Most of your opinions aren’t yours — and a philosopher has a name for it

You Don’t Think for Yourself — And a Philosopher Just Named the Reason Why

We like to believe we’re original thinkers. That our opinions, values, and beliefs are the product of careful reasoning, personal experience, and independent judgment. But what if most of what we believe isn’t truly ours? What if, as the 19th-century poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, we are little more than walking quotations of our ancestors?

Emerson wasn’t just waxing poetic. He was pointing to a profound truth about human cognition: we inherit our ways of seeing the world. The institutions we live under—democracies, legal systems, religious norms—were forged centuries ago. The moral frameworks we use to judge right and wrong? Often lifted from ancient philosophers or sacred texts. Even the way we argue, the metaphors we use, and the assumptions we make are echoes of long-dead minds.

This isn’t just philosophical musing. It’s a psychological and cultural reality. And now, a contemporary philosopher has given it a name.

The Concept of “Dead Closures” — When Thinking Stops

Enter Hilary Lawson, a British philosopher and founder of HowTheLightGetsIn, the world’s largest philosophy and music festival. In a recent interview, Lawson introduced a powerful idea: the “dead closures of previous folk.”

A closure, in Lawson’s framework, is a way of framing or using the world. It’s how we interpret objects, ideas, or situations. A pencil, for example, can be closed as a writing tool, a weapon, or a piece of art. Each closure limits how we engage with it. But when a closure becomes dead, it means we’ve stopped questioning it. We repeat it without thinking, simply because it’s been repeated before.

A dead closure isn’t just lazy thinking. It’s thought outsourcing on a civilizational scale. When someone dismisses an opposing view by saying, “That person is obviously a lunatic,” they’re not analyzing the argument. They’re parroting a rhetorical closure—a phrase, a judgment, a stereotype—handed down through generations. They’re not thinking; they’re quoting.

This phenomenon is everywhere. We say “family values” without defining them. We champion “freedom” or “progress” without examining their historical baggage. We assume democracy is the best system because it’s what we’ve always known. These aren’t conclusions we’ve reached; they’re inherited conclusions.

The Weight of the Past: Why We Think Like Our Ancestors

Why do we fall into dead closures so easily? Because human cognition is fundamentally conservative. Our brains are wired to conserve energy. Thinking is hard. Questioning deeply held beliefs is emotionally taxing. So, we default to what’s familiar—what’s been passed down.

Take religion, for example. Many people in secular societies still uphold values like human dignity, the sanctity of life, or the separation of church and state—values that originated in Christian theology. Scholars like Charles Taylor and John Milbank have argued that modern liberal democracies are, in essence, “cultural Christianity”—a secularized version of Christian ethics.

We’re not consciously choosing these values. We’re inheriting them. And because they feel intuitive, we assume they’re self-evident. But they’re not. They’re historical artifacts.

Even our language is a graveyard of dead closures. We say “man” when we mean “person,” “he” when we mean “they,” “civilized” when we mean “Western.” These linguistic habits carry the weight of centuries of patriarchy, colonialism, and exclusion. We don’t notice them because they’ve become invisible.

The Dangers of Unexamined Beliefs

The problem with dead closures isn’t just intellectual laziness. It’s practical danger. When we use ideas designed for a different world, we risk solving today’s problems with yesterday’s tools.

Consider climate change. We’re trying to address a global, systemic crisis with political systems built for nation-states and economic models based on infinite growth. These frameworks emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries—when the planet seemed limitless. Now, they’re failing us.

Or take artificial intelligence. We’re debating AI ethics using concepts like “autonomy,” “rights,” and “personhood”—ideas forged in human-centered philosophies. But AI doesn’t fit neatly into these categories. By clinging to old closures, we may be missing the chance to develop new, more appropriate frameworks.

Even in science, dead closures persist. The scientific method, for all its power, is built on Enlightenment assumptions about objectivity, rationality, and progress. But what if reality is more interconnected, more subjective, more uncertain than that method allows? What if we need new ways of knowing?

The Illusion of Originality

We pride ourselves on being original. But originality is rare. Most “new” ideas are remixes of old ones. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the smartphone; he reimagined existing technologies. Einstein didn’t create relativity from scratch; he built on the work of Lorentz, Poincaré, and others.

Even our creativity is constrained by closures. Artists paint in styles they’ve learned. Writers use narrative structures inherited from centuries of storytelling. Musicians compose within genres defined by tradition.

This isn’t to say we should despair. It’s to say we should become aware. Awareness is the first step toward freedom.

How to Break Free: Challenging Dead Closures

The good news? We can notice dead closures. We can question them. We can create new ones.

Lawson argues that philosophy’s role is to reopen what has been closed. To ask: Why do we think this way? Who benefits? What alternatives exist?

This isn’t about rejecting tradition. It’s about engaging with it critically. It’s about distinguishing between what’s useful and what’s obsolete.

Start small. Next time you hear someone say, “That’s just the way things are,” ask: Whose way? When did this start? Who decided?

When you feel a strong emotional reaction to an idea—especially anger or disgust—pause. Ask: Is this my belief, or did I inherit it?

We can also learn from cultures that think differently. Indigenous worldviews, for example, often emphasize interconnectedness over individualism. Buddhist philosophies challenge the notion of a fixed self. These aren’t just exotic ideas—they’re alternative closures that can expand our thinking.

The Role of Education and Dialogue

Schools and universities often reinforce dead closures. They teach history as a linear progression, science as a collection of facts, and ethics as a set of rules. But they rarely teach students to question the frameworks themselves.

We need education that fosters epistemic humility—the recognition that our knowledge is limited, provisional, and shaped by history.

Philosophy festivals like HowTheLightGetsIn are one response. They create spaces where people can debate, doubt, and reimagine. They remind us that thinking is a communal act—not a solitary one.

We also need better dialogue. Too often, conversations devolve into tribalism—us vs. them, right vs. wrong. But real thinking happens in the gray areas. It happens when we listen to understand, not to win.

A New Kind of Thinking for a New World

We’re living in a time of unprecedented change. Climate collapse, AI, pandemics, political upheaval—these aren’t problems that can be solved with 20th-century thinking. We need new closures.

Not random closures. Not closures based on whim or ideology. But closures that are adaptive, inclusive, and aware of their own origins.

This doesn’t mean throwing out the past. It means curating it. Keeping what works. Letting go of what doesn’t.

Imagine a world where we regularly asked: Is this belief helping us thrive? Is it fair? Is it true? Where we valued curiosity over certainty, and dialogue over dogma.

That world is possible. But first, we must admit a hard truth: most of our opinions aren’t ours. They’re echoes. And until we hear them for what they are, we’ll keep thinking like our ancestors—while the world changes around us.

The light gets in, as the poet said, not when we’re certain—but when we’re willing to be wrong.

This article was curated from Most of your opinions aren’t yours — and a philosopher has a name for it via Big Think