Avoiding Manipulation in Free Thinking - 1100 Words

Avoiding Manipulation in Free Thinking (Term Paper Sample) Content: Avoiding Manipulation in Free ThinkingNameInstitution AffiliateOutlineThis paper is about avoiding manipulation in free thinking. To tackle this issue, the following will be addressed; 1 Definition of a free thinker.A free thinker is a person who has the ability to think in an independent way. A free thinker is able to make their own independent decision. However, there are several factors that hinder many people from thinking independently. These factors will be analyzed in the paper. 2 Importance of free thinking.Free thinking is of great importance. It means that a person is able to think independently and make independent decisions. The important part of it is that a free thinker will be able to stand for the decisions that they make. 3 Hindrances for free thinking.There are many factors that make free thinking so hard. Most of these factors are outside the control of a person. For example, religion and cultural beliefs are some of the hindrances to free thinking that will be addressed in the paper. 4 The paper will also discuss the effect of cultural and religious beliefs, Tradition, and political and Socratic ideologies on free thinking.All these are some of the hindrances of free thinking. There are factors that are in the environment in which a person grows, and they are very strong factors that can affect the way people think, thereby, making free thinking almost impossible. 5 How to avoid hindrances to free thinking.The paper will also provide an analysis on how to avoid these hindrances to free thinking. To be a free thinker will mean that the ability of a person in thinking is not influenced by such factors as religion and cultural beliefs, political affiliations, or tradition that a person has grown in.Avoiding manipulation in free thinkingIntroductionBeing a free thinker is the ability to make independent decisions and to have owned opinions on important issues instead of accepting what other people say (Frede, 2011). The society t oday is full of different opinions regarding various subjects, from politics religion, atheism and so many more. Every person, institution and different schools of thought around the world in one or the other want to make us believe they are right or what they believe in is the correct one. One, therefore, has to be careful in what they wish to believe by critically thinking through these issues. In this essay, I will discuss the importance of free thinking, the hindrances to freethinking, and how to avoid them.Religion and Cultural BeliefsReligion consists of beliefs, cultural systems and views regarding humanity. It is respect for what is sacred in relevance to the gods, a bond between man and the gods (Mawson). Religion has many doctrines that influence the way people perceive various issues the world over. There are the various religions in the world like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hindu. Christianity, for instance, has a 33% converts all around the world who follow and adhere to the doctrines set by the church. Due to increase in world population, this has had more disadvantages than advantages due to the scarcity and over-exploitation of the available resources. It is advisable that people take control by using family planning methods. And among the family planning methods, is the use of condoms. The use of condoms in family planning is against the doctrines of the Catholic Church, which stands with the opinion that God intended people to multiply freely. Now this has hindered the efforts of population control.Believe in religious beliefs has caused the world more harm than good if we consider the Islam religion under whose umbrella most terrorists operate. Due to the conflict between religions, part of the Islam groups believes if they kill Christians and die in the process, they will be taken to heaven. This has led to suicide bombers attacking the Christians resulting in chaos in the world. What makes a critical thinker a free thinker is not w hat he or she holds as belief but how he or she holds them, the endorsement of critical thinking has been challenged by religion across the world and this may call for solution to help people to exercise free thinking like teaching theology freedoms, where Christian believers will know to differentiate between good practices and bad and out of date doctrines. In the midst of an increasingly changing world, critical thinking has become a crucial attribute that is expected of university graduates. However, the application of this freethinking has had challenges in many college students and the people all over the world due to the influence of culture. Individual beliefs and culture can affect the principle and reasoning in areas of thinking. It is a persuasive factor in ways of individual beliefs which mean it plays a role in the society today.There are various cultures in the world today, and all affect the society in different ways. For example, physical environment, inspirational p eople, scientific affairs, and cultures have direct effect on the society. Culture can be defined as characteristics of particular people and the knowledge they process, from language, religion, habits, and art (Hogan, 2009). It can be demonstrated on narrow perspective by taking an example of the same group of university students from different universities. The way university students perceive issues is different considering the culture that they are used to, take for instance students in countries with political instability will champion for changes in political structures unlike students from countries with poor economies.Different aspects of culture affect the reasoning differently depending on the factor that influenced the culture more in development. Culture has many aspects that affect the way decisions are made; they include history, religion, individual beliefs, language, geography, and race. Individual beliefs are convictions and opinions. Beliefs are developed through f amily, education, peers and location where the individual lives. For instance, a person living in a developing nation where securing employment is hard will believe in saving in case of loss of the job. There are various cultures in the world today and they all play a role in free thinking of individuals, whether in a good or bad way, it is the role of the free thinker to apply the critical thinking tools in order to understand the issues logically. Another important aspect to look into concerning free thought is a tradition. Through history, every group has had traditions that they like to be identified with (Krishna, 2011).Tradition and Free thinkingTradition is a way of thinking or doing something used by people in a particular group or society, the most important being the belief. Tradition include practices that people have practiced over the years and has become part of their way of life, from religious traditions like Christmas celebrations, political traditions, scholarly tr aditions like the Socrates tradition, African traditions like female genital mutilation, family traditions and so on. These traditions affect the way individuals reason concerning various issues, for instance, some Africans believes ancestors can bring good or bad to the society, and in case of bad occurrences, they have to make sacrifices to appease the ancestors in order to bring peace and order. For Christians, they believe that Jesus died to save humanity and in case of bad occurrences, they have to pray to God through Christ to solve the problem. Some practices done today originate from a long time ago, following events that occurred or a practice that was observed because of different reasons. Christians, for instance, observe the day of charismas because they believe Jesus was born that day, although this has not been fully proven.Socratic IdeologiesSocratic ideologies are also significant to this day and are referred to as Socratic traditions still influence the education sy stems of today. For student willing to exercise freethinking, it is advisable to use critical thinking elements and avoid being sucked into the traditional ways of tackling issues. Political settings also influence the way in which people view and tackle issues. Political organizations are based in various ideologies, for instance, democratic settings, dictatorial setting or communistic setting (Chaffee, 2005). In democratic setting power is exercised by the people for the people, in this way of rule, people believe that people have the ability to determine the way in which they are governed, with freedoms to every individual. On dictatorial governments, the leader has all the power to determine what is best for the citizens.People in dictatorial regimes believe that the leader can choose what is best for them, thus limiting the possibility of exercising free thought. For instance Adolf Hitler, who was a leader of German, made the citizens believe that the Jews were the cause of Ger manà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬s loss of world war one, and he convinced the soldiers to fight in his course to wipe all the Jews in German and the neighboring countries like Austria.Political organizations represent authority. In addition, the assumption here is that any authority figure is correct in whatever they claim. On an individual level, this may include the parents of an individual, the management of the university, or experts in an area like the field of medicine. All this is believed to have credibility in whatever they purport to say. The authority, in many times, may be biased or over rated. For instance, you might be required to undergo painful injections or operations because the doctor prescribed the treatment. Although the authority might be right, the part where the individual has no say in the decisions being made concerning him hinders the ability to think critically. Similarly, in religious context, some id...