When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that when a government promotes a particular belief, it often does so out of insecurity about the validity of that belief.
Bertrand Russell's quote highlights the tendency of states to enforce specific doctrines in order to solidify their acceptance, revealing a lack of conclusive evidence supporting those beliefs. This implies that the need for indoctrination often stems from a fundamental uncertainty regarding the truth of the doctrine being promoted, rather than its inherent validity or soundness.
In practice
During a debate on education policy, one might use this quote to argue against standardized curricula that push certain ideologies.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.
The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral earth community with all its human and other-than-human components.
We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when weβre faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off.
We are conscious that religions cannot solve the economic, political and social problems of this earth.
It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor; It's outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
It's very depressing to live in a time where it's easier to break an atom than a prejudice.
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