Therefore, if students talk about how school sucks and they know that it is normal that school sucks because their parents tell them that school sucked for them too and their teachers tell them that they have to accept it, then they will not believe that anything is wrong and will not fight for improvement. They can’t imagine that there is an alternative.

If people talk about the rate of divorces, they will all agree that this is really bad and that relationships are really difficult. They will not discuss whether the model of an exclusive two-person relationship is really the only available model or if other models might work better.

If only about half the population takes part in elections and the results are discussed with either disillusion, disappointment or, more commonly now, shock, now one suggests that maybe this political system of democracy is not the best we have despite its flaws.

If you suggest to students of a regular school that there are alternative schools, their eyes glaze over or they make “dancing your name”-jokes or they even get angry or they get really skeptical. If you talk to people about open relationships they will say “That’s not for me” without ever really considering it or they tell you that they don’t understand it or they might get angry. If you tell people that democracy is not the only way of living together and probably not the best, they look at you as if you switched to a different language or they ask you if you want to go back to communism or Hitler, often not without a sense of anger.

If you point out to the prisons most people are living in, they mostly will refuse to look at it because they have learned to accept prison as the normal state of things. The kid in Room goes through a long period of fear and regression because to him being locked in a room with your mom all your life was normal. People in unhappy relationships or mind-numbing jobs or hindering childhood traumas are often the same. They rather live with someone they have stopped loving a long time ago instead of thinking about alternatives. Sure, they might have an affair but it’s clear that this is wrong and temporary. Having a career in a job you don’t particularly enjoy seems more reasonable than to find a more likeable job. Therapy seems threatening to many.