Running Apart from the Herd

Interestingly, the book I mentioned before, Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect, has been offering me many insights about the things that I went through with my previous teaching employment. Lord knows some bad things happened to me there. I had asked a colleague to try and make a study seeing how learned helplessness and how that might factor into how the system changes people, makes them do things they know they shouldn't.

Knowing the way that the authority imposed its will oftentimes without the clear thought of logic to justify, I found myself opposing the authority many times. Sadly, as I opposed most others complied or stayed quiet, one reason why I was regularly in trouble or seen as a troublemaker. Here's some stuff from the book that causes one to think about things.

I also taught some lessons on the hive mind, on the ability of the herd mentality to impose itself on people, and for our tendency to get sucked into thinking the same as others without our noticing. According to Zimbardo: "Resistance creates and emotional burden for those who maintain their independence- autonomy comes at a psychic cost." Means that while compliance is easy, opposing is hard because you know you're going against the others. In real, measurable terms, it's hard to be the lone person, one against the world, etc etc.

And Zimbardo continues: "...other people's views, when crystallized into a group consensus, can actually affect how we perceive important aspects of the external world, thus calling into question the nature of truth itself. It is only by becoming aware of our vulnerability to social pressure that we can begin to build resistance to conformity when it is not in our best interest to yield to the mentality of the herd."

It's difficult to draw lines. Conformity, following the herd, in the workplace, could mean the difference between permanency/tenure and having to update your resume at the end of the school year. We have to make compromises, granted. But those few who are willing to bear the emotional burden of opposition sadly must suffer further from the intolerance of people who just want to keep things quiet and simple.

Where does this lead us? In our upbringings, in our development as rational adults, how often are we faced with questions such as these? And how many people will find in themselves resistance to the dominant paradigm? How many will subscribe to what is imposed?

It's a big 1984 question. If the whole world tells you 2 + 2 =5 how inclined are you to believe. The psychological studies reveal that in the majority of cases the individual will agree with what the majority of people believe, whether it is true or not.

Can you imagine the kind of emotional trauma Copernicus or Galileo may have had to go through as they knew that the world was wrong? Copernicus sat on his discoveries til his death and Galileo was persecuted by the church.

We have to ask ourselves now, how much are we willing to sacrifice to prove something right, or to oppose a system in the wrong?