Difference Between Education and Indoctrination
Despite being two completely different things, education and indoctrination are often looked at in the same light and hence treated the same. This is something quite surprising, as education involves seeking of facts and the granting of freedom to an individual to do their own thinking to decide what is true and what is false, whereas indoctrination involves injecting certain thoughts into the mind of others and insisting that these thoughts are true, even though they are not well supported by concrete evidence and facts. Learning to differentiate between education and indoctrination is first step towards freeing one’s mind.
Instructions
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One of the biggest differences between education and indoctrination is that education involves learning about the truth that is supported by facts, whereas indoctrination involves influencing people into believing something as facts without being able to properly support these “facts” by anything other than opinions.
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Lacking the support of specific data, indoctrination often involves generalisations. Education, on the other hand, has the support of actual data and specific references that are derived from actual facts.
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Education is considered to be free of bias, taking a neutral stance on matters and leaving the decision and judgement of beliefs on others, whereas indoctrination is full of biased and has the aim of imposing certain beliefs on others, without giving them the freedom to make up the decision through their own though process. While education is neutral, indoctrination has an agenda, which primarily involves filling up the minds of people with particular beliefs and binding them to it.
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Education and indoctrination have a completely opposite approach of handling and resolving a problem. Education involves believing that there is more than just one solution to a problem. Indoctrination, however, disagrees with this notion. Instead, it points out that a particular problem only has one absolute solution, which is why trying to come up with another solution is a waste of time and energy. One of the worst examples of indoctrination in history is that of Nazi Germany and its cleansing of minorities, especially Jews, to resolve the increasing economic woes of the country.
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Education provokes critical thinking and analysis to resolve a problem by presenting statistical analysis. Indoctrination, on the other hand, limits the thinking and analysis process through controlled presentation of facts. Only that data and facts are made available which support the belief that is trying to be imposed, whereas all other facts and data is kept hidden.