Intellectual Transformations: Harvard vs. Afghanistan (Using Thinsan’s 2009 Synthesized Intellectual Transformation Coding Scheme)

Snea Thinsan, Ph.D.

The study’s main aim was to explain the intellectual transformation of the four participants by using a coding scheme synthesized from the works of Perry (1968, 1970) and Freire (1970). The synthesized scheme for coding in this study (see Table 5 in Chapter 3) simplifies the nine positions of Perry’s and thus follows the notion of a hierarchical model of sophistication in those two contributing models. The distinctive feature of this model lies in two added elements found to be associated with the transformative process: attitudes/self perceptions and acquisition of new learning habits/skills.  The four participants will be discussed in light of the synthesized coding scheme for intellectual transformation (Table 5) and in relation to the frameworks of Perry and Freire where appropriate.

These two frameworks, developed at roughly the same time in the late sixties and early seventies, can be viewed as complementary, as each emerged from a separate set of circumstances and populations.  Perry, a guidance counselor at Harvard University, was interested in the intellectual and moral development of mainstream male undergraduates at a selective institution, while Freire was responding to the needs of politically and economically oppressed populations.  Perry’s scheme, therefore, could be viewed as representative of the ideals of a Western liberal university, the type of institution in which the Afghans were studying, and Freire’s analysis could be viewed as relevant to the situation from which they came and to which they had to return.  Relating these frameworks into a single scheme enabled the researcher to juxtapose the participants’ experiential and academic ways of knowing and reveal the dynamic interaction in their transformation over the course of their graduate program. 

P-One: Duality/Silence

In this study, all four of the participants described their past identities before arriving in the U.S. as passive students waiting for their teachers to deposit knowledge for them, in accordance with the Banking education model that Freire (1970) described.  It is noteworthy that Perry (1968) did not find any freshmen in his study expressing the structure of Position 1 (Duality) at the time of the interview. Thus, his Position 1 was “an extrapolation generated by the logic of the scheme” (p. 55), but a reality in this study. The Afghans also viewed education in the U.S. as a superior source of knowledge from which they would draw.  Whereas “banking” was a pejorative concept in Freire’s framework, however, receiving knowledge is in agreement with the Islamic value of keen pursuit of knowledge or life-long learning mandate (Merriam, 2007), which encouraged them to gain knowledge that they do not have in their culture. All four, as products of Banking education positioned themselves as the student in the Freire’s (ibid) teacher-student dichotomy.

Nevertheless, they were not dualistic thinkers or silenced learners. As university lecturers, they understood the relevance of context (P-Three) to what they expected to learn from the Authorities in the U.S. academic culture, the course instructors, the project staff, and the books or resources containing the knowledge to which they had little previous exposure.  Thus, their positioning of themselves as recipients of knowledge in their new academic environment was not a reflection of passivity but a rational stance in a new situation in which they expected to have access to valuable resources.  As Perry notes,

The presumed existence of Absolute truth or knowledge in its own right (as if in a Platonic world of ideas) modifies the perception of Authority’s role, most particularly in an educational institution. Since the student is there to learn, he looks to Authority as a mediator between him and the truth (p. 66).

In terms of how they viewed knowledge, the four must first be recognized as mature adults who had lived in a rich culture with a complicated sociopolitical history. Their exit exams, opinions on other familiar issues, and their written work even at the transitional periods showed that they did not uncritically accept what was presented to them. They examined assumptions, probed contextual details, and recognized alternative possibilities. Hence, as we try to understand their relationship with knowledge, it helps to refer to three basic types of knowledge: (1) propositional, or declarative, (2) knowledge, which is factual or static and more appropriate for judgment on a right-wrong basis; and (3) procedural knowledge, which is more relativistic knowledge that requires critical analysis, evaluation, and synthesis in light of specific conditions or factors; and personal knowledge, which is knowledge by acquaintance that mature learners, especially adults, carry with them (see Moser, Molder, & Trout; 1998).  In relation to the coding scheme in this study, the Afghans’ initial positions (P-One and P-Two) involved the expectations and struggles with propositional or declarative knowledge. Along the entire process of transformation in their master’s program (from P-One to P-Six), they used their personal knowledge to negotiate meanings and find their own voices, as they were also trying to acquire the procedural knowledge (P-Four) as a new tool and developed their critical hopes, scrutinized actions, and commitments (P-Five and P-Six).  The Afghans’ writing throughout their involvement in the program demonstrated their ability to integrate these three kinds of knowledge. However, the Afghans, viewing themselves as lacking skills and knowledge looked for confirmed knowledge first, but soon they understood that their own voices were valid and that they were encouraged to develop their own meanings in relation to their prior knowledge and experiences. Thus, they began to integrate their old and new skills and in an effort to construct knowledge by themselves and with people around them.  In other words, they entered their master’s program in the U.S. with the P-One mindset, but their intellectual abilities at higher positions were soon triggered as they acquired the skills and language to express their intellectual capabilities. As a result, they did not dwell on this initial view of themselves as mere recipients of knowledge. After three months of experience in courses about basic research and other academic skills, they were well aware that their role as learners in a graduate school would need to be changed.

