Acharya Prashant explains that social conditioning is actually an attempt to remove our physical conditioning. He clarifies that physical conditioning is understandable because we are animals, and the physical tendencies found in animals are also found in us. This social conditioning is a form of education or 'sanskars' (values/upbringing). We impart these values to children to counter their inherent animalistic tendencies, which are like a disease from birth. The purpose of these values is to help a child move from being an animal to a human, and even divine. However, this process goes wrong. The values, which are meant to be the medicine for the disease of physical conditioning, are administered by people who are themselves ignorant. When the medicine is given by a quack, it becomes a second disease. This is how social conditioning arises. It is a failed attempt to cure physical conditioning. Using another analogy, if physical conditioning is a knot, social conditioning is the attempt by an unskilled person to untie it, which only results in more knots. Man is the only animal who dislikes being an animal and wants to be free from his animalistic nature. Education is the tool for this, but it must be imparted by enlightened people. Our society has made a mess of this. The most important job, that of a primary school teacher, is given the least importance and lowest salary. The entire education system functions like an assembly line. Parents are the raw material suppliers, the education system is the assembly line, and society is the purchaser at the other end. The system is designed to produce what society desires. If society is obsessed with something, the education system will create courses for it. Society uses the child as a resource to fulfill its own selfish needs. The education system is not for the child's development but for training them for a job that serves society's selfish interests.
