How To Be Independent And Break Free From The Herd
Avoiding group bias
“My ideas are my own. I do not listen to the group. I am not a conformist.”
Robert Green - The Human Laws of Nature
Everybody likes to think that they are an independent thinker and that their words and actions are their own.
Quite often though, they are not.
In almost every environment we find ourselves in we are being pushed and pulled from things we are seemingly unaware of.
This is called Group Bias.
Humans are social animals. We’ve only lived this modern way for over 10,000 years and just over a couple of centuries where our technologies have ramped up. The last 40 or so years have brought us the internet and more recently the ironically called, ‘social’ media.
But no matter the period we’ve always done one thing and done it well. We’ve always worked in groups. Many things separate us from our closest ancestors but it’s our ability to think perspectively, yours, mine and theirs and to think abstractly that separates us from them. One thing we still hold in common with our ancestors and many other animals though is our yearning to belong in a group.
Groups offer security and companionship whereas individualism offers isolation and loneliness. The group is generally stronger than the individual and our innate wanting to survive drives us into these safer bonds.
But, groups can also be mobs.
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As we advance both as a species and technologically it is now more important than ever to think and act as an individual. That’s not to say everybody needs to be a loner. Quite the contrary. We need independent and rational thinkers now more than ever because the more we have the better the group will be.
“We are motivated to take up ideas and opinions because they offer us relief. We are unaware of this pull and so imagine we have come to ideas completely on our own.”
- Robert Greene
It’s easy to be lured into the mob mentality, especially online and especially concerning tribalistic topics such as politics, religion or other ideologies. People batten down the hatches, arm their big guns and prepare for war. They are right, you are wrong, and their beliefs are to be defended at all costs and there is no greater cost to humanity than the complete loss or aversion of rational thought.
We find ourselves being pulled, almost as if by gravity itself to ideas we believe we identify with. This is where we find our group, our belonging. We now suddenly find ourselves in step with other ideas and groupthink but never mind, we are in the group. We belong. But then there are more ideas, each vague and opaque that you swallow up and before you know it, you have this war chest of ideas that you believe in, to your very core.
Examples of this could be disillusionment about war, politics, or equal rights. Things that are in themselves worthy of virtuous and noble campaigns. We don’t want to see war. We want fair and credible politicians and most of all we want everybody to be given a fair crack at life.
For better and for worse social media has exacerbated this need to belong to a tribe. There is nothing, or hardly anything social about it. It’s worse than toxic. Where historically, sleazy and corrupt politicians got at most a few minutes on the 6 o’clock news they now get millions and millions of views in hours.
Taken out of context and used for one’s own gain, one share at a time.
Where people once believed in a fair justice system we now believe in trial by social media. Presumption of guilt. You're guilty until proven otherwise, but often the damage is already done. Careers lost and lives ruined.
Professional athletes are terrorised, often with racist abuse when they do something the mob does not agree with, like missing a penalty for a trophy that the people behind their phones desperately and rightfully believe is their own.
Groups offer security but they also offer hysteria.
For good and for bad they offer fervour.
“For even timid dogs can turn to beasts in packs.”
- The School of Knowledge
So how can you protect yourself from this? After all, this is millions of years of evolution hard-wired into our brains. It is hard but with the technology we now have you need to be an independent thinker. Being an independent thinker doesn’t mean it’s you against the mob. David vs Goliath. It means exactly what it sounds like. You take every bit of information as it is and not how it should be interpreted.
People who fuel hate do so for their own ideologies that they spew onto everybody else willing to lap it up with vague promises and loaded words. Promises like patriotism, nationalism, equality and emotions like aggression, outrage and faith.
When you step back and don’t care who’s right and who’s wrong, you take away that power from them. When all you seek is the truth, you rob them of their fuel. They may be correct and your view may be wrong but if you’ve come to that decision through rational and independent thought you're better than most people.
There is no man, woman or machine yet that can take away from you your power for individual reasoning. For you have scepticism where others have outrage. Logical thought where others have panic. Empathy where fear rules.
Until next time, Karl (The School of Knowledge).
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*Photo by Ali Hadbe