Comment by roenxi

An interesting blog post that would probably do well to look into something like Rob Kegan's theories of adult development [0] and looking up some stats on how many people fit into each category. People actually categorise fairly well into a model where ~66% of the population simply don't understand the concept of independent thought and rely heavily on social signalling to work out what is true.

That model explains an absurd number of social dynamics and a big chunk of politics - which is mostly people with a high level of adult development socially signalling to the masses what they are meant to be doing.

The important observation is that it isn't intellectual honesty that is the problem or truth-seeking the solution. It is actually whether someone is capable of identifying that truth != popular opinion. People who form their opinions by social osmosis can still be intellectually honest if they land in the right sort of community, but they fall apart under social pressure.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan#The_Evolving_Self