QUOTATION # 68.

[Doubt, Education and Wonder]

“We, the quiet people, need to rebel. 

We need our children to rebel – not necessarily by chanting platitudes or yelling into megaphones…….

If we don’t encourage them to demonstrate or protest, then we need to instil the wisest of all our skills in our children: doubt.”

WHEN TWO ELEPHANTS FIGHT: Chike Obeagu, Mixed media on canvas, 192 x 190 cm. 2019. Signed and dated (lower left)

“We need our children to care about the planet like those who have saved the whales for the enjoyment and reassurance of all. 

We need our children to consider the orthodoxy of the world, and examine it for its merit. 

That is called education.

………..Doubt is just another word for investigation, the application of intellectual rigour, the wrestle of the mind with difficult concepts, the desire to make the world a better place rather than meekly accept the word of the more fiscally energetic.

……..Teach our kids doubt so they can build strong, reliable minds.” 

MYOSSA IN BLUE: Abayomi Barber, Oil on canvas, 76 x 50 cm. 1971

“Teach them to avoid the cosmetic, the craven, the jingle of self-satisfaction. 

If they want to watch any number of glitzy reality TV shows, ask them if it is a good thing to set up nasty, shallow, meaningless human conflicts. 

Ask them if it is right to be mean and careless. Ask them to wonder about a society that needs such things to relax at night.

Introduce them to doubt and wonder. 

The world will be safer and healthier for the exercise of their brains.”

 BRUCE PASCOE

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