Karl Popper on Enlightenment, Reason and Intellectual Independence

"Activating collective consciousness is probably one of the most difficult tasks to attempt because people are largely unaware of the extent to which their thinking is governed by tacit rules and predetermined as given, assumed notions that, because they appear as self-evident truth, render ideology invisible. Truly unrestricted intellectual debate feels threatening because it strives to break out of this cognitive cage. Worse, this cage is so insidious that it influences even those who are already outside the mainstream. People are rarely, if ever, persuaded by argument. Those who adopt dissenting opinions do so ,because they were already naturally predisposed to do so and events have brought about a process by which they have become more true to themselves." MOYO-Film

"The conviction that it is important to believe this or that, even if a free inquiry would not support the belief, is one which is common to almost all religions and which inspires all systems of state education...A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree of certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world is suffering. But at present, in most countries, education aims at preventing the growth of such a habit, and men who refuse to profess belief in some system of unfounded dogmas are not considered suitable as teachers of the young… The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from cooperation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence. The world needs open hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old or new, that these can be derived." Bertrand Russell