P-Two: Multiplicity/Subjective Knowledge

Perry characterized “multiplicity” as tentative knowledge to be resolved by authority: “In any epistemological sense, … [m]ultiplicity remains a mere appearance; difference of opinion is allowed …but only because it is quite temporary, good for the mind, resolvable, and therefore ultimately unreal” (p. 78). This construct might be applied to new knowledge acquired in an academic setting and still regarded as the property of experts rather than the construction of learners, as was the experiential knowledge the Afghans brought with them. Stark differences between previous and present contexts also played a role.  Ali, Wahid, and Hamid, had been in simpler and less social and academic cultures in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, whereas Khalid had experienced more demanding and competitive contexts of personal and educational life in Iran. Therefore, while Khalid moved quickly into a more independent stance, the others felt less personal control over the multiple ideas and the details of academic life and assumed apprentice-like roles, trying to meet expectations of those who governed their situation.  Ali found that inadequate English language proficiency made it difficult for him to deal with multiple tasks and multiple details in his courses, suggesting that language can be a formidable barrier to the understanding and expression of sophisticated knowledge. Likewise, Wahid and Hamid, having been deeply rooted in a more traditional, male-dominated Pashtun culture, found it hard to adjust to unfamiliar ways of doing things in daily life. They also found the academic conventions and environment in the U.S., in which multiple perspectives and multiple layers of thinking were often necessarily involved, quite challenging.

Perry observed that the “progression is from thinking to meta-thinking, from man as knower to man as critic of his own thought” (p. 71). In Position 2, less successful students are those who had a difficulty in working “through the initial impression of needless confusion to the discovery of contextual Relativism” (p. 75).  The four Afghans were overwhelmed by the multiple unfamiliar important things to learn and tasks to do, but they did not see them in terms of needless confusion. It was found that the two older participants, Wahid and Hamid, were slower in learning new things and thus more likely to lose confidence and lack tolerance for ambiguity. As a result, they turned first to external resources around them, including the instructors, the tutors, peers, and others rather than focusing on their internal resources, hence appearing to be dependent on directions (P-One) and approval from the authority (P-Two). This position, however, may be viewed as reflecting the actual power relations between faculty and students rather than an inherent intellectual orientation.

During the first three months, the four participants were overwhelmed by the need to learn many unfamiliar concepts and skills while adjusting to the new environment, but they understood that their learning would not be about memorizing or finding right answers. Yet, how to deal with the multiple resources on a given topic, as many other pressing things were going on, was a major challenge of their transitional experiences.

P-Three: Knowledge as only personally or politically determined

Perry suggested that the student making a transition from recognition of multiplicity (Positions 2-4) toward thinking and/or behaving at a higher position beyond mere awareness of relativism (Position 4) would be able to: “…think about thought: he could spot a false dichotomy, talk about assumptions and frames of reference, and argue about the degree of coherence of interpretations or their congruence with data” (p. 111).  He also summed up this stage of development as a perception of “Relativism as an item in the old dualistically structured context,” implying that the student still does things the way the authority wants:

He [the student] saw Relativism, therefore, as a special case: a way of thinking, about certain class of problems, a way of “making sense” in otherwise chaotic Multiplicity, and most of all, a special procedure (among other procedures) that “They want here” (p. 111).

Such a developmental trait is classified as P-Three in this study, or the need to acquire academic skills for dealing with procedural knowledge in the new academic setting in which there are very different ways of doing things and sets of expectations. In other words, the participants at this stage mainly tried to meet expectations Students at this stage may resist authority by dwelling on their opinions without engaging with the multiple voices around them, which was the case briefly with the four Afghans.

