What really is the problem with media literacy and self-awareness all about?

Many people like to talk about how media literacy is taught in schools. “It’s English,” they say. But it’s not.

Let’s be real. While I don’t believe that literally every single school and school worker is evil, I don’t think the system and theories of education that are in place are very good either, morally or in terms of their efficacy. We can look at the education systems in America and the UK and see that there are massive problems.

But the problem in terms of self-awareness goes beyond schools. It also has its roots in society.

Self-awareness is brought about through thinking. Generally, self-awareness comes about through being self-aware and thinking about things: thinking about yourself, thinking about different things in your life, and being open to being wrong—or to an unquestionable idea being wrong.

Let me give an example. If I told you that I hated soap and never used soap, you would rightfully have an immediate, knee-jerk response to me saying this. Where does that response actually come from?

Well, it comes, to some degree, from indoctrination. It comes from things that you have taken on authority, quote-unquote; heard from multiple sources; had reinforced socially; and been taught, in some way, are objectively the truth.

Now, I do use soap, and I don’t have anything against it. But I’ve also never tested it, in the sense that all the soap I’ve ever used could just be thick water. I’ve never tested whether it actually gets rid of 99% of bacteria—or any bacteria. While I could go out and test it, that’s not the point.

The point is that my feelings about soap are not necessarily shaped by the facts of soap. They are shaped by a curious combination of things presented as non-negotiable facts during childhood, humour, comedy, social reinforcement, and later arguments that do not necessarily involve facts about the thing.

Soap is a good example of this concept of unquestionable ideas because it is relatively common to all people, cultures and upbringings. It comes about through the process I described. You were probably told how important soap is and that you have to use it. You were probably exposed, in some way—even if only through media—to people not using soap being presented as a subject of ridicule or the butt of a joke.

You were probably exposed to scientific facts about soap. However, this is “scientific” in heavy air quotes, because much of the way science is presented nowadays is not actually scientific.

If I am told about soap and all of its scientific properties that mean it is effective and that I need to use it, but I am not a scientist or do not have much specific knowledge in that area, then these scientific facts are just a persuasive argument.

This is something many people don’t understand. There are many things in mainstream science whose component parts most people do not understand. However, because a convincing argument invoking science is used, people who do not understand any of the component parts take it and understand it as objective truth, when, in reality, for them, it might as well just be a persuasive argument.

That is why actually learning about things is so important. You can only be free in your judgement about something if you actually understand that thing properly.

But anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that there are things we believe, but we did not necessarily agree to believe in them. We haven’t paid them much thought. These are things that have been given to us by other people and outside forces, and they stay in place until we think about them.

The example of soap is a pretty easy one. But how many other things have we simply accepted as truth—things that almost anger us when people argue against them? Why do we believe these things? How were they given to us? Are these things really the way we previously thought about them, or were we wrong?

This is something that really needs to be approached with an unbiased, active and clear mind. Otherwise, we will get positively nowhere.

But nowadays, people don’t have much time for nothing.

I am talking about deeply ingrained societal norms masquerading as original thoughts and beliefs, sometimes linked to truth and sometimes not. If you spend all day filling your day with things that completely ensnare your mind, then you don’t actually have much time to think about things. If you have never been taught to think in this way—or if you don’t know that you should be thinking about things in this way—you’re simply not going to.

If you spend all day watching TV, playing Roblox, watching movies, using TikTok or doing something along those lines, you’re not going to have much time for introspection. Introspection is very important to self-awareness. You need time just to think.

Not only do we have the deeply ingrained ideas I have described, but we also have little ones. We have many, many little things that we haven’t really thought about very much. That may be because we assume we are right about them, because we don’t care about them, or because they are difficult things for us to think about—because they challenge us or make us upset in one way or another.

While I don’t know every single person reading this article, I would guess that, if you are reading it, you are at least slightly more self-aware than the average person. Some people really just don’t think about things. Most people do not care.

Let me give you another example. I want you to keep reading the article and not turn away in anger. But I bet that, if you are from a Western, American or English culture, I have another deeply ingrained idea that can simply make you angry.

Personally, I believe that movies and TV are a waste of time and are actually detrimental to your thinking.

Some may present thought-provoking ideas. However, those ideas are wrapped up in loads of other nonsense. Also, when truths are wrapped up in fiction, it is extraordinarily easy to say, “Well, that’s a nice story”—which is a feeling that comes because of the truth—and then dismiss it by saying, “But it’s all fiction.”

There are many examples of this that I can think of, where people discount everything as fiction because they have not directly experienced it, or because it is outside their conception of life and their way of understanding. They write off the entire thing as fiction and then proceed never to think about it again.

Personally, I’ve never seen anyone do any good from watching movies or TV. But when I present people with this, they often get very angry. They try to come up with all these ways in which I’m wrong. Most of the time, their arguments are so hasty that they trip over themselves, even when they are not particularly stupid people otherwise.

That is an example of what I believe could be a real, serious, implanted thought or belief. Who knows where it originates, but it really affects people.

Let’s loop back to something I said at the beginning. Why exactly does English class not teach media literacy or self-awareness?

The answer is that English class—and any class in mainstream schooling—is not actually concerned with the subject. You don’t actually have to provide anything original. You don’t have to be creative. To some degree, if you are truly creative, then you are punished.

An entire child’s education is shaped by: you need to remember this, you need to do this, remember this, do this, do this, do this, remember this, do this, do this and do this.

But that’s not the way people should be. People should do things because they want to do them, for good reasons.

The education system as it exists nowadays has nothing to do with education. It doesn’t matter how deeply you understand the topic. It doesn’t matter how innovative you are. What matters is what you can memorise.

Thus, in these English lessons—which, according to people on TikTok, are supposedly endless wellsprings of self-awareness and media literacy—what do they actually do?

When analysing texts, people are encouraged to write in a highly specific way. They can’t write anything too weird. They also don’t really have to try. You don’t really have to think about the text. Some people will, of course. But English is probably the one subject where you can kind of just bullshit, so long as it generally sounds good.

You don’t actually have to think about the text or come up with anything good. You just have to come up with something that fits the mark scheme. Many people do that.

I would go so far as to say that a wide majority of people are taught to engage with things such as texts—but also with the world—in a highly superficial and low-effort way.

Thought should be difficult and painful. Many people realise that these things are not easy, but many people do not realise what “not easy” means. Many people do not realise that, when something is not easy, it is not easy. Many people do not realise that, when something is a deception, it deceives you.

People do not really understand what life is.

A wide majority of people understand that they have to do things and that this is simply what life is like. We have to do this. We have to do that. We have to go to work. We’ve got to do that.

Someone with incredible potential could go through their entire life coasting through it and simply doing what feels good. Many people do that. Many people eventually become almost chained to their way of life, even if it is not a very good one. Many people will try to pull others down to where they are, like crabs in a bucket.

I will probably write much further on this topic, but if we really want self-awareness and media literacy to exist, we need a whole new way of thinking about things in society. We need a whole new education system—or Waldorf.

I doubt we’ll get there, because there is money to be made. There is real money to be made in influencing people and in having people be influenceable.

Having people go from being humans to being workers is a hallmark of the education system as it exists. That programme to turn humans into workers from a young age worked.

And now we need our own programme; for self-awareness, for the good.

What form it takes is up to each of us and each of us in our inner life only.

But let's start.

I don't think things are that bad, but if things begin to get to a point where it's too late to start, and we don't notice, the world is going to be in a bad place.