Indoctrination. For many, the word evokes suspicion, fear, or even disdain. It is often painted as the tool of tyrants, cults, and dictators. Our modern culture recoils at it, insisting that young minds should be “free from indoctrination” and allowed to “discover their own truths.” But let us pause and ask an honest question: is indoctrination itself the enemy, or is it merely the doctrine that sometimes corrupts it?
The reality is that indoctrination—at its core—is nothing more than the deliberate passing down of beliefs, values, and principles from one generation to the next. It is the shaping of character and worldview. And in this light, indoctrination is not a curse but a blessing. The question is not whether we indoctrinate our children, but with what doctrine.
When good men and women hesitate to indoctrinate, bad ideas rush in to fill the vacuum.
Indoctrination Is Unavoidable
Every child will be indoctrinated by someone. The only question is who holds the chalk in hand. Is it the parent at the dinner table, or the activist in the classroom? Is it the church on Sunday, or the screen on Monday? Is it timeless principles rooted in faith, virtue, and liberty—or fleeting ideologies dressed up as progress?
We fool ourselves when we believe that neutrality exists in education or culture. There is no such thing as a value-free upbringing. Every lesson carries an assumption about what is right and wrong, what is noble and shameful, what is real and what is false. Even the refusal to teach truth is itself a doctrine—the doctrine of relativism.
As C.S. Lewis warned, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.”
If indoctrination is inevitable, then it is not the practice but the content that matters. Poison or medicine—both are administered with a spoon.
The Wisdom of Our Fathers and Mothers
Consider this: civilization itself is built upon indoctrination. From the dawn of time, parents have taught their children how to live—how to farm, how to hunt, how to worship, how to govern, how to love, and how to die well. Every great tradition—whether ancient Israel passing down the Torah, early Christians teaching the creeds, or America’s founders instilling civic virtue—relied on deliberate transmission of values.
The Bible commands it plainly: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). That is indoctrination by another name.
The genius of America has always been its commitment to pass along not just skills but principles—principles of liberty under God, self-government, personal responsibility, and equality under the law. These were not meant to be reinvented every generation, but faithfully stewarded. Without such indoctrination, America cannot endure.
The Real Problem: Bad Doctrine
The problem, then, is not indoctrination but false indoctrination. When tyrants poison the well, they corrupt the very word. Hitler indoctrinated a generation into racial hatred. Marxist regimes indoctrinated millions into atheism and servitude. Today, progressives indoctrinate children into gender confusion, historical revisionism, and hostility toward faith and family.
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