I think the biggest problem with authoritarian thinking about math is that math is not a discovered set of authoritarian principles, but rather a colossal proje

I think the biggest problem with authoritarian thinking about math is that math is not a discovered set of authoritarian principles, but rather a colossal project to make up weird relationships that satisfy the rules of the weird relationships that were already made up. Approaching imaginary numbers as: > "Eventually, mathematicians got sick of not being able to achieve a negative result through multiplication, so Rafael Bombelli finally made up imaginary numbers using the work of other Italians and even some Greeks. Unfortunately for him, most people thought his idea and rule set was stupid until about two hundred years later. We will now learn what sorts of nonsense he made up--those of you who are interested in electricity had better listen close--" will inevitably lead to a different mindset about math than: > "Today's lesson is that the square root of negative one is i. Write that down, because it WILL be on the test."