One of the key challenges in developing a truly rational and coherent opinion about anything, that a significant majority of people shares, is that the contemporary sources push different kinds or different versions of information to each person. It's carefully filtered, increasingly customized, and artfully moulded such that it is most engaging, pleasing, entertaining, even enchanting to the person consuming it. In a recent podcast with Trevor Noah, Ian Bremmer mentioned about this as the major constraint to bringing about any ideological or political revolution that is truly constructive and has mass support, or that's intended to take out a corrupt system which uses its power to control information - both the nature and access of it.
While we generally tout diversity of opinions as a strength, when opinions are not rooted in critical and holistic analysis of topics or issues, they become biases. And when biases achieve a level of deep-rootedness through constant reinforcement, you just can't get people to agree on anything, in spite of the vast and deep level of passion that they have, and the conviction and apparent chain of logic, often quite persuasive, with which they all seem to argue.In high-school math, before theorems - which are scientifically derived - we are taught axioms - which are to be accepted as true. Axioms form the foundations, and theorems are built on top of these axioms and other theorems. The information structures around common people are composed of highly distorted 'axioms', and opinions based on those are therefore biased, ill-informed and misleading - theorems based on false axioms provide an unreal view of the world. And such views differ person-to-person.
Critical thinking at foundational level would help mitigate formation of these baseline assumptions. A teacher must push minds back to question basic assumptions, before helping lay blocks to build more mature ideology. A truly open mind stays open for life. A mind trained to close itself tends to search for cozy rooms to shut itself inside. It's therefore of utmost importance that students are taught - encouraged - to observe the world with open mind, while being protected from biased information structures through inculcating critical thinking very early on.
Originally posted on LinkedIn on 27 April 2026.
