'Twisting Facts To Suit Theories' & Other Selections From VOXINDICA

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A book like this is long overdue!
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About the book:

• Meticulously researched and written citing about 250 references, the book
• Exposes the pusillanimity of the Indian intelligentsia!
• Exposes the hypocrisy and double standards of the Indian media!
• Exposes the deviousness behind writing and teaching of Indian history!
• Exposes the hollowness and treachery of Indian secularism!

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The book addresses key issues that concern the Indian society today: freedom of expression; media objectivity; the skewed concept of Indian secularism and the teaching of doctored history. 

Why is the majority religion always at the receiving end in the name of ‘secularism’? Why does ‘secularism’ connote one obligation for practitioners of the majority religion and another for the minorities? Why does the word ‘secularism’ have one meaning in the Kashmir valley and another in the rest of India? 

Why do we teach ‘doctored’ history in our schools and colleges? If, as is feared, teaching about the atrocities of long gone invaders exacerbates communal tensions, why does the news media show gory images of something happened in the recent past again and again, exaggerating them a thousand-fold? Does it promote communal harmony? Why does the news media magnify even minute excesses of the one side and at the same time wilfully and completely airbrush similar misdemeanours of the other? 

These are the questions that should be asked of the Indian milieu, which has come to be dominated by the oxymoronic ‘left-liberal’ for far too long. If ever a phrase justifies being termed an oxymoron then it is ‘left-liberal’. The ‘left-liberal’ are neither left nor liberal. And there would not be anyone more illiberal than them. They call anyone who disagrees with them or anyone with whom they disagree, ‘Fascists’! The milieu needs correction. It needs voices that project the right perspective.  This book attempts to provide that perspective.

For quite some time now, there have been suggestions from well-wishers to publish the contents of my blog site (http://www.voxindica.net/) in book form. I have resisted the suggestions initially as I felt the content that goes into blogs and websites is by and large topical and may at the most have academic referential value. Why publish it in book form?

While it is true many of the events that blogs narrate are of a transient nature, the issues that trigger the events quite often have long lasting effect. For example, the impact of the events triggered by the publication of a short story in Deccan Herald in 1986 is felt even today, thirty years later. The events cast such terror in what social-psychologists call ‘the collective consciousness’ of the Indian media that the issue is not invoked even as an example of an attack on the freedom of expression. In point of fact it would be an instructive case study worthy of discussion in journalism and social science classrooms. Consumed by dhimmitude, intrepid champions of freedom of expression live in Orwellian denial blanking off the events from memory.  

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION                                                                                                                

SECTION I − FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

ARTISTIC FREEDOM & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

              
              SECULAR BIASES

              COURTESANS NOT GODDESSES

              IS ARTISTIC FREEDOM ABSOLUTE?

              SURPRISING VERDICT

              FALLACY, IGNORANCE OR MISCHIEF?

              YALE UNIVERSITY EXAMPLE

              GRATUITOUS OBITER DICTA

THE CURIOUS CASE OF "DECCAN CHRONICLE" AS THE CHAMPION OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

CHARLIE HEBDO MASSACRE & INDIAN INTELLECTUAL CHICANERY

SONIA & RAHUL MORE VENERABLE THAN ‘SITA & SARASWATI’?

SECTION II − TWISTING FACTS TO SUIT THEORIES

A LeT OPERATION IN J&K AND A DETENTION IN THE US! 

A WORM’S-EYE VIEW OF THE STATESMAN & THE TIMES OF INDIA

‘SUE WILEY’, ECONOMISING TRUTH & DAMAGING DISTORTIONS

             SUE WILEY 

               ECONOMIZING TRUTH & DAMAGING DISTORTIONS

ANGRY JANES, MAD TOMS & ‘INTERNET HINDUS’

               ANGRY JANES & MAD TOMS

               WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?

               WHAT IS OUTLOOK’S PROBLEM?

