Don’t allow yourself to become just one member of the crowd; instead, try to distance yourself from the crowd as much as possible to observe what is happening, paying special attention to the suppressed thoughts and viewpoints.
If a proposition is not wrong, yet it is labeled and suppressed and criticized, then there is a problem. This is because any viewpoint that is not wrong should not be suppressed from discussion. Therefore, every time you see certain words being attacked as belonging to “XX faction” or “XX ideology,” that is a clear signal that there is something wrong behind it. This is true whether it is in 1630 or 2030. When you hear someone using such labels, you must ask why.
If you want to think clearly, you must distance yourself from the crowd. But the further you go, the more difficult your situation will become, and the greater the resistance you will face, because you are going against social customs step by step. When you were young, everyone encouraged you to constantly grow and become a mentally mature person who no longer throws childish tantrums. However, few encourage you to continue growing into a person who doubts and resists the social trend of errors. If you are part of the tide, how can you see the direction of the tide? You can only maintain skepticism. Ask yourself: what is the thing I cannot say? And why?