Arguing against authoritarian mentalities: approaching dictatorship in home education

Being a branch of an old authoritarian socio-cultural tree is one of the worst things the new generation would endure, specifically when old mentalities are grown up under the power of dictatorial education, which imposes a set of authoritarian standards that leave no space for the individuals new to the world to make use of their reasoning devices and live their life in the way they prefer. Self-determination is therefore one of the most sensitive and hottest borders where generation crash breaks out.

The larger the gap between the new generation and the mentalities of their closed ancestors the hotter disagreement becomes between the two. How could therefore a person put in such position reconcile between his change ambitions and the firm mentalities of his old roots? Is there a way to make things go right despite disagreement? Why do most of the old generations in our society tend to impose their unjustified will and negative mode of thinking on their forebears?

Ignorance and the absence of rational reasoning are the first factors to formulate the structure of authoritarian mentalities. When an educator is ignorant he is likely to behave arrogantly and aggressively toward anything new to their little minds. And since behavior, aggression, and ignorance are as contagious as illnesses learners, particularly young people, who exposed to such educational mentalities would be morally and behaviorally infected. The more ignorant an educator is the more aggressive his behavior becomes.

Another factor that is much closed to ignorance is blind imitation, the tendency to behave as or believe in some popular but unwarranted and groundless social practices. An educator with a despotic mentality has no concept of reason or reasoning, because blindness covers up his mind and turns his sanity into madness in the eyes of independent thinkers and critics. While the latter are hard to persuade, the others are easy not only to let them take false ideas for granted, but also to have them adopt those ideas till they become a part of their personal and collective behavior. Consequently, blind imitators have one of either reasons to justify their beliefs and behavior: if you ask them to justify their actions and choices, the first cause is because their fathers and grandfathers used to believe and behave as such; otherwise, physical aggression is the second resort. To put it another way, when the power of reason doesn’t work, the reason of power works.

Intellectual stagnancy also serves despotism. While the trends of knowledge and world discoveries are ascending, despotic mentalities resist any change from their old-fashioned modes of thinking. They resist change and thence everything new to them is decoded on the basis of their system of beliefs, concepts, norms, and history. In contradictory, the new generation continues enthusiastically to embrace new ideas and trends in the world of science, philosophy, and methodology. Consequently, generation gap becomes wider, and the borders of crash expand to reach the highest peak where families break down and social isolation and individualism spread out in every corner.

To bend the head of dictatorial education is not that easy, especially when there is no principled commitment. As there is no common scientific ground between the two conflicting mentalities (the mentality of ignorance and the mentality of reason) scientific discourse will never be the solution; it is the most hated enemy for those who have no reason. Thereof some may resort to social hypocrisy(to hide your opinions and show your approval) as a way to peacefully deal with those mentalities; yet others still stick to honesty and clarity and reject but changing their minds and hearts, forcing change dissenters to coexist with new minds and new tendencies.