IBN-LIVE 'DISREGARDS' TRUTH

               HINDUTWA, SECULAR POLARITY

               SECULAR HEADLINE WRITING

               LIES, DAMN LIES & SECULAR LIES

               THE MORE CREDIBLE EVIDENCE

MEDIA AND ETHICS IN BRITAIN AND INDIA

FACTS ARE FLUID – COMMENT IS SACRED!

STING MERCHANTS & TRUTH FAIRIES

NEW YORK TIMES’ OUTSOURCED ‘INDIAN-SECULARISM’

DOROTHY DIXERS AND GRAPEFRUITS

NATWAR SINGH AND THE HINDU PARALLAX

INDIAN MEDIA’S ‘DEUS EX MACHINA’

LAZY, TABLOID, STEREOTYPE JOURNALISM

SECTION III − A DECADE OF SECULAR LIES

A REQUIEM FOR GODHRA

               THE TRAUMA OF BURNING

               THE LONELINESS OF PAIN

               NO WREATHS FOR THE KARSEVAKS!

               THE POLITICS OF DEATH

THE SECULAR GALAHADS OF JUSTICE!

               THE NEW KATHERINE MAYO

               THE BENT COPS

               THE HIRED GUNS

A DECADE OF SECULAR LIES

               THE KANGAROO COURTS

               JUSTICE TEWATIA COMMITTEE REPORT

HISTORY OF BLOODIER RIOTS

ENCOUNTERS, REAL, FAKE OR OPTICAL ILLUSION?

              ‘GANDHIANS WITH GUNS’

               ‘USEFUL IDIOTS’, EMPATHIZING TERROR?

               ENCOUNTERS, ENCOUNTERS, ENCOUNTERED!

SECTION IV − SHOULD WE REWRITE HISTORY?

HISTORICAL DILEMMAS

SHOULD WE REWRITE HISTORY?

RATIONALIZING GENOCIDE?

LEARNING OR POLITICAL CONDITIONING?

INTEGRATION OF INDIA – A TEST OF LEADERSHIP

JUNAGADH & HYDERABAD SNATCHING VICTORY FROM JAWS OF DEFEAT

JAMMU & KASHMIR SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM JAWS OF VICTORY

INTRODUCTION

MOUNTBATTEN’S FOXY ROLE

JUNAGADH

HYDERABAD

JAMMU & KASHMIR

PLEBISCITE RESOLUTION SABOTAGED BY PAKISTAN

STRATEGIC BLUNDER - 1949 NY GIFT

INDIA CHINA WAR 1962

INDIAN SHAME - CHINESE PERFIDY

THE TIBET BLUNDER

THE CHINESE FIFTH COLUMN

SECTION V − INDIAN SECULARISM

RAM JANMA BHUMI IN HIGH COURT

HOW PSEUDO-EXPERTS FAILED PSEUDO-SECULARS

PERVERSION OF HISTORY

IS A TEMPLE AT AYODHYA AGAINST REPUBLICAN IDEAL?

HAS THE COUNTRY MOVED ON?

MSM: ‘REWIND, FREEZE FRAME’

DISMISSAL OF TITLE SUIT CONCLUSIVE

PSEUDO-EXPERTS FAILED PSEUDO-SECULARS!

ISN’T IT TIME TO MOVE ON?

KASHMIRI PANDITS - A FORSAKEN MINORITY

NAC’S COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BILL

RETELL THE WOLF AND THE GOAT STORY!

THE WOLF AND THE GOAT

TARGETING HINDUS

TWIST IN THE TALE

SECTION VI − MISCELLANY

DEMOCRACY, FREE SPEECH & SECESSION

INDO-PAK RELATIONS - LESSONS FROM HISTORY

SCRAP ARTICLE 370. SAY ‘NO’ TO PAK SIACHEN PROPOSAL

‘WAR SPEECH’ COST GANDHI HIS ‘NOBEL’?

HOW TO TACKLE BLACK MONEY MENACE

WILL ‘INDIANS AGAINST CORRUPTION’ WIN?

