Autonomy vs. Indoctrination

Feral Drifter, Uninterrupted

Photo by Delphina Raven near Kootenay Lake, British Columbia, Canada

“I think my deepest criticism of the educational system…is that it’s all based upon a distrust of the student. Don't trust him to follow his own leads; guide him; tell him what to do; tell him what he should think; tell him what he should learn. Consequently at the very age when he should be developing adult characteristics of choice and decision making, when he should be trusted on some of those things, trusted to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, he is, instead, regimented and shoved into a curriculum, whether it fits him or not.”

~ Carl Rogers

Indoctrinating a child with religion or ideology and call it teaching is not educating or facilitating. It is brainwashing.

Telling someone what and how to think, feel, choose, act, decide is to take away autonomy to grow into a human being. Obedience is not a character to strive for. It robs the person of personal power to understand how to use that power—when it is used for good and when it can destroy. When that is not understood, the obedient and conforming individual won’t learn what it means to be responsible for oneself or for others, but only know to scapegoat or be scapegoated.

Be intimate with your shadows, understand that the veil that separate the “good” and “evil” is very thin indeed, when anchored by a strong and deep knowing of your “Self” that has been within your control, it will allow you to have self-control and self-regulation to have no need or desire to power over and control others and to not allow yourself be powered over via manipulation by others. This agency of an empowered Self becomes an empathetic force in a humane humanity. Those who desire to wield power and control over others, telling and programming them on what and how to think, feel, act, decide, and choose, have an inverse relationship to the degree of self-control and personal power. (Definition of “personal power” here is borrowed from Phil Nuernberger, PhD: it means having power over yourself, not over others.)