Relativism was not new to the Afghans, but it took time for them to develop the new conventions of “thinking about thought” with the exception of Khalid, who appeared to have reached this stage before joining the program. Indeed this was true of them all with topics connected with their prior knowledge and experiences. However Hamid and especially Wahid seemed to fail to question their assumptions at times, especially when they had to do with religious or personal beliefs.  Khalid and Ali, on the other hand, seemed to have developed the habit of thinking about thought despite their younger age.  Indeed during the second month in the U.S., Ali and Khalid began to question assumptions, contexts, and origins of ideas, which at a later stage led to conflicts in class participation because the older members felt personally challenged

All four mentioned that they dealt with their challenges associated with multiplicity by working hard and managing their time, but as Perry maintained,  referring to passage from the safe zone of established beliefs to the open territory of relativistic knowledge, “Diligence alone, however, will no longer produce security; the risk must be faced” (p. 106)

As the first to emerge as a learner who could “think about thought,” Khalid could “spot a false dichotomy, talk about assumptions and frames of reference, and argue about the degree of coherence of interpretations or their congruence with data” (ibid). The other three Afghans tended to rely overly on personal or previous experiences as a foundation for academic tasks Ali and Khalid, tended to be less rooted in any one doctrine or set of beliefs, as reflected in the ways they dressed and behaved socially. Consequently, they seemed to recognize the validity of different perspectives. On the other hand, Hamid and Wahid dwelled on their past experiences and old sets of beliefs when they were making sense of something complex and unfamiliar.

P-Four: Analytical Synthesis/ Constructed Knowledge

In this position, Perry stresses the inner voice which the learner develops after having realized that they need to go beyond the mere recognition of multiplicity and relativism. Yet, the voices are still in accordance with the Authorities’ terms in this position, as also true in P-Three. Perry described the development beyond basic Relativism (Position 5 in his scheme) as “a permeating property of man’s seeing, thinking, knowing and valuing” (p. 115).

This position (P-Four) was apparent when the four Afghans applied the academic skills that they had learned during the transitional period. The transformation at this stage demanded their willingness to analyze the multiple parts of an issue at hand, evaluate them, find connection or contradiction among them, and put them back to construct a new meaning or understanding.  Their views about knowledge and learning, self perceptions, and learning habits changed, as further described below.

In the fall semester 2007, the Afghans took my class covering the learning theories in educational psychology in which they learned terms that explained ways of knowing and learning. With the vocabulary to describe their views about knowledge, they all claimed that they stopped rigidly memorizing facts. They all also viewed learner-centered classes as empowering, more effective, and more constructive. Khalid and Ali clearly demonstrated such abilities, whereas Wahid and Hamid managed to show some evidence of them, though they still tended to be satisfied with the knowledge that the authorities had prescribed and had difficulty with tasks that did not provide clear guidance. In short, the four participants showed evidence of their application of skills in dealing with procedural knowledge that they had learned during the transitional period, but in different degrees.

Changes in self perceptions and learning habits were also described by the four Afghans though differently in detail.  Ali saw himself as an active player in the exploratory, student-centered environment, as he assumed more self responsibility and took more challenges, such as getting out of his comfort zone to take an online class on gaming, which were the P-Five characteristics. Wahid and Hamid also developed their sense of responsibility as dedicated, hard working, and disciplined learners. They struggled just to meet the expectations of the instructors but did well in their final assignments, while Ali and Khalid went further to be responsible for constructing knowledge beyond expected tasks. In sum, Wahid and Hamid struggled hard in this position. Perry noted that “Responsibility is a critical element in intellectual development” [and is a] “central burden, and joy” (p. 34). He then argued that, “If one quails before it, there are many well trodden paths to postponement, escape, or even retreat” (p. 34).

