I mean, we all hear about people thinking what they think only because the people around them think it too. So how do you avoid doing that?
There is no such thing a “independent thinking” our thoughts are given form by language and vocabulary. The only independent thinker would be someone completely alienated from society at large.
You reminded me of something I think no one has mentioned yet:
In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity or charitable interpretation requires interpreting a speaker’s statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation. In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies, or falsehoods to the others’ statements, when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available.
From: Principle of charity.
Applying this, I think we can interpret the *independent thinking" not as thinking without conditioning factors but as what is known as “critical thinking”.
