May 22, 2005

Something That Made Me Think

I recently finished reading "Soul of the Fire", the fifth book in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. The whold series is very good. Obviously some people agree because I'm currently on a waiting list at two different libraries for the 6th book "Faith of the Fallen". The series is similar to the Lord of The Rings trilogy but unlike Tolkien, Goodkind has no problem (and in many cases I think he intends it) with people viewing the places and peoples he writes about as metaphors to places and peoples in the real world. One such place in "Soul of the Fire" (don't worry I won't ruin any part of the story) is called Anderith and in Anderith there are two groups of people, the Anders and the Hakens. For reasons talked about in the book, the Anders believe that the Hakens are evil by nature and that only Anders are capable of truly being good people. In addition, they believe the Hakens must work for the Anders to try and become/prove themselves as decent, civilized people. The thing is, the Hakens believe this also. They believe this because for generations the Anders have controlled the education system and have taught these views.

This got me to thinking. The people that truly have power in a society are the ones that control what and how people are taught. How do you keep people from knowing the truth? Teach them something other than the truth. If you tell someone something often enough, eventually they'll believe it. How do you think people come about deciding that it's cool to wear sweatbands on their forearms at all times?

Posted by chupathingy on May,22, 2005 at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)