This is madness!

Let me start by this.  Most people are incapable of applying critical thinking to what they have been continuously exposed to as “right” throughout their lives.  We are lambs by nature, hard-wired to follow the crowd.  If something is considered to be correct by most, then we find it correct as well and will go as far as passionately defending it as the right thing, with no clue why.  If you are not aware of the monkeys/banana/water experiment I suggest you follow the link to the Youtube video of it.

According to its definition of Wikipedia “Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or dogma.”.  That is opposite to the idea expressed in the monkeys experiment, however I am not sure if we are by our nature not-free-thinkers or it’s just the way we learn to live in our society.  One thing is certain and that is “that’s the way it always has been around here”.  New ideas come from exceptions to this and they are more than often opposed by followers of the dogma.  In such a manner for example was Galileo’s idea of heliocentrism treated.  Even Jesus Christ, the centre of our religion was crucified for speaking outside of the given establishment at the time.  Should the Biblical statements that the Sun revolves around the Earth have been subject to criticism?  Are there any modern ideas that are dogmatic and generally believed and accepted as true without people feeling the need for proof?  What is free thinking?

In the talk “The power of vulnerability” by sociologist Brene Brown she defines shame as the fear of a human of losing connectivity with society.  Is free thinking something to be ashamed of?  Well for some it definitely is not as seen by the various groups and movements of free thinkers, such as our own “Cyprus FreeThinkers“, but could that partly be one of the possibly many driving factors of why people tend to believe in the socially acceptable without feeling the need for proof?  That is, being ashamed to oppose the de facto, fearing they would not be normal and would be excluded somehow from society; and more than often they are, by the way.

One could say that the greatest value of all is the ability to challenge your values, the ability to say “are we wrong?”.  The ability of one person to challenge dogma can be a gift to the whole society if the challenge is made for that purpose, but it can also be a curse to the individual.  God help us (intentional punch) if Galileo, who is by some considered to be the father of modern science, just closed his mouth in fear of the consequences.

A recent discussion I had with someone was regarding the Greeks’ attitude for the adult movies starred by Julia Alexandratou.  It is common in Greece and even in Cyprus to a lesser extend to speak highly of Julia because in a time of financial crisis she made a fortune by “working her body” a few hours.  The debate here is that some people value money more than the ethical “say no to sex (and drugs, but mostly sex)”, while others consider it social catastrophe that “people have reached this disgraceful state”.  The latter so firmly hold on their ethical value against sex that they do not believe that maybe some people consider it “OK”.  No!! For them, it is a fact that it is not OK and they blame human greed for money.  But maybe it’s not just the value of money…maybe some people feel that it’s just Julia publishing a video doing something that is really common (well let’s not get into champagne details) and judging by the size of the adult entertainment industry people do know this.  Is this unethical?  I don’t know, but what I do know is that the ethics against publishing your bedroom adventures can not be easily challenged/discussed/criticised.