Educating for Compliance

It all comes down to attitude.

Most people, if they see something on CNN or FOX, or whatever they perceive as possessing authority, and it doesn't add up, they assume that it is they who do not know enough or do not get it, since obviously the "experts" who present the info must know what they are talking about.

A simple change in attitude drastically alters the pattern however. One realizes that if something you see on CNN doesn't add up, the conclusion that it is you who doesn't have the relevant information becomes only one of several possibilities. It could be that the guy on CNN doesn't know what he is talking about, or that he is lying. This shift of attitude has occurred only in the individual's recognition of his right and capacity to use his own judgment. To a frightening degree, individuals have been conditioned to mistrust their judgment and to yield to experts and authorities. It's not that they choose not to think for themselves; it is that they quietly believe that outside of the most mundane matters, they are unqualified to do so.

One possible measure to correct this problem would be to implement deliberate errors in our teaching. Every once in a while, we should give students an answer sheet that contains several wrong answers or give them a history lesson that contains flagrant errors in reasoning and fact and insist that the student differentiate between the falsehoods and the truths, using their own minds. Compel students to have to verify things for themselves rather than parrot the conclusions of authority figures. If we believe that knowledge is power, and then we teach in such a way as to leave them powerless, we've done nothing.