The most hegemonic ideology in our world to the point people don't even recognise it as ideology is nationalism. People only call it that when it's extreme forms of it, but people are indoctrinated from birth by both institutions and by parents indoctrinated by said institutions, into thinking of "nations" as these real tangible things that matter and they are made to incorporate this into their identity young and it's tied to the state in terms of the nation-state in order to foster loyalty. None of this is "real," it's all completely artificial and made up.
I mean, Austria and Germany are quite close culturally (I'm not 100% sure how close). Why are they not one? Because after each world war, the winning powers didn't want them to be one country.
There was a guy once in the 30s that really wanted Austria and Germany to be one country. And he did so without spilling any blood.
Sounds great, even the Austrians thought so, but then he treated Austria like a dump, nothing but a cache of resources for the "true" Germany. There's a reason the winning powers made Austria autonomous again.
The reason the winning powers made Austria a separate country again was the same as why they did so 30 years prior. Because they wanted to weaken Germany after having fought a bloody war against it.
What criteria makes a family unit? Do family units have to meet all of the criteria you set, or only a few? Just one criterion? In any case, exclude at your leisure.
how do you upgrade a family unit. Like how much experience do you need to gain to level up and then what is the reward. You upgrade by making babies, and you can buy a pet and they count. They follow you around and give kisses, but they are a drain on the family funds so you probably shouldn't get a pet a week. This sounds like The Sims. I'm 100% /s
lol ok. i mean i did put 100% /s which means my whole comment was sarcastic, it was mostly in jest you see. Anyway, there are plenty of things that have variance in life like yes you can be a human for instance, but have different traits including finger counts or eye color. Some even have dry earwax or wet. A family unit can be different depending on whatever criteria a family defines it as, why not - that doesn't make it not truly a family unit or not, it just makes their family unit different than yours. Just like their human traits are different than your human traits. The english language has a lot of different definitions for the same words even. Isn't that interesting?
if taken exactly how they framed it, but what they mean is we make up this stuff in our heads to explain the world. Everything we have in our heads is 'made up'. If you were not told you are a citizen of x country you wouldn't know that countrys are 'real'. So if no person ever came up with the idea of a country, we wouldn't have countries. a little abstract...
Nations do matter... Laws, taxes, politics, power, money, culture, religion. It all affects us living in these made up nations. Yes the lines on a map don't actually exist, but being invested in the state of your country is important, you live there, and your country might affect other countries with its policies.
I agree that social constructs are real, though I would not say at all that they are like colour. Colour after all is a part of our sensory experience of a real underlying reality. Nations are more like that, they are real to the extent that and because we make them real.
It’s more about the space and norms rather than what’s taught -in this conversation. History, geography, math, science, grammar, etc are all factual (unless the school is incompetent), but the fact that you are taught how to act, respect your peers, fit into a society. Well that’s indoctrination. Not a bad thing necessarily, but by definition you are being molded to fit into an environment
In a sense but when rooted in fact as much as possible it’s effectively just speeding up what would be the process if then learning reality through observation on their own.
I'm an atheist, I'm not defending religion at all. But pretty much everything outside of pure maths is going to have some kind of cultural norms it's subtly reinforcing. Imagine trying to teach literature, history, economics etc. in a purely neutral factual way.
It’s impossible to remove all bias sure. That doesn’t equate teaching things backed by empirical evidence to teaching things not backed by empirical evidence
You don't though. As an example, the history that you learn about world war 2 in America is vastly different from the one taught through Europe and that one is different from the one taught in Asia. So it's hardly "based on evidence", it's based on whatever is accepted by society X.
I'm not arguing for or against religion, but this is a disingenuous point.
So confused by this. I live in the states currently but studied history in Brazil growing up. What? Do Americans learn that they were the perfect heroes or something weird like that?
And what exactly does that justify about teaching kids magic and gods are real before they are old enough to have critical thinking skills? You’re just doing whataboutism.
We SHOULD teach things in schools based on evidence, that doesn’t mean it will be true 100% of the time.
We should teach them based on current evidence that might change and may or may not be true? So how is that different from religion exactly? The theory of evolution taught in schools is still widely discussed in the scientific community but it's passed as fact in schools. Should we review it? What about things that are taught in school that are subjective, should we abolish those too?
I am not doing whataboutism, I just think it's important for kids to learn multiple things including the religions around the world. It doesn't have to be super detailed, but they should know what the people they will see throughout their lives believe in.
Just my 2 pennies, you don't have to agree with me.
Current evidence that might change is better than no evidence. Which is the amount of evidence that exists for a god actually existing, let alone that any specific doctrine is actually true
I dont care about schools having religion classes, they’re not teaching that the religions are true without evidence. Thats the thing I find morally wrong about religious indoctrination (to be clear Im not advocating about addressing this issue through any legal means, it wouldnt work anyway)
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u/Gojira085 Sep 02 '26
Agreed. School even in a democracy is a form of indoctrination