I often feel that I was actually lucky to lose faith in my own parents when I was 4 or 5 years old. I learned to think critically right from the beginning. But of course there were other problems, and sometimes strong feelings on uncertainty and self-doubt. Especially as I grew up in a small countryside village, where all the social circles where rather small. But this takes me to one powerfull memory from my teenage years.

For different and strange reasons I took part in a weekend gathering of religious people. They were of some sort of charismatic movement of Christianity - for example, they believed that angels and demons are actually present and interfere with our daily life. So, spending a weekend with them in an isolated countryside place was ... umm... interesting, yes. One evening I was hit by a massive wave of self-doubt. "What if those people have it right, and I'm just a fool with illusionary visions about inner peace and love?". It was winter, I went out for a walk all alone, I walked to the lakeside, where a chilly wind was blowing with a full force, drifting icy snow hitting my face. I bared my chest and exposed my skin to the cold harsh wind, kind of a praying: "Okay, my God - should I believe in my inner feelings no matter what the other people say? Or am I just a misguided fool, should I believe in their descriptions even when it feels wrong deep in my soul?" And suddenly that icy wind felt cold no more - it was as if a power generator sparked up inside my chest, I felt warm and vigorous, joyous and without doubt.

But, yeah, philosophically speaking this is a tricky question. Let me bend the Platon's story a bit. It starts with persons inside a cave, watching shadows play on the inner side of the wall. That is all what they know, and they take the shadows as the only reality. Then one of them finds a way out the cave, sees the sunlight and those real objects out there, which are casting the shadows onto the cave wall. He tries to tell the others about this, but they just tell that he is crazy. OK, sure the one who has escaped the cave now has a broader perspective than those who believe the shadows to be the only reality. But how can he be sure that he has reached the ultimate level of truth? The strong personal experiece of "waking up" might not alone be a guarantee of anything. Maybe there are more levels, more steps of "waking up even more and more".

I mean, I've seen people who strongly believe in some subset of propaganda, and they believe that they got it right and everybody else is just brainwashed. And how do these people know that their own brand of self-brainwashing is then somehow better than the mainstream brainwashing? Simply, because they have such a strong experience of "waking up to the reality". And then they stop there, never asking if there is yet more of the "reality" to be found.

When I went to the University, I was struggling with this kind of questions, until I finally found my inner peace in admitting that there is no ultimate reality. But there is just a healthy habit of never stopping to ask critical questions - always remembering also to check ones own positions, ready to drop or to alter views if new evidence or good arguments suggest so. And that, that is the best antidote to any kind of propaganda and brainwashing =)

Cheers!

(ah, and in comment to your post in Steam. The movie title "Once Upon A Time in The West" is translated to Finnish as something like "The Harmonica Avenger". So, we are joking on that =) )