Chapter 20.1: Free Thinking

Sever academia and there will be no feelings of inadequacy!

How far apart are assenting and dissenting?

How wide is the gap between beauty and ugliness?

We have to be afraid of what other people fear? 

What a waste!  That is so imbalanced!

Sever the cords that bind us to academia – an institutionalized system of indoctrination rather than true pursuit of knowledge and learning!  In ancient China as in modern America, there have always been biased and self-serving institutions promoting indoctrination and conformity to their own agenda. As scholar Noam Chomsky puts it: “Education is a system of imposed ignorance” that indoctrinates the masses to conform to a set of socio-political and/or religious beliefs.  Returning to Chomsky: “The indoctrination is so deep that educated people think they’re being objective.”  Cut off the prestige of biased academic intellectualism or the “ivory tower syndrome” so often disconnected from real life where certain interpretations and schools of thought are given preferential treatment – often based on political preferences.  Then there won’t be labels such as “educated” and prestigious pedigrees such as “Ivy League.”  Instead learning and study should be open-minded, pragmatic, and applicable to improving daily life.  It is often said that victors write history.  In a war of intellectual ideas and interpretations who gets to decide what is noteworthy news, malicious misinformation, or critical curriculum?  Is the only criteria for intellectual inclusion that it must conform to the “normal” narrative or mainstream message?  So much of this debate filters and formulates knowledge as follows: If “you” disagree with “me” the “you” are either ignorant or stupid, uninformed or misinformed, or even worse intentionally or maliciously out to destroy my worldview and are therefore my enemy.  This formula is not conducive to promoting cultural, social, or political harmony, mutual respect and understanding, or peaceful reconciliation and co-existence.

How far is the divide between those who follow along with prevailing views and those who detract?  Are we really that different from each other?  It is easy to focus on the social, political, and religious differences, but what brings us together is usually far more significant than what divides us.  When we find a common ground with someone who holds different views than we do, we discover that we are not really that different after all.

Similarly, is there really that large of a divide between what society deems “beautiful” and “ugly?”  We live in a society that constantly bombards us with subjective, biased, and even racist stereotypes of beauty based on superficial physical appearances that the majority of men and women can never achieve.  This “skin deep” beauty trap leaves people feeling depressed, insufficient, and less than. People so often lauded as “beautiful” in mainstream media and popular culture also possess unattractive or ugly traits and those who are ignored or shunned as “ugly” or “unattractive” are equally amazing in their own rights.  Who gets to decide what is beautiful or attractive and do they have our best interests in mind?

We also live in a society that often engages in and succumbs to a lot of fear mongering.  To adopt other peoples’ fears and phobias is a total waste, unbalanced, imbalanced and not centered!  Society teaches us that we should be afraid of so many things and we unintentionally and well-meaningly pass these phobias on to each other.  Just because someone else is afraid of dogs, for example, doesn’t mean that I need to be.  Conversely, if I’m afraid of dogs it doesn’t mean that other people have to be afraid of dogs or even that I have to continue to be afraid of dogs for the rest of my life.  That is not to say that there aren’t things in this world that we should be afraid of but it also important to separate out fear from threats.  Threats are real dangers that exist in our world and should be safeguarded against for our wellbeing.  As actor Will Smith has aptly observed, “Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, of the thoughts we create, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice.”  Threats can be prepared for and their dangers mitigated but fear lives inside us long after the threats are gone – fear stays within us as long as we let it.  In the words of Frank Herbert’s (1920-1986) Dune, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”  In the words of author and activist Ambrose Redmoon (1933-1996), “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one's fear. The timid presume it is lack of fear that allows the brave to act when the timid do not. But to take action when one is not afraid is easy. To refrain when afraid is also easy. To take action regardless of fear is brave.”  So, let us examine our fears, face our fears, and decide for ourselves whether or not that fear is protecting us or debilitating us; let us examine the sources of knowledge in our lives and the beliefs they espouse to determine if they are serving us or others; let us decide for ourselves what is beautiful, embrace our own distinct beauty and the unique beauty of all life around us, free from the fetters of the fashion industry.  Only we get to look inside ourselves and determine these. ~ DCB