re: "Conquering the enemy deep within" (BP, August 11)
Dear editor,
If I might suggest one partial antidote to the poison that Paritta Wangkiat so lucidly exposes in "Conquering the enemy deep within" (BP, August 11), it would help if schools directly invited students to present opposing arguments to received wisdom, customs, traditions and antique morals. This might conveniently be done in social studies, history and other subjects that address Thai history, culture and society. This does not require that students be taught that received wisdom is always false, merely that it might not be so obviously true as some assume or proclaim it to be, that dissenting views do exist which have sound reasons that good people who value honesty and humanity need to answer.
This would be conducive to some healthy, critical review of the bad reasoning, the falsehoods and the ignorance enforced by censorship that feed divisive nationalism on all sides. Open discussion of dissenting controversial ideas is a healthy activity that is an essential part of any decent education. Such a healthy reform would benefit not only education, but would help to inoculate Thai society from the worst excesses of rabid nationalism.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on August 13, 2017, under the title "Antidote to the poison" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1305259/whos-really-losing-face-here
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