Searching for Truth
Article Summary
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| John S Veitch |
| The Network Ambassador |
The process of childhood development has one key purpose, to make us members of our family and community.
Your early indoctrination is carefully planned if you live in a normal family.
Indoctrination is important for us too. Our interaction with other people confirms who we are, that we are accepted as members.
Ivan Illich argues forcefully that much of our schooling is dysfunctional and that we have a desperate need to be "deschooled".
Being schooled contains some fish hooks, in a rapidly changing global society. Some of what we believe is likely to be highly dysfunctional.
Why do people share knowledge? It's a trade. Even in an unfair exchange I get to learn as well, and I build links with other people.
Willingness to acknowledge the importance of other languages and to learn yourself to speak one or more those languages is an essential skill.
At some stage for most of us, one realizes that much of what we have been taught and we've willingly believed since childhood is simply false.
The process of re-evaluating who you are and what you know isn't easy. This is what Waldo Salt calls "Searching for Truth".
For Waldo Salt that process began in 1956, when he realized that Communism was not after all a solution to the evils of the world.
"Coming Home", was released when he was 64. He interviewed 100's of Vietnam vets, and produced over 5000 pages of research.
This later work was possible because Salt had the courage to reexamine himself and everything he believed in mid-life.
If you need the original article it's here.
