The Importance Of Being A Critical Thinker In The Movie 12 Angry Men
12 angry men was an English movie with a genre of drama and crime. It was released on April 1957. Written by Reginald Rose and directed by Sidney Lumet. It is one of the few movies that received a hundred percent rating via Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Erbert and ninety-four percent from Google Review. The movie started on a court of appeal, an eighteen-year-old boy was accused by the murder of his own father. The story showcased the twelve jurors dealing with the verdict. The story revolves through the arguments, claims, and judgments by the jurors to come up with the valid and a systematic conclusion. The movie emphasizes mainly about being a critical thinker.
There are varieties of lessons being taught by the movie. Including few of these lessons; the value of one’s life especially in the case of death penalty, the importance of following a systematic way of reasoning and in making conclusion, the significance of man’s doubt and questioning in order to arrive at the ultimate truth. In life, few of these lessons are being wham in every person’s day to day life through decision making.
However, the simplest and less obscure value caught my attention the most. The eight juror named Davis, is a hard-nosed guy, belief that there are factors and other perspectives need to be considered before deliberating the verdict. He doubted the majority, claiming the boy was not guilty because of two pre-eminent facts. First, the witness claimed and saw sixty feet across her window, the boy standing with his father. Second, the witness described the boy stabbed his father with a knife towards the chest. There are also minor factors to be considered to prove the boy murdered his father. The eight juror stand for what he believed, doubted his own ideas considering that they barely scratched the surface of the crime scene. David speculated that there is a misconception of the woman seeing the boy across her window because of the delayed factor of the moving train and two cars. The estimated time was ten second before the body dropped the floor right after the shout of a boy saying “I’m gonna kill you”. While the man living below where incident happed, claimed he heard the boy shouted and in a split second he overheard a body dropped the floor. So which is which? What was the truth? David dug also several situations with a chink in the armor, including the fifteen feet walk across the corridor of the victim, the said to be rare knife used by the suspect and the like.
Wonder what simple lesson and value got my attention the most? It is not a surprise because it is in the question itself all along. Personally, I mainly respect the value of of decision and the idea of making a stand against odds even if you are alone. Sometimes in life, people are persuaded by the ideas and opinions of others. Moreover, without taking into consideration of their own idea and opinion due to the majority of people having a common ground of understanding. Somehow in life, you got either to join or against them. Importantly, as long as you follow the proper way of coming up to a conclusion you have a solid point of having a good opinion, no matter what the situation is. There are many significant factors and reason to follow the International Standard of Critical Thinking.
In the movie, notice that there are some prejudiced and racist arguments made from the few jurors. It is true, prejudice and biased are hindrance to the truth. David mentioned in the movie as “prejudice obscure the truth”. Consider if David gave his vote guilty without mulling over the case. An innocent eighteen-year-old boy would get persecuted without proper deliberation, or in other way, a teenage murderer would have slipped through the crime because all jurors decided not guilty without any reasonable basis and arguments.
If two of these event happen, if you were the charged suspect, would you consider it as a fair judgment? It is important to learn these lessons because it would be part of history. In some way, things like this would happen and how would people deal with it? Rather than basing an argument and opinion by the lenses of others, with gut and feeling, or the decision of the majority, people would be blindly following what is wrong or incorrect. Being to follow others or taking a stand making arguments or opinions without the use of the International Standard of Thinking; precision, accuracy, relevance, consistency and logical correctness of an argument is a need in order to arrive to the truth. For people to be able to eliminate prejudice and biased judgment into making arguments to seek for the ultimate truth.
No matter how right an argument, without the inculcation of the standard of thinking to arrive in a conclusion, it is wrong. David arrived to the truth with the use of the standards. It is better for a man to rely in the standard and system of correct thinking into making arguments rather than a man to argue with guts, feelings, and mere doubt.