ANNA HAZARE AND INDIANS AGAINST CORRUPTION

DRAMA AT JANTAR MANTAR

CYNICS & INTELLIGENTSIA VERSUS. CIVIL SOCIETY

‘AAM ADMI PARTY’ AND THE BATTLE OF PERCEPTION

P. V. NARASIMHA RAO AND THE ELUSIVE ‘BHARAT RATNA’!

IS ASTROLOGY SCIENCE OR SUPERSTITION?

IS THE UN A WHITE-MAN’S CLUB?

A PARTY OF VICTORS?

INDIA’S CLAIM FOR UNSC MEMBERSHIP

INDIAN NAÏVETÉ

UPA’S NAC RULE - DICTATORSHIP IN DISGUISE?

WILL WE RETURN TO ‘HINDU RATE OF GROWTH’?

‘NEHRUVIAN RATE OF GROWTH’

IMPLOSION OF A SOCIALIST SOCIETY

FAILED PROPHET OF SOCIALISM

‘HINDU RATE OF GROWTH’

FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN RETAIL - BANE OR BOON?

THE CHINESE EXAMPLE

AN INDIAN EXAMPLE

INDO-US NUCLEAR DEAL DEMYSTIFIED

INTRODUCTION

NUCLEAR MINERAL RESOURCES & TECHNOLOGY

NUCLEAR RESOURCES AND ENERGY PRODUCTION

THE 123-AGREEMENT VIS-À-VIS US REGULATIONS

THE COURSE OF THE NUCLEAR DEAL

THE OPPOSITION

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

END ACADEMIC APARTHEID

Abolition Of Privy Purses Betrayal Of Constitution?

Admirers of Indira Gandhi have often described the abolition of ‘Privy Purses’ as one of her principal achievements, along with the nationalisation of banks and the victory in the 1971 war. The first two were populist measures intended to derive electoral advantage in an era in which socialism was seen as a panacea for all social and economic ills. The third, viz. the Bangladesh war was in a way thrust upon India. To give Indira Gandhi her due she had the political will to stand up to Pakistan overtly supported by the USA. While China offered covert support to Pakistan there was the lurking fear that she might open up a second front in the war.

Privy Purses

The rulers of the erstwhile princely States which were amalgamated in the ‘Union of States’ as the Constitution described the newly emergent nation were to sign two documents known as the ‘Instrument of Accession’(IoA)[1] and the ‘Standstill Agreement’ (SA)[2]. Under the IoA the princes were to surrender only Communications, Defence, External Affairs and some ancillary matters to the Indian Union.

As late as February 1947, Nehru had assured the Negotiating Committee of the Chamber of Princes that neither the monarchical form of government, nor the integrity of the States, would be touched. […] The grant of Privy Purses to the rulers was a sort of quid pro quo for the surrender by them of all their ruling powers and for the dissolution of their States.[3]

The privy purses were thus an important component of Sardar Patel’s negotiated settlement with the 562 princely States which were amalgamated in the Indian union. The settlement was incorporated in the Indian Constitution under Articles 291 and 362.

When they agreed to amalgamate their States in the Indian union, the rulers of the princely States had surrendered the towns and villages that comprised the States, thousands of acres of jagir land, palaces and other buildings, museums with their invaluable treasures, armouries and aircraft (which the larger states had) and other properties. The cash balances and investments of the States which were taken over alone amounted to ₹77 crore. This figure however excludes the cash balances of two large states, Hyderabad and Mysore as they were continuing States at the time. The interest accruals on these amounts alone would more than cover the payment of Privy Purses. In addition to all these assets, the rulers also surrendered a railway system of roughly 12,000 miles (which, to put in perspective was about one sixth of the length of the present track network) and rolling stock, without receiving any compensation.

The Indian government agreed to compensate rulers at a rate of not more than 8.5% of their annual revenues with a ceiling of ₹10 lakh. In subsequent negotiations the ceiling was waived off in eleven cases. Of the 562 princely States 398 were eligible to receive less than ₹50,000 per annum. The largest State, Hyderabad received ₹43 lakh (which in 1947-48 was just 2% of the State’s revenues), whereas the smallest State, Katodia received just ₹192 per year. The objective of the Privy Purses was to

enable the rulers and their successors to adjust themselves to the new order of things and to fit themselves into the modern social and economic pattern (Ibid.)

