Okay, that’s fine you’ve been in “debates” in internet forums, I’m actually an academic who writes about cultural and social norms, and knowledge production professionally.

I’m not going to engage with anything here because its obvious you aren’t a serious person but very much want to be recognised as one without the work. Nothing here is honest and you’ve chosen to argue that I’m just stupid; both good signs that you are very dedicated to your anti-intellectualism.

This has not been a “debate,” this was me explaining a useful skill to you. Some honest advice: stop feeling satisfied with yourself just because you feel smart on the internet. You’re an adult and nobody is going to force you to grow into something better.

I’m going you ask you how you would explain fermionic condensates to a child who does not even know what the states of matter are let alone subatomic particles and quantum states; what quantum means even. (Do you know what it is?) I think it’s obvious to all of us why we simplify things for them even if it’s inaccurate for professionals.

Also, you entirely ignored any reality around the preservation of natural knowledge through these cultural practices, which I mentioned to encourage you to also consider how wildly racist this stance is. Countless cultures accurately record their histories and knowledge through practices that dont necessarily conform to the Euro-settler-colonial imagination of knowledge or evidence.

Education systems in liberal states don’t prime children to subscribe to distortions because they simplify things, they do that through obscuring the skills to develop that knowledge and through the systemic enforcement of industrious teaching pedagogies that objectifies the students as labour. Yes, that fails to educate students adequately to grow into intellectual adults, but that isn’t the purpose of those systems. To conflate necessary elements of growth and education with politically motivated education systems is once again ironically anti-intellectual.

Most of your comment is obviously unreasonable, and I think it’s safe to give you the grace to assume that you understand this as well. No, women who get into a witch phase aren’t guaranteed to be anti-intellectual or believe in magic as they get older and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that it does besides your vibes. I called you a doomer because this is a doomer narrative where alternative ways of knowing are not only discarded, but actively constructed as pathological. I’ve used “ironically” more in these few comments than I have anywhere else in the past year; but this way of thinking is ironically superstitious.

This is an ironically anti-intellectual way to engage with it. Magic isnt real, but knowledge on the natural world and medicine has been maintained through cultural practices like “witchcraft” in the past. Even beyond that, there’s knowledge gained for young women in a patriarchal society when they develop relationships with other women and identify with a group that is explicitly counter-cultural on the basis of women empowerment.

Knowledge isn’t just facts, it’s skills and introspection. Belief in something “bullshit” is often necessary to learn something that is not “bullshit.” We teach kids scientifically inaccurate information when they are young because they dont have a basis of knowledge that would enable more nuanced and accurate understandings. They “believe” in something like three states of matter and two genders/sexes because we judge that as a necessary belief to foster the skills that will enable them to learn the reality of these things later.

If they gained self - understanding and empowerment through this phase, then it isn’t bullshit. You should challenge this doomerism.