternal, everlasting and absolute truths that should not be challenged by anyone, anywhere, anytime. The attitude is most common in religions, monarchism and politico-military dictatorships in which the religious leaders and rulers are allergic to criticism. They cast themselves as the ultimate source of knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight. They are, therefore, arrogant in their relation to other people.

In reality, they do not only suppress knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight, but prevent the emergence of emancipatory knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insights. While they believe they are serving humanity, either by linking it to God or providing it with necessary leadership and governance, they are actually anti-God and anti-humanity.

God is the source of all knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight. He desires that leaders (religious and non-religious) and rulers lead and govern his people with love, justice, mercy, wisdom, understanding and insight towards change for the better. Therefore, putting criticism or criticality at the centre of their leadership and governance can improve and pave the way for human emancipation from Man himself and from the evil one.

One writer has advised that under “criticism” we should not understand something like “being critical to a given standpoint” but rather searching causal chains and logical order in the statements of others – in a sermon, lecture, article, political speech, parliamentary debate, judicial judgement, et cetera.

Criticism and/or critique enriches and raises the quality of academic, intellectual, cultural, ecological, educational, public and ideological discourses. To this end, criticality is important in ecological, academic, intellectual, educational, public and ideological discourses. Therefore, anyone who values quality in ecological, academic, intellectual, educational, public and ideological discourses in the 21st century and beyond must value criticality in ecological, academic, intellectual, educational, public and ideological spaces and in the knowledge industry as a whole. This improves the ecology of theories and discourses, which, should therefore, succeed each other with passage of time.

We cannot talk of criticality in ecological, academic, intellectual, educational, public and ideological discourses without amplifying, clarifying and articulating certain concepts, which frequently appear in discussions of criticality. These concepts include: discourse, intercourse, critique, ecocriticism, criticality analysis, metaphor, metaphor analysis, critical metaphor analysis, critical thinking, critical anlysis, critical discourse analysis, critical writing, critical review, critical synthesis, critical reading, critical reasoning, educational discourse, educational discourse analysis, academic discourse, academic discourse analysis, intellectual discourse, intellectual discourse analysis, public discourse, public discourse analysis, ideological discourse, ideological discourse analysis and independent thinking and independent thinking analysis. They are all evoked by an extensive and intensive consideration of criticality.

However, in all of them independent thinking must be centrally placed. Without independent thinking they do not exist. It is independent thinkers who value criticism and criticality most. They will even criticise artificial intelligence (AI) discourse and undertake artificial intelligence discouses analysis, when AI finds its way into ecological, academic, intellectual, educational, public and ideological discourses.

In this century of new and different knowledge production cultures, systems or strategies (Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott and Trow, 1994), when criticality is even more important than in the disciplines or multidisciplines, the aforementioned concepts will, and must, be evoked to enhance the value of criticality to and in academic, intellectual, educational, public and ideological discourses.

The new knowledge production cultures or systems or strategies I have in mind are: interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity (or nondisciplinarity (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2023, 2025). We can talk of interdisciplinary culture, crossdisciplinary culture, transdisciplinary culture or extradisciplinary or nondisciplinary culture.

I have recently evoked them in connection with peace-building in an alternative way (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2025). I asserted that institutionalisation of the different knowledge cultures at university campuses will be a milestone in building peace in the universities and beyond, producing peace lovers and peace-builders. It will also enhance the value of criticality at university campuses.

As a powerful force that bridges across differences, culture brings people together, and thus underpins social cohesion, peace and security. Culture is integral to who we are and where we come from. From heritage to creative expression, culture contributes to identity, belonging and meaning. As a resource for community vitality, well-being and expression, it shapes peaceful societies through the recognition of and respect for the diversity of cultures and freedom of expression (UNESCO, 2023).

Therefore, we can consider academic, intellectual, educational, ideological and public discourses in interdisciplinarity, crossdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and extradisciplinarity (or nondisciplinarity). When we do, we can thus talk of interdisciplinary academic, intellectual, educational and public discourses; crossdisciplinary academic, intellectual, educational, ideological and public discourses; transdisciplinary academic, intellectual, educational, ideological and discourses; and extradisciplinary academic, intellectual, educational, ideological and public discourses.

