Whatever Happened to Critical Thinking?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

During the past two weeks, I have been the intense subject of two interesting “pseudo-rejoinders.” Pseudo rejoinders because none of them critically and/or intelligently addressed even a single one of the issues earlier on raised by me over which, apparently, the authors’ hackles had been raised.

The first of these faux-rejoinders was captioned “The Fuddy-Duddy Called Kwame Okoampah[sic]-Ahoofe, Junior” (See Modernghana.com 3/13/11), while the second one was presumptuously titled “Vilifying Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, Valerie Sackey” (MyJoyOnline.com 3/21/11).

I have not particularly concerned myself with the name or identity of either author, because under the specious guise of dignity preservation, they have both traded gratuitous insults where logic and systematic ratiocination were required. In the first instance, the author, a new recipient of the doctoral degree, and a newly-hired Assistant Professor of English at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, comically and ironically presumed to “expose” me to public ridicule by actually exposing himself, most likely inadvertently, for the abject gasbag that I have always envisaged him to be. And precisely how did this godforsaken fellow “expose” me, but predictably and pitifully cut-and-paste the largely anonymous Internet chat-room remarks and comments of people whose credibility, moral and psychological, could never be sustained in a legitimately constituted court of law. And as I heartily told my good friend and elder brother, Mr. Kwasi Ohene, I now have that SOB self-boxed into a corner where I precisely want him; which is that having seriously taxed the capacity of his rational faculties – that is assuming he has any – to its apparent limits, that SOB has now garishly exposed himself for the ignoble charlatan that I have always suspected him to be.

You see, dear reader, you cannot presume to have “exposed” somebody by shamelessly evading the significant and relevant questions which the latter has logically and genuinely raised in a counter-argument to one’s morbid attempt to gratuitously vilify former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, merely because one is in ideological dissension with the man who is unarguably Ghana’s finest constitutionally elected leader in our Fourth Republic.

For those of our readers who may be interested, my article was captioned “Yes, Kufuor Has Been Vindicated In Principle!” (See Ghanaweb.com 3/14/11). I do not deem it necessary to rehash the thrust of my pro-Kufuor brief herein, except to adumbrate on the fact that those who have meticulously followed my publications are fully aware of the fact that Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe is no facile partisan of President Kufuor, and that I have not hesitated to call our “Gentle Giant” to the proverbial carpet when I felt the imperative need to do so.

In the second instance, the critic’s raison detre for rejoining my article, captioned “Valerie Sackey Is A Typical Lickspittle” (Ghanaweb.com 3/18/11), appears to be more sentimental than rational, for the wet-eared author bitterly complains that I have intemperately called his journalism school teacher to the carpet. Here also, not a single issue raised in my article is addressed by this novice critic, except to obliquely crave the sympathy of both yours truly and that of the charitable reader. All of which delightfully leaves me wondering whether constructively touching a raw nerve, now and then, is not, perhaps, the best way to capture the sedulous attention of these popinjays and panjandrums. Not that it matters, anyhow.

Still, when both my would-be “exposers” and “vilifiers” cannot accurately spell the name of yours truly, dear reader, then, of course, couldn’t one almost safely conclude that the unquestionably diligent instructors and lecturers at the Ghana Institute of Journalism and Cape Coast University do not seem to be reaping the condign credit of having educated emulative replicas of themselves? By all means, let God save us from ourselves, of whose latter foes we certainly are!

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###