Critical thinking, community elders and Africa’s development

Abstract

The paper recognizes the need for holistic development that has eluded the continent of Africa in the contemporary world. The quest for Africa’s development is predicated on the desire for the good life. In departing from other clichés and traditional modes of analysis of the challenge of Africa’s development, we highlight an unarticulated factor of development – ‘critical- cum- creative thinking’, which has been vitiated by elders (male-elders) in African communities. In this paper, we suggest that in light of the importance of ‘critical thinking’ as a desideratum of meaningful or holistic development, elders in Africa need to adopt an attitude which allows for a free reign of critical and creative disposition, which other community members, such as the youths, women, and children, are endowed with, as a catalyst for development of the continent

KEYWORDS: critical thinking, elders, community, Africa, traditional, development