The Privy Purses were in effect a kind of pension that the Constitution of a sovereign nation guaranteed to pay to the erstwhile rulers, and as Menon put it

The Privy Purse is intended to cover all the expenses of the ruler and his family, including the expenses on account of his personal staff, his palaces and the marriages and other ceremonies in his household. (Ibid.)

The Privy Purses were to be gradually reduced. At the time of independence, the annual outlay for the purses was ₹6 crore. By the time they were abolished by Indira Gandhi in 1971, the figure came down to ₹4 crore. To put this figure in perspective, it amounted to 0.1% of the estimated annual revenue receipts (₹3867 crore) for the year 1970-71.[4]

The Privy Purses were to be paid by the Indian Union into which the princely Sates were absorbed. The rulers were initially apprehensive that they would be at the mercy of the whims and fancies of the popular ministries of the states into which their States were absorbed. The apprehension turned out to be not entirely groundless as in the case of Jammu and Kashmir, as soon as the State acceded to the Indian Union, Sheik Abdullah expelled its ruler from the state. He refused to honour the agreement to pay the negotiated Privy Purse to the Maharajah. The Government of India was forced to pay the Privy Purse and continued to do so till its abrogation by Indira Gandhi.

Political Vendetta?

As in all other matters, the Indian left-illiberal have one take on Jammu and Kashmir and quite a different one for the rest of India. The Privy Purses have been the subject of intense debate for long. For instance they argued for the perpetuation of the purely temporary Article 370; while on the other hand they contended that the Privy Purses were not compatible with an ‘egalitarian social order’.

What could have cooked their goose, perhaps, was that some rulers joined C. Rajagopalachari’s Swatantra Party and in the 1967 general elections defeated many Congress candidates. Indira Gandhi was incensed by this and wanted to teach them a lesson by abolishing the Privy Purses. In 1969 her government introduced the Constitution (Twenty-fourth Amendment) Bill. It was passed by the Lok Sabha with a majority of 332:154 votes but was defeated in the Rajya Sabha by 149:75 votes. Not one to bow to silly inconveniences like parliamentary procedures, she had a pliable President, V. V. Giri issue an order derecognizing the rulers. The September 6, 1970 order was challenged in the Supreme Court by N. A. Palkhivala (and others) in the famous Privy Purses Case and was struck down by the Supreme Court on December 15, 1970.[5]

After Indira Gandhi returned to power with a landslide majority in 1971, her government passed the Constitution (Twenty-sixth Amendment) Bill to abolish the Privy Purses.

Here was what Sardar Patel said commending the adoption of Article 291 in the Constituent Assembly

The Privy Purse settlements are therefore in the nature of consideration for the surrender by the rulers of all their ruling powers and also for the dissolution of the States as separate units. We would do well to remember that the British Government spent enormous amounts in respect of the Mahratta settlements alone. We are ourselves honouring the commitments of the British Government in respect of the pensions of those rulers who helped them to consolidate their empire. Need we cavil then at the small — I purposely use the word small — price we have paid for the bloodless revolution which has affected the destinies of millions of our people?

The capacity for mischief and trouble on the part of the rulers if the settlement with them would not have been reached on a negotiated basis was far greater than could be imagined at this stage.

Let us do justice to them; let us place ourselves in their position and then assess the value of their sacrifice. The rulers have now discharged their part of the obligations by transferring all ruling powers and by agreeing to the integration of their States. The main part of our obligation under these agreements is to ensure that the guarantees given by us in respect of Privy Purses are fully implemented. Our failure to do so would be a breach of faith and seriously prejudice the stabilization of the new order.[6]

In the light of what Patel said, the abolition of the Privy Purses can only be seen as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of our nation because it was betrayal of a solemn Constitutional guarantee.