P-Five:  Foreseen Commitment as Integral Part of Knowing

Beyond Perry’s Position 5, students develop awareness of a path toward new identity through commitment that begins to develop at Position 6, or late during Position 4 in this study. Perry (1968) defined “commitment” as “an act, or ongoing activity relating a person as agent and chooser to aspects of his life in which he invests his energies, his care and his identity” (p. 135).  Commitment, according to Perry, is “an affirmation made in a world perceived as relativistic, that is, after detachment, doubt, and awareness of alternatives have made the experience of personal choice a possibility. It is an act in an examined, not in an unexamined, life” (p. 136).  Second, it is connected with the person’s past as it (a) “requires a decision as to the degree to which one will continue with the values of one’s past and the degree to which one will break with them” and (b) “it requires a decision as to how much freedom of choice one can or will exercise in (a)” (p. 136). Third, commitments are commonly regarded in terms of environment in which they are expressed, such as “career, religion, politics, friendships, social endeavors, and general values” (ibid). Fourth, commitments are regarded in terms of external balances (narrowness vs. breadth, self-centered vs. other-centered) and subjective balances (action vs. contemplation, continuity vs. diversity, and control vs. openness). Commitment is the core concept in Perry’s works, resonating with the Freirean notions of deep cognitive engagement and actions that are reflected in the learners envisioning new possibilities and beginning to realize their own potential. That is, both Perry and Freire suggested that educators should aim at empowering the learners so that they adopt the views, shape their attitudes, find their voices, and apply them in the actual life as a person and as a learner.  An intellectually committed learner, therefore, first develops an independent mind and a sense of proactive responsibility. Perry warned that the independence of mind and a sense of proactive responsibility needed for transformation or progression toward commitment, in the context where they are demanded by authority, may be developed, or the student may master these, but his/her “spirit remains obediently conformist” (p. 36). Responsibility is a critical element in intellectual development.

Having gone through a process in which theoretical knowledge was introduced, reinforced through reflections, and pushed toward practical applications, the four participants developed and applied theories to their lives. However, it is important to note that commitment is relative in the space and time in which a transforming person is situated. For example, Hamid, as a scholar committed to his teaching career in education psychology, had to go through a master’s program in English teaching or language education. In the tasks that he had to perform one might see a 52-year-old within language pedagogy courses who was not sure how he could apply the knowledge in his career back in Afghanistan, or a mature adult writing a simple paper that is well structured but not highly sophisticated. But in constructing knowledge about the psychological impact of war on children and teens in Afghanistan, his paper written in Fall, 2008 as part of his educational psychology course showed evidence of clear connections between theories proposed by Western experts and his accounts of local factors, as well as his firm convictions on what to do in Afghan schools and universities, revealing him  as still highly committed to teaching educational psychology and also to making his teaching more student-centered, interactive, and constructivist. He even planned to help his colleagues and work with the administration at his university in introducing the new pedagogy and spreading it university-wide, although he expressed this in terms of trying to convince rather than work collaboratively toward this end. Likewise, Wahid who had been rooted in the conservative ways of thinking, at times would not want to go beyond the expectations of the Authorities, but he was fully committed to the more student-centered pedagogy.

Interestingly, the fact that Hamid and Wahid appeared to be content with their achievements in meeting the authority’s expectations while Ali and Khalid wanted to go beyond them might have been a matter of ability to tolerate or endure the ambiguously complex process of knowledge construction, the cultural influence on their views of knowledge and its pursuit, and/or their personal choices that no external resources could have helped.  Perry stressed personal willingness to take on personal responsibility as something that could not be forced or imposed:

Modern pluralistic education, with all its pros and cons on every subject, is criticized for not teaching commitment, indeed for leading students away from it. What we have been saying from our understanding of our record is that: (1) without a clear view of pluralism, commitment as we define it is impossible; and (2) commitment can be provided for and given recognition, but it can never be brought about or forced (p. 37). … He appears to have a number of options. He may allow this form of thought to be simply “what they want” and assume no responsibility himself. He may put his mind in the service of this opportunism and become a cynical gamesman. He may isolate his discovery in the world of academics along and never allow it to raise questions about his own life and purposes. Or he may see clearly enough what is now encumbent upon him and yet not feel up to it. (p. 37).

P-Six: Scrutinized Actions in Real Life

The drama of development at this stage involves responsibility, or engagement undertaken at one’s own risk and with full realization of the implications of his initial Commitments. Perry saw the development of these positions showing “degrees of ripening in an art” or realization of the impacts in the actual “way of life” (p. 153), as Freire would see the learners transforming to become a person actively engaged in actions that lead to the desired changes.

Actions related to committed attitudes were not evident in this study but u remained to be seen after the four Afghans’ return to their homeland. What emerged in my P-Six, however, were traits of a critical and creative mind that wants to assume more accountability and direct its own learning in critical hope of making a difference in the perceived near future.

