How do you avoid making this claim? I think it’s to remember the the trap of fundamental attribution error. People are not always independent-minded or always conformist. They may think independently about some subjects and conform to conventional wisdom for others.

This provides more room for modesty - maybe I was able to think independently about some subject, that one time, or a few times, but certainly not consistently on all subjects. Having some experience might make it reasonable to write about it, with suitable caveats.

So, essays often start out with some kind of explanation of the author’s qualifications, sometimes written as a sort of half-apology to the reader for presuming to write as an expert when you are still learning.

We might also remember the lesson of counter-cultures, which is that rejecting mainstream beliefs more easily happens with the help of other people who believe differently. This makes it more difficult to tell where you stand, since everyone feels like they are being non-conformist in some way. When people are divided then it’s inevitable that you will disagree with some. (Nerd culture is a counter-culture that has become mainstream in some ways, though there are less popular aspects of it.)

Conventional wisdom is also relative to which culture you are talking about. That’s what culture is, an agglomeration of ideas about the best way to do thousands of different things. When you move to a different place, it’s quite possible to get caught between cultures inadvertently and not have any community that thinks quite like you do.