It may be appropriate to quote here what Arvind P. Datar had to say of the betrayal of the Congress party:

Sardar Patel persuaded the Constituent Assembly to guarantee payment of Privy Purses and preserve the rights of the erstwhile rulers. But the Congress betrayed him 20 years later by abolishing the Privy Purses.[7]

---

[1] It is an agreement signed by the ruler of the princely State and the dominion of India subjecting the princely State to the Government of India Act 1935. The Instrument of Accession binds the State to the jurisdiction of the Union government for making laws in the areas of Defence, External Affairs, Communications and some ancillary matters.

[2] It is an agreement that assures continuance of any ‘existing agreements and administrative arrangements in the matters of common concern’ existing between the Indian State and the British government. It specifies eighteen administrative areas in the Schedule attached to the agreement. It also signifies the end of Paramountcy of the British government. 

[3] Menon, V.P. (1955). Chapter XXV, “The Cost of Integration”: The Story Of The Integration Of The Indian States. Longmans Green & Co. London. pp. 324-328.

[4] Annual budget speech for 1970-71 delivered by Indira Gandhi in the Lok Sabha on February 28, 1970. Accessible from http://indiabudget.nic.in/bspeech/bs197071.pdf

[5] H. H. Maharajadhiraja Madhav Rao ... vs Union Of India on 15 December, 1970. Accessible from https://indiankanoon.org/doc/660275/

[6] Menon, V.P. (1955). Chapter XXVI, “Retrospect and Prospect”: The Story Of The Integration Of The Indian States. Longmans Green & Co. London. pp. 329-335.

[7] “Who Betrayed Sardar Patel” The Hindu. November, 19, 2013. Accessible from http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/who-betrayed-sardar-patel/article5366083.ece

What's Wrong With The Media In USA?

After the entire US media has gone horribly wrong in its prediction of the US presidential election, it is perhaps time for those in the media business to do a bit of soul-searching.

It was not the US media alone that had egg on its face. Media in Europe and India too are guilty of reading their prejudices into what they love to call ‘narratives’ and call it news. At least two Indian media houses sent their ‘star’ reporters – and self-declared feminists to boot – all the way to the US to cover the election and report on ‘the momentous occasion of the world’s most powerful nation electing its first woman president in two hundred years of democracy.’ One wonders whether the ‘star’ reporters would have been as eager to be ‘on the spot’ or the media houses deputed them to report if a Clinton victory was not ‘foreseen’! The two must have returned home much disappointed as at times, the best laid plans of mice and men can (and did) go awry!

What's wrong with The New York Times and the rest of the US media? Well, it's like the cat in the (Indian) adage: the cat closes its eyes and thinks that the sun has set and the world has gone dark, so it could go about filching milk.

As former NYT staffer and Editor, Michael Cieply says in DEADLINEHOLLYWOOD, NYT is editor-driven. Instead of going out on the streets to find out what has been going on, “talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called ‘the narrative.’” Cieply says, a senior reporter sits at his computer playing solitaire till his editor arrived in the office to instruct him on what to ‘report’. He would then go out on the streets to find out a person who would be willing to give a soundbite that suits the ‘narrative’: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?” It is not just that.

“We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.”

It comes as no surprise to consumers of Indian ‘news media’ or should we say ‘narratives media’? Didn’t we observe our secular news reporters on election beat in 2014 going about casting their lines till they hooked the right fish to mouth the pre-determined lines?

Asra Q. Nomani (a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement) who has experienced Islamic extremism first-hand, wrote in The Washington Post ("I’ma Muslim, a woman and an immigrant. I voted for Trump.") that she was opposed to the Democratic Party’s “tap dance around the ‘Islam’ in the Islamic State.” Trump might have been crude in some of his expressions but Nomani says they were hugely exaggerated and demonized by the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their media channels like the Al Jazeera and their ‘proxies in the West’. Nomani says

“a convenient distraction from the issue that most worried me as a human being on this earth: extremist Islam of the kind that has spilled blood from the hallways of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai to the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.”

What probably did Clinton in was her and the Democratic Party’s hypocritical approach towards Qatar and Saudi Arabia, brought to light by WikiLeaks. She had no qualms about accepting multi-million dollar donations for the Clinton Foundation from nations which spawned and nurtured Islamic terrorism the world over.

