“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”― Doris Lessing from her introduction to The Golden Notebook
“A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.” ―
Doris Lessing
Read more about her here - http://www.theguardian.com/books/dorislessing
I have not read all of her books and I do not feel qualified to discuss or try to understand much of the political debate around her and her work but I do feel she is a great writer and being. The first book I read by her was The Golden Notebook (which was recommended to me by @charley , whom I must say, I do miss around here) and it had a great effect on me. Such a book that stays with you and unravels in your head and takes on more and more meaning the more time passes. This has reminded me to revisit her work. I would really like to read her Canopus in Argos series which are her "space fiction" books x
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