Self-Defined

Adopted belief systems can be pernicious, because while we may justifiably assume the value-defining elements in our lives are our own—constructed from homemade blueprints and self-mortared bricks—many of them are inherited (from family or culture), transmitted (from marketing messages or social groups), or copied wholesale from purveyors of such systems (political, faith-based, or philosophical).

Adopting pre-packaged ideologies in their entirety is simple and passive and normal, which is wh...