What makes us believe what we hear from certain sources? Why is it that we take certain information for fact? Most people hear a word used and never stop to wonder if the word was used correctly or not. I myself am guilty of this, I hear a new word and remember it in context, never stopping to look up the actual definition of the word. Habits like these have led to a lot of misinformation in our society. However, if everyone around you has the same misconceptions, are they still misconceptions? Or do they become fact at that point? After all, the purpose of words is to communicate, if communication is achieved, doesn’t that validate the words that were used?
Although, I think this theory of validity does work with words and the development of language, there are a lot of things that I don’t think it could work with. For example, history; you can be taught all sorts of misconceptions and probably have been, and you may even choose to still believe those things, but your beliefs don’t make it truth or fact, just simply a misconception. Your beliefs can’t change cold, hard facts, but they can change your perceptions of those facts, creating your own reality. A world that only you can decide what the facts are, and what you choose to ignore.
So why then do schools and people in general continue to teach misconceptions of information that have been around and been exposed for years and some for decades? More importantly, why haven’t we, as a society, learned to question what we’re being taught?