I woke up to some irritating news today. I felt the urge to rage-write about the death of democracy, the EU’s climate madness, so-and-so forth. But then, what’s the point? Cognitive dissonance is such a powerful mechanism, that nothing can go through zealots.
So instead, I thought to talk about something that modern culture is obsessively trying to get rid of : INDEPENDENT THINKING.
Because if independently thinking individuals were the majority, we wouldn’t be seeing the farce play out at such a grand scale. The patently false assertion of CO2 being evil, the endless varieties of “genders”, men snatching women’s places in sports, the victimhood pandemic and the whole Orwellian how-to-guide being played out.
As these things take more and more hold of our lives—even in India, for example, the EU’s latest carbon tax is going to hit approx. $37b of Indian export from 2026—people will realize they shot themselves in their feet. And that will take several generations.
But how can we expedite this realization?
We needed the realization yesterday, but it is impossible to make it happen in a year or a decade. What we can really do is, prepare ourselves and our children to learn to think independently. Prepare ourselves to recognize the prevalent authority bias around us (shoutout to Nishant Mittal for reminding people about it on a regular basis) and counter it with humility. Because this is a generational work.
Talking of children, I want to share one dangerous thinking that is getting embedded in parents of our times—especially, young parents. Their obsession of exposing their child (see, I used singular, because that’s the trend, you know because of “over-population”) to “fact-based” material. They don’t want their child to read stories, poetry or comics. Especially the ones that have no message or facts. Because that’s not “productive”. That’s “fiction”. That’s not “politically correct”. That’s not “inclusive”. And that’s how the children are schooled—indoctrinated actually.
That is the kind of children that get elected, or get into scientific endeavours, or formulate national policies. That’s called a pipe line problem. There’s no “Theory of Relativity” like groundbreaking discovery in the last 100 years—and don’t get me started on the pseudo-Nobel Prizes . The 26-year-old Swiss patent clerk could break through all the noise of classical physics and unravel the truth—but now the kids are indoctrinated that there’s no truth, there’s my truth and your truth. No wonder, the fundamental science hasn’t progressed much. Even with the best of technologies and knowledge at the fingertips. Because parents and the political system want creativity and imagination to go out of the equation. We can’t expect fire without a spark.
So, the growing trend of unschooling, homeschooling, and alternative education gives me hope. But even if your children are in traditional schooling—boards don’t matter, you need to protect their spark. And that’s why if your girl loves to read Frozen Elsa’s picture books, shower her with the whole catalogue. If your boy is mad after the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, let him read it all day. (I’m unsure of Children’s current obsession in books, but you get the point)
Because.
Because.
Because writing follows reading.
And critical thinking follows writing. And critical thinking is mother of independent thinking.
We need more of it. The world needs more of it.
Don’t worry, your child won’t lead a poor life.
I promise.
Reads:
[Link-1] Stop Stealing Dreams:
https://seths.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stop-stealing-dreams6print.pdf
[Link-2] What happens when you work on your own projects: https://x.com/paulg/status/1786366326774157724