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I feel terribly sorry for you. I don't know where (or if) you attended college. If you were indoctrinated, you missed a time of life that could have been one of great joy. It was for me.

Although there were plenty of idiot left-wing professors who spewed nonsense that I argued with in class, I didn't get indoctrinated. You know why? Because I already knew how to think for myself before I ever got to college, or high school, for that matter. Given that you seem to think that you lacked this skill until you came under the guiding hands of your divine professors, I'd have to say that your level of "thinking" is probably sub-par. Some things can be learned, but not taught.

Also, one of the nice things about this world is that there are cool things called books which people can read without some teacher holding their hands and whispering in their ears, which impart all kinds of information, opinion, and wonderful little stories. Young people who partake of those tend to learn how to think long before they ever get to one of our institutions of "higher learning". If you truly feel that the level of thought you were exposed to and forced to ingest as an college student represents a higher level than that which one can achieve when one thinks for himself, then I feel bad for what you'll never know.

A perfect analogy for all this just popped into my head: once upon a time, US Army Basic Training was simply that - training, because most of the guys who came into the service already had a lifetime of good physical fitness behind them. Nowadays, recruiters have to reject many for enlistment who are too fat, and the ones who do get in have to be physically rebuilt once in training just so they can perform the minimal requirements of the job. Our population's physical fitness has been dumbed down to where routine abilities are now considered almost exceptional. Likewise, our population has been dumbed down intellectually to where incoming college kids have to take high school or junior high school remedial English and math classes just to get to the basics for college level classes, which they might be lucky to hit by the time they graduate. Meanwhile, professors now feel that it is their job to teach kids how to think rather than putting them through the rigors of a classical education, which actually requires absorbing knowledge, and this is largely because those professors are dumbed down as well, and couldn't hold a candle, knowledge-wise, to your average high school graduate 100 years ago.

So, you can go ahead and feel enlightened because some dumbed-down college professors fed you dumbed-down curriculum because you and all of the other dumbed-down students never bothered to learn how to think for yourselves by cracking a book or solving a problem when you were younger, but, for the love of God, don't go pretending you're Plato.

I studied under several professors whose views were left of center, yet not one made the slightest attempt to indoctrinate me. All encouraged freedom of thought and expression. None of my professors believed or seemed to believe that that they possessed any sort of divinity or that their views came from heaven carved on tablets of stone.

Whether my level of thinking is sub-par is for others to say. I would point out that several of my professors warned against rash judgments about the intelligence of others. None of my professors were perfect in any sense of the word, but all were humble enough to understand that unless one possessed divine omniscience, all categorical judgments should be taken with a grain of salt.

You are correct. Some things can be learned but not taught; but some refuse to learn, regardless of the method of instruction. And, please remember, that humility is the most difficult virtue to learn.

Thinking for ones self is very important, but such cogitation rarely imparts a respect for the opinions (and rights) of others. If memory serves, Muhammed constructed an entire religion, while thinking for himself in a cave.

I make no judgments about the current state of higher education. But I will state that if one expects students to possess thinking skills before entering college, one lives in a fantasy world. The current state of elementary and secondary education is so depressing as to drive a concerned citizen to thoughts of suicide when pre-college education is contemplated at any length.

A classical education does impart an ability to think and the ability to resist indoctrination. Another value of classical education is the ability to spot flaws in reasoning. I seem to remember that one fallacy was ad hominem attacks. You may consider my education “dumbed down”, but since you have no knowledge of the content, the use of epithets is little more than a personal attack. And thus not worth comment.

As to Basic Training in the US Army, I know little except from personal recollection. During the Vietnam War, I lived near Ft Jackson. The pitiful state of the training recruits received stood in stark contrast to the excellent training I received in boot camp at Paris Island.