Perry focused on “personal commitment in a relative world” (p. 34) and “disciplined independence of mind” whereby students develop a “capacity for detachment” from their past or unexamined commitments and “go beyond simple diversity into the disciplines of relativity of thought through which specific instances of diversity can be productively exploited” (p. 35). These personal commitments could be regarded as “social actions” in Freire’s terms.

Because the power relations between Western experts and Afghan educators as students remained unequal it would have been unrealistic to expect the four Afghans to demonstrate that they had met Perry’s criterion of thinking as one does not “because his teachers ask him to but because this is how the world ‘really is.’ (p 39)  Khalid and Ali seemed more liberated from the influence of the need to please the professors. Wahid and Hamid, on the other hand, were more concerned about meeting the standards.  More actions can be explained in the form of the bridges that the Afghans built in order to connect what they had learned from the West in the context of Afghanistan.

Table 12 below summarizes the transformations discussed above in simple terms according to the synthesized coding scheme.

Building the Bridges

One of the main goals of this dissertation was to identify the bridges that the four participants built as they tried to make sense of what they had learned in the U.S. and apply it in the context of Afghanistan. Although three had left Afghanistan for many of the country’s 25 turbulent years, all were deeply cognizant of the conditions and factors in the Afghan sociopolitical, educational, and other systems, which would be a strong basis for the bridges that they tried to build in their transformative process. Their visions varied in details, but they were responsive to the obstacles at both societal and classroom levels. They also resonated with the warning by Ekanayake (1998, 2003), which is in agreement with other researchers such as Burnaby and Sun, 1989; Hird. 1995; Hui, 1997; Pham, 2005, & Yu, 2001), that:

When teacher education follows alien models and theories it can result in anomalies in the education system. Theories developed elsewhere, based on experiments carried out in the western world, both in psychology and education, form the basis of teacher education in developing countries. Due to a lack of resources for basic research, it is rare that learning theories and practices are developed in these countries based on local issues. Hence problems occur at the classroom level, for both the teacher, who has a mono-delivery system, and the student, who has his own ways of learning (p. 3).

The strongest bridge was their critical hope and committed desire to change the teaching and learning styles in the Afghan education system to be more student-centered, interactive, and constructivist. They identified such elements in the U.S. graduate system as trust, respect, encouragement, support and scaffolding, freedom to explore, encouragement for active participation, meaningful interaction, construction of knowledge, and learning autonomy.  Their own sense of achievement at the end of the program served as encouragement despite the fact that they acknowledged critical barriers.

At the classroom level, class size, students’ learning styles and expectations, lack of technological and other instructional materials, and restrictive syllabi were perceived as challenges, which they felt ready to meet They would start first in their own classrooms as the safest place trying out changes without too many extraneous influences.

All also said they would try to encourage changes beyond their classrooms, starting with their colleagues. Hamid and Wahid, as more senior and respected members in their university, seemed more decisive about how they could work with a network of people in power at their universities in changing the teaching and learning culture at an institutional level. Ali and Khalid, though less confident about their ability to influence the institutional system in which senior members might be slow to change also showed their willingness to make changes, especially if given a leadership role.

At a broader level, issues of insecurity, low salaries for teachers, low support from the government, and other factors affecting teachers and students’ motivation to work hard persistently toward changes were cited by the Afghans as problems that they would need to tackle.

Another issue that the Afghans cited as crucial to be bridged was the need for more rigorous teaching. In the US they had become familiar with syllabi that clearly spelled out the responsibilities of both instructor and students and lesson plans with well interconnected details about prior knowledge, learning objectives, instructional materials, class procedure, and evaluation plans. They believed that these would definitely improve the quality of teaching and learning. Their attempts at designing such lessons showed the struggles of their bridge building.