Apparently, we can also have public discourse in and on artificial intelligence (e.g. Winkel, 2024), which can no longer be excluded from academic, intellectual, educational, ideological and public discourses in the 21st Century. Indeed, Tim Mucci (2024) has considered the trends in artificial intelligence shaping the next 10 years. AI does not only present grand challenges for education (Woolf, Chad Lane, Chaudhri and Kolodner, 2013) but also for ecological, academic, intellectual, educational, ideological and public discourses on things like politics, democracy, justice, freedom and development. We can even have critical discourse analysis on artificial intelligence (Tiberarek Alashtary, 2024) to establish its fundamental issues (Müller and Bostrom, 2016), and the future trends and impacts and make sound prediction about its influence (e.g. Nikita Duggal, 2024) on human society.

Discourse versus intercourse

The word discourse is the opposite of intercourse. While intercourse has been used in connection with sex (i.e. sexual intercourse), it means far more. It means in-between interaction or communication of individuals, groups of individuals, communities or nations to produce results that neither of the interacting elements can claim to be solely responsible. There can be intellectual intercourse, social intercourse, economic intercourse or moral intercourse to name but a few.

When we talk of social intercourse between different groups of people, we mean that they are freely interacting with respect and concern for each other’s welfare, and can come to the defence of each other if one of them is threatened or endangered. Interaction in an intercourse is mutually inclusive and mutually beneficial. If the interactions are painful to one or the other, they interactors dialogue to reduce or eliminate the pain.

On the other hand, discourse is a long serious treatment or discussion of a subject or topic in a speech, talk or writing. It might be a discourse on one of the diverse issues confronting humanity such as the issues of human rights, democracy, freedom, justice, militarisation, food security, environment, economy, refugees, corruption, science, executive powers, legislation, population growth, terrorism, et cetera. It might be a cultural discourse or political discourse or an academic discourse, intellectual discourse, educational discourse, environmental discourse, ecological discourse or public discourse.

Blommaert (2005) gives a critical introduction to Discourse. Actually, we need both discourse and ideology. Määttä (2014) explains why we need both. It is, however, best if the discourses involve sufficient criticism rather than presenting a rosy picture of what the situation regarding an issue is. We can then explore criticality in each of them and even carry out a criticality anlysis on each of them. If it is an ecological discourse we can talk of ecocriticism when it contains adequate criticism (e.g., Pyre.

Discourse often involves power dynamics, influencing beliefs, opinions and decisions. Similarly, AI systems have the potential to shape and influence human understanding and behaviour through their language-based interactions. AI is important in the future of discourse analysis because it offers powerful tools to analyse complex discursive patterns at scale, uncover subtle linguistic features and handle vast datasets efficiently. As discourse increasingly takes place in digital and global contexts, AI’s ability to process and analyse large amounts of data will be crucial for understanding the evolving dynamics of language, communication, and power in society.

However, careful attention must be given to the challenges of interpretability, bias and context sensitivity to ensure robust and ethical discourse analysis (Discourse analyser (2024). Michael Bennett (2024) has explained the differences between artificial intelligence and human intelligence.

Dietrich (2002) explores the philosophy of artificial intelligence. However,  Aisha Naz Ansari, Sohail Ahmad  and  Sadia Bhutta  (2024) examine the philosophical discourse surrounding artificial intelligence and Anuraj Singh (2024) examines the dual edge of AI in shaping public discourse particularly in democracy and for that matter politics.

Discourse Analyser (2024) has examined the role of artificial intelligence in discourse analysis. While Makridakis (2017) discusses the forthcoming artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and its impact on society and firms, Fan, Fang, Wu, Guo, Dai (2020) are convinced we are surely shifting from brain science to artificial intelligence.

Bearman, Ryan and Ajjawi (2023) address the discourses of artificial intelligence in higher education. Barrat (2023) believes artificial intelligence is humanity’s final invention and the end of the human era is now, not later.

For God and my country.

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for – Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA).