@cmason
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Great topic. I don't know if you have ever read the criticism of the western education system by John Taylor Gatto. This is someone who won teacher of the year awards for several years, yet he completely demolishes the system with his critiques.
I have heard people mention John Taylor Gatto several times, I am aware of his videos on youtube too, but all my information about him comes second-hand. The guy who made the video has a series about John Taylor Gatto.
I also don't know if you have seen the movie "The Book Thief", but one of the most chilling and frightening scenes in the movie is where you see schoolchildren, dressed in Nazi uniforms, reciting a national anthem explicitly targeting Jews.
I'll have to watch the film, I haven't seen it.
You are asking a very important question. Why do we believe certain things, and wouldn't we believe different things if we were born somewhere else? This is a very dangerous and potentially explosive question when applied practically.
That is the question I am asking. But, if we can be born in to different circumstance and hold entirely different values, then it brings in to question the very validity of human beliefs themselves. I believe taken to its conclusion, the answer is a path to a free, acting being. A state not subject to ideals, morals, codes, norms etc which instruct one how to think and impel action from that thought. It takes legitimacy away from people whose power seems derived from those ideas and makes clear where the only justification for power is - the free acting individual.
Of course the ideas are potentially dangerous, but that is only if people are willing to accept the ideas in the first place, and there doesn't seem to be much evidence for that, either now, or in past times. Most people happily subjugate themselves for a higher cause and are unwilling, or unable to view the world as it really is.
Humans like to conform and keep in step. I don't see that changing any time soon.
