"Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other." - George Macdonald (1824-1905)

Education or Indoctrination?

Indoctrination is being told what to think education is being taught how to think.

If you know how to think you will know what to think, in other words you'll know who to believe; you'll know when something doesn't add up.

Thinking clearly is necessary for individual freedom as well as national freedom. We have to learn to think clearly if we are going to make it through this century. A nation which cannot think clearly is a nation which is easily deceived.

Unfortunately governments have been more interested in indoctrination than education. Because of sloppy thinking we are very vulnerable to some attractive but dangerous ideas; many foolish ideas have already been widely believed in education and the media. Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad ones. (Bad ideas have bad consequences even when the intentions are good. See Affirmative Action by Dr Michael Bauman from the Summit Lecture Series)

Evil often comes dressed as an idea. (They are even more dangerous when academics spread them.  Knowledge, as we all know, is not wisdom, but it does give people power.) Knowledge in the hands of a fool is dangerous. Should any fool be entrusted with knowledge?

In my opinion no one should be allowed to begin a PhD without first being able to do the following three things: 1. name the 4 laws of logic on which all clear thinking is based and describe them (the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, the law of non-contradiction and rational inference (see here for examples)), 2. demonstrate that they can think clearly (see Thinking Clearly) 3. show that they understand some key historical events. (e.g. The defeat of communism in the 20th century and abolishing the slave trade in the 19th century).

By the way, I'm not suggesting that there is a conspiracy within education and the media; we are dealing with something far more subtle and therefore more dangerous. We are dealing with ideas which can sway the direction of nations. (Machiavelli's book The Prince influenced many powerful people, persuading them that certain crimes were justifiable. Nietzsche's ideas influenced Hitler, Mussolini and many others who justified their will to power with radical relativism. They foolishly believed the lie that the end justifies the means; therefore they believed that what they did was necessary for the greater good. Stalin believed that lie as do Islamists today. Whenever the view that the end justifies the means is accepted everything becomes permissible and hell is unleashed.)

We are just as vulnerable as Hitler's Germany (perhaps more so) because we suffer from the same generational conceit. Like the Germans before WWII, we believe that we are the best of all generations (because of our technology) but if we were wise we would look back and learn from history. The war time Prime Minister and author of A History of the English speaking peoples, Winston Churchill, knew the importance of history. He wrote:

"The further back you can look, the further forward you can see" (cited in Prophetic Untimeliness by Os Guinness, p.104, 2003)

History is essential to understanding the times and putting things in perspective.

History helps us to understand ourselves and the challenges we are likely to face. The history of a person or society tells you more about that person or society than psychology can. Our history tells us about ourselves just as Islamic history tells us about Islam. (Islam is going to play a major part in the world this century.*) History helps us to understand how ideas arose and what the consequences of those ideas are when they are lived out or ignored. But education is more than just learning facts of history or other disciplines.

A true education is where a person learns how to think and therefore what to think because they have come to understand what things are for.

A person who has a good education not only thinks clearly but they also understand what they are for. In other words their life is full of meaning; they have a purpose. (Perhaps poor education is inevitable while we do not have a true separation of ideology and state?) 

It is time that academics and the media started educating the public instead of indoctrinating them.

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I owe many of these insights to Dr Michael Bauman and Greg Koukl.

Islam is going to play a major role in the world this century.

I am not encouraged by the response of moderates to the extremists. Many of the moderates I have spoken to act as if the task is hopeless.

Moderate Muslims often say that they should not be blamed for the things which are happening in the name of Islam because they are doing nothing. The fact that they are doing nothing is half the problem; they say they are victims just as much as the rest of us. It is true, we are all victims but that does not excuse us from responsibility.  In an age of terrorism playing the victim card will not help us; we must take personal responsibility for ourselves and our own communities; blaming others is often an excuse for doing nothing. Even worse, blaming others is often used as an excuse to engage in violence.

Guinness in his brilliant book, Unspeakable, writes,

Victims often feel justified in using violence. 

If each of us don't learn to forgive and take personal responsibility for ourselves and our communities the world will spiral out of control. (If you are serious about taking personal responsibility and playing your part in the world I highly recommend the chapter  "The Problem with the World Is Me" in Os Guinness' book Unspeakable: Facing up to evil in an age of genocide and terror.) 

Very few moderate Muslims have shown that they are interested in taking on the Islamists in debate. In fact, the moderate Muslims I have talked to often come to the defence of Islamists by blaming the west and justifying the behaviour of extremists. 

A Muslim has the right to point out faults with the west, just as I have the right to point out problems in the Islamic community, but this does not excuse either of us from dealing with the problems in our own communities.

As a westerner I must play my part in making my country just, I cannot do much for the Islamic community because I am not a part of their community.

Ravi Zacharias points out that it is the woman who has been raped who understands what rape is, not the rapist. The man who commits rape doesn't really understand how horrible it is. It is the victims of the Taliban, the Wahabis etc who know the truth about Islamic extremism not the extremists. If we ignore the victims because we are claiming to be "sensitive" to their culture by letting them do what they want we are really very foolish and not sensitive but indifferent. To let the powerful in a society abuse the weak in the name of cultural relativism is much the same as saying that if a man abuses his wife it is his right because it is his house. Let's have the courage to call a spade a spade and start listening to the victims in these societies instead of remaining indifferent and labelling our indifference tolerance. The victims want their stories to be heard. Non-Muslims and Muslims have to start listening to the victims and standing up for them. Few people are going to believe that Islam really is a great religion until Islamic lands are reformed. 

It is the responsibility of Muslims to defeat the Islamists in debate. It is their responsibility to assimilate peacefully. (See the Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding by a former radical Islamist Imam, Sam Solomon. This charter was presented at the European parliament.) It is Muslims responsibility to ensure that non-Muslims are treated as equals in Islamic communities. They must give non-Muslims the same freedoms they demand. 

Muslims are demanding a lot, are they demanding the same rights for non-Muslims in Islamic countries? 

In the Quran we are told, "there is no compulsion in religion" but is that practiced? If Muslims defended and demanded the same rights for non-Muslims which they defend and demand for themselves the Islamic world would be a wonderful place.

Muslims believe that they have a right to practice their religion and freely talk to non-Muslims about Islam. Are non-Muslims given the same rights as Muslims in the Middle East? Muslims claim that Christians or Hindus should be free to convert to Islam without fear of being persecuted by their communities; if this is what they want they should be willing to grant the same freedom to members of their own community who convert to another religion. (Whether Islam grants the same rights or not, Muslims have shown that they are not willing to grant them (See Apostasy). To be fair it should be noted that there are many peaceful verses in the Quran, but one wonders if those verses have been abrogated.) Until moderates are willing to work to ensure that non-Muslims are treated as equals in Islamic countries I find it very hard to believe that they are indeed moderate. The Islamic world will never be free until it grants the same rights it demands. 

There is a victim mentality in the Islamic community which is bridging the gap between moderates and extremists. I see many moderates who claim the Islamists are not true Muslims but then start angrily condemning the west and defending the actions of extremists once you start talking about world issues. (I see this happen time and time again.) It seems that ideologically the moderates and extremists are not that far apart. This is worrying. I have little hope for Islam because few moderates are aggressively standing up to the Islamists and so the Islamic community will be held captive to the extremists in their midsts (See Terrorism).

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