It probably is. Now the question is where that "dominant paradigm of not questioning authority" comes from. No argument from me that it is real. But we do not know what would happen if we could do away with it. It seems to have basically been there all throughout human history and in basically all places with more than a hundred people or so, hence we have no data. Obviously, said "authorities" have no interest in having their "authority" questioned, and hence we are unlikely to see any larger experiments.
I do have one data-point. People that realize what they are in at some point, when they were born into a cult. These people are independent thinkers under very adverse conditions. So the skill can be found in some people without them ever having been taught. I am not aware on any research that quantifies how many people born into a cult can get out of it on their own because they realize what it is. Would be interesting to know.