"ideally what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this:
you are in the process of being indoctrinated. we have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. we are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What your are being taught here is an amalgam of curent prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. you are being taught by people who have been able to accommdate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. it is a self-perpetuating system. those of you who are more robust and individual than ohters, will be encouraged to leave and find other ways of educating yourself- educating your own judgemnent. those that stay must remember, always and allthe time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society."
doris lessing
june 1971
in her introduction to the golden notebook
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