Editor,
We all know that without education, society will be worse off. It is through education that we start to ‘think’ and be lesser led by mere emotions and hearsay. But a large section of society still remains in the dark when it comes to pressing issues that call for deep thinking such as abortion, land reforms, police reforms, anti-corruption laws and enforcement, etc. It is only by informing ourselves about various issues that we are able to take informed decisions. We come across a lot of fallacious thinking in our lives and we must therefore be guided by reason to avoid fallacies and cognitive biases that are committed in our daily lives. One such bias is known as the ‘confirmation bias’ where one favours information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses and ignores (deliberately or sub-consciously) information that may contradict or show their beliefs to be false. Selectively picking up information that only supports one’s belief is a terribly illogical way to come to a correct, impartial conclusion. This could lead to special pleading and double standards.
People also have the tendency to make false attributions. This is how racism arises where one person’s bad qualities are generally taken to be the bad qualities of all persons from that particular community.
So since knowledge is what builds human civilizations and keeps us sane, we must aspire to know things in details before coming to quick and false conclusions. At one time monarchs ruled as they pleased until the idea of democracy was initiated by the Greeks. The issue of human rights also came into prominence during the renaissance period. Till today a lot of people still use terms which are amorphous and rhetorical when arguing against something such as ‘unnatural, good, etc,’ without specifically mentioning what constitutes those meanings and whether those meanings have any logical or empirical grounding.
Hence, we (young, old, middle aged, etc) should inform ourselves and never stop learning as it is an inevitable part to becoming better individuals.
Yours etc.,
Abner Ingty Watre
Shillong-04