I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.

Reigning doctrines are often called a "double standard".The term is misleading.It is more accurate to describe them as a single standard,clear and unmistakable,the standard that Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: ...All for ourselves,and nothing for other people." Much has changed since his day,but the vile maxim flourishes.

Most schooling is training for stupidity and conformity, and that's institutional, but occasionally you get a spark, somebody'll challenge your mind, make you think and so on, and that has a tremendous effect you just reach all sorts of people. Of course if you do it you may very have problems, you have to tread the narrow line. There are plenty of people who don't want students to think, they're afraid of the crisis of democracy. If people start thinking you get all these problems that I quoted before. They won't have enough humility to submit to a civil rule or they'll start trying to press their demands in the political arena and have ideas of their own, instead of beleiving what they're told. And privelage and power typically doesn't want that and so they react and the high school teacher that tries to get students to think may find oppression, firing and so on.

I don't join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn't have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven - that's none of my business, ultimately. I won't lecture her on the philosophy of science.

The country that consistently ranks among the highest in educational achievement is Finland. A rich country, but education is free. Germany, education is free. France, education is free.

The events of October 1962 are widely hailed as Kennedy's finest hour.