Not Everyone Knows What They Want

(aka False Consciousness is true at the personal level).

We believe that not everyone knows what they (really) want. Or, put positively: knowing (or discoverring) what we really want is hard and takes effort. Put yet another way: we can suffer from "false consciousness".

At the same time, we emphasize (given the history of "false consciousness" etc) that this by no means justify the use of force to impose views on others.

Notes

• Growth hierarchy vs dominator hierarchies (Wilber)

• False Consciousness, Buddhism, Liberalism and Communism - https://rufuspollock.com/2019/04/18/false-consciousness-and-what-we-really-want/

• From Zak Stein (Education in Time Between Worlds p.36)

  In rejecting the cognitive maturity fallacy and adopting a developmen- tal view of human learning and education, we immediately face questions having to do with the problem of teacherly authority. The crux of the prob- lem is that not everyone knows what is good for them (usually because what is good for them is absent, has been occluded, or is misunderstood). The implication of this fact is that at times we have a responsibility to exercise teacherly authority; those with greater knowledge and capacity often ought to act so as to raise others into the fullness of their capacities.