We all need help from the former generation to program our brains when young so that we will be able to fit into the existing culture when we grow up. However it is also true that culture should be an open-ended thing. As we engage in it we should be free to evolve and change and we and culture should evolve together. With each new generation we should endeavor to stand on the shoulders of the generation before us to see a bit further down the road.
But when culture gets stagnated things get into a log jam and then we need a violent revolution to break free. We live at such a time. One could see it coming a long way off by the behavior of the teachers of the young. Children should be taught to think for themselves first and memorize the current culture second.
As a child I attended Catholic school because my parents heard from the pulpit that they would suffer eternal damnation if they did not send their kids there. Oh God, does all that sound rather Neanderthal just a few decades later.
Even back then I did not quite trust those words. But a child does not doubt its parents at an early age. However, a few years later, I did start to doubt all that church propaganda. The time of doubting began one day when I was accused of plagerism by a nun.
The nun had told us to read a certain something. I can not remember what it was. But I remember that I liked it very much, whatever it was. The thing I read was to me full of truth and beauty. Then the nun said that we were to write a paper and summarize what the piece of writing had said. It was a joy to do. It was effortless because the piece of writing was lovely to me. Days later I was back in the classroom sitting there like the world's biggest nobody, as usual, and out of nowhere this nun suddenly accuses me of plagerism. I remember being awe struck with my eyes wide in disbelief. I just stared in astonishment at her words. She said that the paper was so well written that I could not possibly have written it myself. I had to have stolen it from somewhere.
Years later I realize that most of the work given to us as students was memorization of facts that were not all that interesting or important to know. What was different with the assignment given me for which I was accused of plagerism was that suddenly I was doing something interesting. I was asked to really use my intelligence and analyze and write about and summarize a piece of literature that was truly worthwhile. And suddenly I was no more a listless student bored out of my mind.
In the days that followed I realized that I had a gift for thinking and writing and that I was now aware of it. To this day I wonder if I would have ever become a writer if that nun had not accused me of plagerism. Thank you sister wherever you are. :-)
And to all people everywhere I wish that they have a chance to be asked what they think on something that is worth thinking about. I fear it does not happen to most of us in school or in our entire lives. When is there a time when the average citizen is asked to get up in front of a group of his peers and tell everyone what he thinks about something he feels passionate about?
Part Two :
Thinking and Speaking is a Right You Must Use
Regularly, Otherwise it Atrophies
If children were taught to think for themselves at an early age they would never later in life abdicate their responsibility for their own mental/social/political/economic lives.
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