Replying an e-mailed query about what it felt to be a ‘Muslim in Trump’s America’, Nomani, who is an Indian expatriate said that America with its ‘rich history of social justice and record or civil rights’ had enough checks and balances against possible discrimination. In their eagerness to push their ‘narratives’, secular liberals in the US (as their Indian counterparts are wont to do) airbrushed concerns about the influence of theocratic Muslim dictatorships, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia on the Clinton administration. Secular liberals who wink at the civil rights records of these nations should particularly note what Nomani said about the States:

“These dictatorships are no shining examples of progressive society with their failure to offer fundamental human rights and pathways to citizenship to immigrants from India, refugees from Syria and the entire class of de facto slaves that live in those dictatorships.”

What Nomani told the Indian journalist while signing off is relevant to everyone which the secular liberals should but don’t particularly note:

“We have to stand up with moral courage against not just hate against Muslims, but hate by Muslims, so that everyone can live with sukhun, or peace of mind...”

Idols With Feet Of Clay!

This intriguing story involves some of India's top politicians worshipped as idols,

A LETTER WHICH APPEARED IN THE
OCTOBER 12, 2015 ISSUE OF
OUTLOOK MAGAZINE

but who in fact, had feet of clay.

Jawaharlal Nehru who pioneered dynastic succession in this country wanted to make his sister Vijayalakshmi, President of the republic. Overlooking the best and the brightest minds he made her ambassador earlier. In his lifetime, his sister, son-in-law and later daughter held important public offices.

The Lalus, the Mulayams, the Pawars, the Badals and all who discovered leadership and nation-saving qualities in their family members found an august precedence. And why not? If AAP's Ashutosh could find in Mahatma Gandhi's ascetic life, justification for the sexual misdemeanours of a colleague, the rest could justifiably explain away the vulgarity of their dynastic greed with perfect precedence.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who was already Vice President could not stomach the loss (of elevation). It appears, he had information that Nehru would not want made public. (Alvin Toffler was perhaps not born by then, but isn't information power?)

Radhakrishnan leveraged (a term of the information technology era; 'blackmail' would be crude!) the information he had about a sighting in Russia's freezing Far East. To cut a long story short, he was made President and all was well! The story had a happy ending!

Homeschooled Weirdoes and the Culture of Conformity

Remember that weird kid in school? I don't mean the really scary one. I mean the borderline oddball. The one you had to talk to a bit to spot the weirdness. The boy who never knew what TV show everyone was talking about. The girl who, when you asked her what her favorite music group was, answered some long name that ended in "quartet." The kid who thought you meant soccer when you said football.

How did you treat that kid? (Or were you that kid?)

In "Homeschooling, Socialization, and the New Groupthink," I suggested that the most useful definition of socialization is "ensuring that a child becomes sociable, that he or she develops the intelligence and social reflexes that promote peaceful and pleasurable interactions." I also suggested that some of homeschooling's critics might mean something more sinister: indoctrination into a particular vision of society.

But after reading my article, third-grade schoolteacher Heather Lakemacher, commenting on Facebook, pointed out yet a different meaning of socialization: not seeming weird.

This is the real reason, she said, "why this stereotype of the poorly socialized homeschooler exists." Whereas I had only addressed adult perceptions of homeschooled children, the true culprit, she said, is other kids:

Many of us who were educated in a traditional school have vivid memories of meeting other kids our age who were homeschooled and thinking, "Oh my god! This kid is so WEIRD!" It's entirely possible that the child in question grew up to be a happy, well-adjusted, productive member of society. …

However, I think the stereotype exists because of the power of those childhood interactions with a peer who just didn't behave in the way we were expecting them to behave. That's not an argument against homeschooling, but data will always have a hard time dispelling emotionally charged memories.

She's right. Odd kids can make a lasting impression.

Grownups regularly note how polite my homeschooled son is, or how he'll talk to them at all when so many other kids clam up and fail to make eye contact. Adults find his lack of awkwardness with them charming. But what do schooled kids see?

