Cultural Indoctrination

I have been indoctrinated. Firstly by my parents, one British & one German. Secondly by my schools - all State Schools, luckily one a prestigious Grammar school. Also by my 3 years at college before starting the world of work as a Primary teacher. Religion has played it's part too, from Christianity, through Atheism, finally to Buddhism.

All of this indoctrination took place in urban England over 21 years. A lot of the indoctrination happened by osmosis through friends & neighbours as I grew up. Then there are the hundreds of books I have read & TV I have watched.

I didn't think of it as indoctrination. Mostly I didn't question it, except that I suspect I was a somewhat bolshie teenager who questioned authority & wanted to reform all sorts of things. I probably wasn't an easy & compliant daughter or proto adult. In fact that hasn't changed. I don't think there has been an institution I have worked for that I have not had issues with & wanted to reform. That could, just possibly, make me difficult to live or work with!

The thing is all of this is normal. We are all indoctrinated. It's just a roll of the dice who is doing the indoctrination & whether it is for good or bad. It's part of absorbing the cultural norms of the society we live in. It's the way societies pass on their values & children absorb them. Indoctrination is not necessarily bad.

Indoctrination is a powerful tool in the wrong hands. Like water on a stone it can wear away the sharp edges of different beliefs & make people conform to norms which are not acceptable. The brain is malleable. The learned behaviour can be for good or evil. If something is said often enough by a "teacher" or "figurehead" beliefs can be over printed & changed. History shows us that this process has repeated itself over and over again resulting in untold human suffering.

There never will be consensus of belief. It simply isn't possible because of all the different cultural norms. The only way it might happen is if we attach all children to something which trains their minds from a very early age. But who is to choose what the curriculum should be? That way is 1984 magnified & the "Thought Police" in charge.

We are fighting a war and truth is the battleground. What is truth? Whose truth? Is there any such thing as truth? We must do something. We cannot let extremists win. The good in the world cannot be subsumed by the bad. I for one just don't have a clue how we do that.