The biggest enemy of fundamentalism and extremism is critical thinking and critical reasoning. For the success of democracy citizens must be able to scrutinise critically policies and actions of the state and other social institutions. Fortunately this faculty is inherent and latent in all human beings and only needs to be awakened through some sort of prodding, say, education, for example. Unfortunately, our education system is designed to suppress this natural human faculty since it is meant to create officials and clerks. This is one of the reasons why fundamentalism and extremism of various hues are apparently gaining ground all around us. Fundamentalism and extremism play with emotion sparing the brain much labour that is needed in critical thinking and democratic living. And there are efforts afoot to make our education system still more emotional, uncritical, docile and conformist. Because the larger project needs herds of sheep, not citizens.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 01:42:19 +0000
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