
To think or not to think, that is the question
The other day I received an email with a YouTube link to a video where Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about how stupid Americans are due to their ignorance (and in some cases fear) of science and knowledge in general. After watching it, I clicked on a link to another video where he talks about how to NOT raise your children, thank you to the person who posted it. He makes a good point about the state of the education system. I’ve often said school is about “regurgitating on command” as I call it, “Take these books, memories what’s in them, they’ll be a test on it later this month.” In other words, it’s a memory test. Schools don’t teach kids how to think for themselves. It’s also been my experience that they teach what I call “binary thinking”, seeing the world in simple black and white. “This is the problem, X is the solution. No discussion! No debate! X is either right or wrong! It either works all the time, or it never works!” I remember in school being asked questions like “Should Canada legalize marijuana?” (we did legalize it, but that was years later, after I graduated) or “Should Canada legalize the death penalty?” I would often point out that you need to look at it on a case by case basis, to which my teachers would always respond – in a rather condescending tone no less – “Don’t be wishy-washy! Don’t sit on the fence!” In other words, “Don’t actually think about the problem, just give us the answer we want to hear!”
The problem with education, and it’s symbolic of the larger problem of society, is that people fear teaching kids how to think for themselves. I remember my co-worker (the one whom I’ve written about in previous blogs) who is a militant atheist, who criticizes those who blindly follow organized religion once tell me that the problem with kids today is that they think too much. Now think about that for a minute (despite his insistence that you don’t), he doesn’t want people to blindly follow the dogmatism of religion, but he doesn’t want them to think for themselves? So what’s the message here? “Hey kids, don’t blindly follow their dogmatism, blindly follow my dogmatism, because mine is the correct one!” How does that make you any different from the religion you claim to hate so much? All you’ve really done is substitute one form of dogmatism for another. In fact I remember I once said that to him, I pointed out how communist dictatorships officially denounce religion, yet paint their leaders as if they’re divine beings, like some sort of communist god sent them to save the masses. Upon hearing this, my co-worker seemed very offended by this, first dismissing this as a lie, then making the rather bizarre counter argument, “If you believe in God then how come there’s no alien life out there?!” And all I could think was “What does that have to do with any of this?” He was using the same tactic often used by many religions; always attack, never defend.
As the book “Conversations with God” pointed out, most people are afraid of teaching children to think for themselves, because if we teach kids how to think for themselves, they might (HORROR OF HORRORS) come up with an idea that’s different from ours. They might actually realize that the way our society has been doing things for several thousands of years isn’t working. They might – AND THIS IS THE MOST FRIGHTENING PART OF IT ALL – they might actually find a better way. As someone (I’m sorry to say I forget who) once said, “nothing compels a [person] to argue harder than being proven wrong.” The good news is that more and more people are awakening to this, another example of how “woke” is becoming more mainstream, more acceptable (which is a good thing, despite my above mentioned co-worker – and many others – still dismissing “woke” as bad). The world is awakening, the world is becoming more “woke”. Now you dear reader have a choice in life: do you see this as a good thing and help become a part of this global shift in consciousness? Or do you choose to surrender to fear become part of the problem and try to hold humanity back, to regress us to a more primitive state? For if you fear “woke” then you’re not afraid of “liberal indoctrination in our schools” as the radical right claims, you’re afraid of independent thought.