INDOCTRINATION

INDOCTRINATION

I have slightly round shoulders which I inherited from my dad. These round shoulders appear to make my upper back arch forward just a little, also it makes me appear an inch or two shorter than my brothers who are about the same height as me. That explains nature, I inherited these round shoulders from my dad, although I hope I do not inherit baldness too. I can tell you a thing or two about biological inheritance as I have a degree in Biochemistry, so I can bore you with the central dogma, and meiosis which are biological explanations for inheritance. However, that is not the crux of thought.

I was having a conversation with someone a while back and it tilted to the religious front. I asked him what religion he practices and his response struck me “I am a free thinker”. I had a lot of reactions to that, first off the Nigerain space is highly religious, saturated with Christians and Muslims, and there are other religions, I remember meeting a Buddhist once, I have met practicing traditionalists, and at the end of the spectrum, I have met atheists. But you see, none of these compares to meeting a “free thinker”, it felt sort of refreshing, someone different, but amidst processing this refreshing feeling I couldn’t help but imagine what brought him there. What was the thought pattern that prompted him to identify as a “free thinker”? what is “free thinking” in respect to religion? I didn’t ask him these questions though, I think it was after the conversation these thoughts popped into my head.

Human behaviour is nature and nurture. I find nurture particularly interesting. Why do we do the things we do? More importantly, who taught us to do the things we do? Because of course, thoughts and invariably actions do not just come out of nowhere, we were taught everything we do, down to the smallest thing. Back to my free-thinking friend, that was obviously not natural, it was learned. The question is was he sat down and taught how to be a free thinker? or he saw a free thinker somewhere and associated it with his own realities?

Tabula rasa is a term philosophers have used to describe the innate lack of any form of knowledge in a newborn child. If we all came to this world in a state of tabula rasa that explains that we really do not have any thoughts of our own, everything we do is learned, we were indoctrinated into everything. I occasionally think about why a 6-year-old me decided to start supporting Arsenal, and though the details are blurry I didn’t start supporting Arsenal out of the ordinary. Liverpool had won the Champions League in 2005, I don’t know what happened to them but they were probably knocked out in 2006, which left Arsenal as the only English team in the tournament. Now my dad is a lifelong Liverpool fan and there was this obsession with bringing the Champions League to England. My first exposure to Arsenal was watching numerous matches in the build-up to the 2006 Champions League final which they eventually lost, I think I cried that day. 

Once, I read somewhere that one of Nigeria’s favourite breakfasts; beans and bread is a subtle attempt at mimicking the British breakfast of pancakes, baked beans, and sausage. So in our inability to recreate that breakfast, we created a pseudo of bread and beans (some people add meat to cater for the sausage).

Messages that shape our lives, our thinking are so important, and sometimes they come out in the most subtle forms. There are jokes I have cracked, words I used that were not original, in essence very little comes out of the ordinary. Even in science, the theory of spontaneous generation was deemed invalid. The good book says to “guard your heart with all diligence…” because one way or the other, day in day out we are being thought, being shaped, being indoctrinated to things with or without our knowledge. 

Do not take my words for it though as I may really and truly just be echoing another person’s thought, one I was indoctrinated to and I may agree with. 

Anyway, welcome to Nooticing with Israel and I will be writing on random things, things that I nootice.

Until I come your way next week, remeber in whatever you do, the nooticer nootices.