Diane Flynn Keith, a veteran homeschooling mom and author of the book Carschooling, writes that homeschooled kids are, in fact, "not well-socialized in the traditional school sense."

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there's nothing "normal" about our kids. Your homeschooled child is odd compared to the schooled population because they have not experienced ongoing school-based socialization and standardization. …

They haven't been indoctrinated in the same way. They have not been steeped in the popular consumer culture to the degree that most schooled kids have been. They are not adult-phobic and peer-dependent. ("Yes, My Grown Homeschooled Children Are Odd — And Yours Will Be Too!")

And most of the time, homeschooling parents love that about our kids — and about homeschooling in general. We don't want them to be standard. Whether we admit it or not, we tend to think they're better than the standard. But it's true that our socially flexible and resilient children can be puzzling to their traditionally schooled peers, and vice versa.

So why does the assessment of weirdness flow only in one direction? Why don't homeschooled kids think the mainstream schoolchildren are weird?

One answer is that our kids know the mainstream experience through television, movies, and books. They may not always track the finer distinctions between Degrassi High and Hogwarts, but they certainly know a lot more about schools and schooling than mainstream kids know about education outside a classroom.

But I think that even without the pop-cultural lens on the schooling experience, homeschooled kids are just less likely to see anyone as weird. It's just not a part of their semantic reflexes. Instead they think, "I don't get him," or "I'm not into the same stuff she is."

As a result, homeschooled kids aren't just more tolerant of diversity; they're probably also more diverse. And that's a lot of what gets labeled weird by those who are better assimilated into the mainstream culture.

What's probably obvious to anyone familiar with homeschooling is that it's good for the emotional health of kids who don’t easily fit in. What is less obvious is the damage that a culture of conformity does not just to the oddballs in that culture but also to the kids who conform with ease — and to the liberty of the larger society.

For over half a century, studies have shown that the need for social acceptance not only changes our behavior but can even make us perceive the world differently — and incorrectly.

In the early 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments on the dangers of group influence. When presented with simple problems that 95 percent of individuals could answer correctly when free of group influence, 75 percent of Asch's test subjects would get the answer wrong when it meant concurring with the group.

In 2005, neuroscientist Gregory Berns conducted an updated version of Asch's experiments, complete with brain scans to determine if the wrong answers were a conscious acquiescence to social pressure or if, instead, test subjects believed that their group-influenced wrong answers were in fact correct. Not only did the subjects report that they thought their wrong answers were right; the brain scans seemed to confirm it: they showed greater activity in the problem-solving regions of the brain than in those areas associated with conscious decision-making. And the nonconformists who went against the group and gave correct answers showed heightened activity in the part of the brain associated with fear and anxiety.

Commenting on the implications of these experiments, author Susan Cain writes,

Many of our most important civic institutions, from elections to jury trials to the very idea of majority rule, depend on dissenting voices. But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think. (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)

Groupthink, in other words, is dangerous to a free society. And we don’t always realize when we're not thinking for ourselves.

This kind of cognitive conformity, however, isn't fixed or universal. Not only does it vary, for example, between East and West; it has also declined in the West since the 1950s, according to a 1996 review of 133 Asch-type studies from 17 countries. That review assessed the cultures in which the studies took place to see if their results "related cross-culturally to individualism [versus] collectivism." Unsurprisingly, test subjects were least susceptible to the reality-distorting effects of the group in the more individualistic national cultures.

We should expect the same to be true of more and less individualistic subcultures. I bet homeschoolers, for example, are less likely to show the Asch effect. I suspect the same thing of the oddballs at school. 

That doesn’t mean everyone should homeschool, or that only weirdoes can be independent thinkers, but it does suggest that the more a culture values independence and diversity, the less vulnerable it will be to the distortions of conformity. And if socialization means helping kids fit in more easily with the culture of their peers, then parents of homeschoolers and schooled kids alike may want to reconsider the value of socializing our children.

B.K. Marcus

B.K. Marcus is a Contributing Editor of FEE.org.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.