Thank you for your thoughtful piece here. I haven't thought before of our own education system producing this type of extremism, and the points you raise make sense. I wouldn't blame all on "the system" because we, as students, choose to be complicit in our acceptance of what is taught... even in Bible Scripture God instructs us to prove and test Him and, of course, this requires us to engage well beyond memorizing and regurgitating "facts".

I love the pointer to abductive reasoning in your piece: "...who looked at opposing views as gold mines of logic and data missing from their own view, and to utilize those insights to build creative resolutions of the tension between opposing views and models."

This points to the curious mind that engages to consider that the context underlying a point of view might just in fact be incomplete... we have lost this... consequently, education has become a bludgeon rather than a launching point into discovery where beliefs are challenged, tested, validated or disproven. Education seemingly advocates the cessation of true learning... or at least a replacement of the true learning process with one of compliance and membership in a herd… when it should be viewed as never ending.

Thanks again for being thought provoking.