I many times find myself wondering why the state tries to restrict physical damage that I can do to myself, but doesn’t care how much mental damage I do to myself by reading the wrong thing at the wrong time. The same goes universally for acedamia and most of society. I’m quite certain that coming across the wrong Idea during an inquisitive period in adolescence can alter your perspective for the worse well into adulthood. How much has each of us suffered because we were not yet ready to come across an idea when we did? I know I have, it probably did more damage to my well-being than any drug i’ve taken or fight i’ve been in has.
I can’t drink untill i’m 21, but I am free to read Nietzsche at the age of 10? Who would allow such a thing?
I guess the point of this post is to ask whether the restrictions of ideas would be beneficial to the individual, or if it would be too dangerous to justify any benefits that might be reaped.
And if one hasn’t developed their critical thinking skills enough to understand the idea?
I guess I didn’t have “restriction of ideas” in mind when I wrote the post, that’s a bad phrase, but rather, the idea that one needs to develop one’s intellect and ability to reason and think critically before one is exposed to certain ideas.
I once worked with a very smart individual who had not been well educated and thus lacked displine in regards to reason and the ability to critically think. Somewhere along the way someone made the case, to her, that medicines were bad, and the only true way to become healthy is to be holistic.(something about drug company conspiracy) Accepting this premise she proceded to take holistic remedies out of context and use them for things they were not desgnated for. Eventaully her child got severlly sick, she refused to take him to a doctor because of her premises, and the holistic medicines failed and the child died.
I can’t help but think this person should have been shielded from the ideas of the holistic method, being as she was in the end unable to make the reasonable decision to take her child to a doctor when the decision obvously needed to be made. Obviously the idea of holistic remedies being the answer to medical needs has harmed this women to a great degree. Hence for her, the idea was dangeous.
Reading Nietzsche at the age of 10 is incomprehensible since it’s already incomprehensible to many who read philosophy at the age of 65. Getting drunk and stoned is simple at almost any age.
It all depends on how much of a skeptic you are and the prime directive of skepticism is ‘show me the money’.
No ideas are poisoneous as long as they merely remain an idea; a mental entity accepted or archived. Also a critical mind can put an idea ‘on hold’ for further examination. It’s not too late to learn this at any age - unless you’re going to be a politician.
Would you rather the government telepathically and electronically control every aspect of your thought but allow you to physically do everything that you wish? Oh wait…
…I don’t think there exist dangerous ideas, only dumb people… … not dumb… i didn’t express myself well… weak people.
I’ve read and been exposed to nihilistic ideas since I was 15 or less
and I’m a nice person…
I guess it depends on how the person takes it…
Yep, we are exposed to the most ridiculous, insidious, nihilistic, pathetic, useless, absurd ideas when we are young and impressionable. What better age bracket of say 4 to 18? to mold the young into accepting the nihilism of consumerism, materialism, and equality.
If I had my way, I’d eradicate all those women’s and teenage magazines that revolve around the superficialities of appearance and identity. Mankind can only move forward with the total annihilation of such shallow ideas.
What were you doing for the first ten years of your life?
What’s the practical difference between a restriction of/on ideas and requiring people to have the necessary mental discipline to treat them intelligently? To me they seem one and the same.
And I don’t just mean that by taking your words out of their intended context and treating them as some sort of educational policy, because I know that’s not what you mean. You’re referring, I believe, to a general rule of intellectual engagement, regardless of whether we’re talking about educational institutions.
I tend to agree with you, but use different terms. To me, freethinking is a total waste of a mind. Disciplined thinking (albeit imaginative and counterintuitive and unconventional and so on) is the important thing. One cannot have both freedom and discipline, so I choose the latter and make no bones about it. Freedom of thought, freedom of behaviour, freedom of speech, all that are bunkum, part of a narrative of emancipation that has never borne fruit. They aren’t possible and even if they were we wouldn’t want them. Without limits there’s no point in strategy. Without strategy, there’s no point in thinking at all.
I think this kind of censorship will only lead to a real restriction of ideas. Rather than use law to restrict it, parents have an obligation to make sure their children don’t make stupid descisions when they are young and impressionable.
I’m never surprised to see old, stale, degenorated parents who never are punished for the mistakes they make upon their children. They are injurious fools.
totally… mine are still killing me…but i manage…
i think it’s unexperience parenthood what should be banned, not books or ideas…
btw, whats that dog in your signature pic doing?!
… not dumb… i didn’t express myself well… weak people.