At the end of the course on learning theories and TESOL methodology emphasizing CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) that I taught in fall 2007, each participant created a five-lesson unit plan. Ali, who was very new to English teaching, made a broad plan that promised using some popular theories but could never apply them in his actual lessons. Khalid, meanwhile, with his limited teaching experience, created a lesson on plagiarism using the common but broad principles of prior knowledge recall, group work, discussions, and hands-on tasks. His rationale was well written, but the details of how the selected theories were applied were not clearly reflected in his lessons, not to mention that he had avoided dealing with the TESOL methodologies, which would have demanded more rigorous, logical, and integrated details of his five lessons.  Hamid, with his lack of experience in English teaching, chose the topic about foundation of research, and, like Khalid, did not show a strong demonstration of theoretical application with specific pedagogical details in his lesson plans. Wahid, whose English teaching experience was the longest but under the traditional, grammar translation method, designed his lessons based on grammar points (tenses) and showed little evidence of his ability to transform his lessons to be more communicative than “group work or discussion” that did not have details about logical steps and gradual move from controlled to free practice and production as would be necessary in the EFL teaching context in Afghanistan.

These attempts at lesson planning highlight what many researchers (Harmer, 2003; Pham, 2005; Sato and Kleinsasser, 1999; and Thompson, 1996), have observed, that “CLT was not necessarily the problem, but that the core of the matter is how CLT principles are “amended and adapted to fit the needs of the students who come into contact with them” (Harmer, 2003, p. 292) and that, unless teachers are adequately knowledgeable about CLT, they may eventually fail to continue using CLT and turn to the traditional ways of teaching (Sato and Kleinsasser, 1999; and Thompson, 1996). Continuing support for implementing methodological changes will be a critical factor in the participants’ bridge-building in their home country.

Attitudinal and Behavioral Changes

Transformation is not a single event; rather, it is dynamic and varying as a result of constantly changing stimuli. Therefore, as they were building the bridges between what they were learning in the U.S. and what they would be doing back in Afghanistan, the Afghans also changed their attitudes and behaviors. For instance, Ali became more punctual and more committed to exploration; Hamid fully dedicated his time and energy to learning; Wahid became open to new ideas and less rigid about his beliefs; and Khalid became more confident in his ability to construct rather than merely receive knowledge.

Positions of Deflection

The student in the Positions of deflection, according to Perry, may do one or more of the following:

(1) He may pause for a year or more, often quite aware of the step that lies ahead of him, as if waiting or gathering their forces (Temporizing); (2) He may entrench himself, in anger and hatred of “otherness,” in the me-they or we-other dualism of the early Positions (Retreat); and (3) He may settle for exploiting the detachment offered by some middle Position on the scale, in the deeper avoidance of personal responsibility known as alienation (Escape) (p. 177).

Khalid showed the least deflection among the four though he appeared to be temporizing in his reluctance to commit to any idea, even about his own future, too soon, always trying to be sure to examine his assumptions and relative contextual information, which was useful as a tool for his growth as a critical and analytical thinker. In other words, there was a slight tendency for Khalid to escape from the commitment, especially when he was talking about building the bridges for his future in Afghanistan. Given time and follow-up questions, Khalid became more committed to some thoughtful ideas for his future in Afghanistan. The extended dialogue may serve as a model for further assistance that should be offered to these Afghans as they are testing their new insights in the local contexts.

Moreover, Wahid and Hamid were obviously reluctant during the first three months to assume the cognitive burdens ahead of them and appeared to need time to gather forces during the first six months (Temporizing) before they slowly became more self-reliant at the end of the sixth month. However, it took both, especially Wahid, much longer to become more analytically organized and flexibly open to new ideas, possibly as a result of their previous roles in teacher-centered classrooms. In addition, it might be ascribed to Wahid’s and Hamid’s reliance mainly on personal experiences and knowledge of the world instead of integrating new knowledge. In the end, it appeared that Wahid and Hamid were satisfied with being able to meet program expectations and useful skills and a sense of new identity as a more “professional” teacher.

Lastly, Ali, like Hamid and Wahid, faced culture and academic shock more quickly became independent. Furthermore, he needed help with English and directions for doing unfamiliar, complex tasks, but not much in terms of critical thinking and being creative, as well as in taking charge of exploratory, autonomous learning, although the speed of his transition was slower than Khalid’s. However, an obvious tendency for Escape that I noted was in his lack of discipline to force himself to work hard as consistently as the other three. Ali knew he could get by the system safely because some actions in class would not necessarily be evaluated as part of grading, suggesting an element of escape.  Interestingly, however, although Ali did not show a strong sign of retreating from opposite critical ideas, he could not transcend his tendency to be intolerant of his peers’ uncritical, discriminative, or insignificant ideas, so much so that he wanted to separate himself from the group, which might also be associated with tribal discrimination that he had personally experienced.