Subnostr

Tell me about escaping dogma and brainwashing -- I am a highly "educated" southern European.

Meaning, from age 2 until well over my twenties I was immersed in a constant bombardement of communist indoctrination of all colors - from the orthodox marxism of my Catholic highschool teachers to the slick post-Soviet Euro-social-democracy" (with its neo-Keynesian/marxist backbone intact) of my post-grade school professors.

And yet, I turned out a hard-core anarchist xD

Mike Dilger ☑️ 2y ago

I believe we have genetic social-survival strategies. Richard Dawkins wrote about Evolutionary Stable States (ESS) where some percentage of the population being a certain way becomes stable, and if that percentage tips, that creates the pressure driving the percentage back.

I believe there is a large percentage of people born with the 'Follow the largest pack' strategy, and no matter how irrational that pack becomes, that is their survival strategy and deep endemic fear prevents them from leaving the pack. They are sheep.

You and I were not born with that strategy.

Similarly if the population of free thinkers gets too low, or too high, some kind of pressure brings it back to the stable level. I'm not sure everyone being a free thinker would work out well. But without us, the pack has no corrective force.

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Discussion

hh 2y ago

Ah, yes, I read the Selfish Gene a long, long time ago, and then the God Delusion.

Applied here though, my first instinct when I read something like what you just wrote is to look for an external answer. I.e., a "nurture" explanation, as opposed to what I think you characterize as a "nature" explanation.

But to be honest, if I reflect on my own anecdotal case, I really was like that all the way as far as I can remember as a little kid. So perhaps you're right and there's a "wiring" aspect to it that would make Dawkin's ESS applicable here too.