phaedrus

What is with the human beings attitude towards “tradition” or "popular opinion" ? Why do they tend to accept whatever is handed to them or accepted by majority as sacrosanct? Why do they tend to believe blindly without even pausing for a second to question the status quo and assumptions that lie beneath each and every thought/belief system? Would the human race have made any progress if there weren’t individuals who did exactly that and in the process changed our lives and the way we look at things? Doesn’t such a blind faith without any doubt, lead to incidents like September 11 attacks?

Human beings since they started living in groups like to "conform", it has been ingrained in them that if one doesnt "conform", then the individual must be "odd" or "defective". Very few individuals put in the effort to think differently or rough it out on original thoughts or tread a path that hasnt been ventured upon before. But I would like to believe whatever progress the race has made, it is because of these individuals who refused to follow blindly the "tradition" or "opinion of the majority" or "accepted patterns" and have either given a lateral/radical solution or improved the pattern

Ofcourse in the modern era, the problem of herd mentality is even more evident since "popular opinion" is able to reach more people in a lesser time. Take the examples of the reaction of the world towards the death of princess diana or the WTC attacks or other media hyped events

Ahh well, this mentality is clearly demonstrated in the financial markets. Why do the markets go up and down ? Coz of the fundamentals? No, coz of the crowd's view on the fundamentals. Majority of the investors tend to get on the boat when a rally is well underway and nearing a peak (the rally continues for a while due to the reinforcing effect). Then they hear all the analysts talking about valuations being extremely streched and one "negative trigger" sends everything tumbling down. History keeps repeating itself, albiet not in an identical fashion.

Ranted enough...

Edited to fix some rants.....

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: phaedrus ]</p>

Adrian Selby

All very valid points.

I am interested in this because I used to teach Philosophy to 'A' level students (that's just before embarking on a degree as I don't know what the US equivalent is). I was asked as a Phil teacher to fill out my opinions on there being a 'Critical Thinking' module on the philsophy course, but also one for younger students, not specifically related to philosophy. I raved about this, thinking how wonderful it would be to get children who learn all kinds of disciplines to begin to question the 'messages' they receive, and to develop a framework of systematic doubt in their heads.

Funny how that never came about. I mean, I've never heard any more about the course, and its a great shame, because while the potential to confuse kids is there, who might be having enough trouble taking basic facts in on any given subject, the thought that there was some way of giving them the ability to re-interpret critically the messages of mass media, politics, anything that might interest them, even aesthetics, would have been great.

I envisaged courses that might, to 14-16 year olds present pictures of old masters and cubism and get them to develop their ideas, so that they learn a bit about art but also about their prejudices. This was memorably done in a school in New York somewhere, where a teacher would leave a big jar of sweets in a class of 10 year olds, go out and then come back. When the biggest kid in the class was discovered to have the jar, she asked him why he thought he should have it, and so forced him to think about his actions etc.

This kind of thing would be fascinating, but one can't help thinking, especially in strongly religious US states, such a course would never get off the ground.

Adrian

Christopher Lord

There is a survival advantage in keeping our population loaded with followers and peppered with leaders.

If there are too many leaders, the groups become fractionalized, and inter-group politics becomes the destination for most of the groups energy.

If there are too many followers, progress slows down, groups unify under common leaders, and most of our energy goes into administration of the status-quo.

At some point your group balances these two costs, and can devote more energy to non-system jobs.

So I think the makeup of the 'group-mentality' is a factor highly tuned by evolution and/or dominant memes.

phaedrus

Adrian

Thats a nice approach to ensure that "mass hypnosis" doesnt occur at an early stage of the human being. Know few schools on this side of the world which indulge in such practices which tend to be an anti-thesis to the traditional form of education. I guess a wholesome change to the system is tough given the inborn resistance to change our race has.

Anyhows, what do you think are the key characterstics of the individuals who chose to buck the trend and maintain an independent strain of thought? Are these souls just born or it has got more to do with the experiences they encounter during their lives? Asking this coz sometimes these characterstics are pretty much evident in children itself.

JP

phaedrus

CL

There is a survival advantage in keeping our population loaded with followers and peppered with leaders

So you would be supporting the feudal system of yesteryears(or the caste system of india)for the sake of survival of the homo sapiens?

How exactly as a race in today's world are we facing threat in terms of survival which would justify the "herd mentality" ?

If there are too many leaders, the groups become fractionalized, and inter-group politics becomes the destination for most of the groups energy.

If there are too many followers, progress slows down, groups unify under common leaders, and most of our energy goes into administration of the status-quo.

When herd-mentality is prevalent - how can we be sure that the leaders are not products of the same mentality? Why the assumption that leaders always exhibit original thinking?

Why would individuals who refuse to accept the "popular opinion" become leaders of the very same herd ? There have been few individuals in our history who have exhibited original thinking and were able to lead. But in that case, the final objective was same for both the individual and the followers.

So I think the makeup of the 'group-mentality' is a factor highly tuned by evolution and/or dominant memes.

So you would say an individual with a higher component of "group-mentality" characterstic will have a higher chance of survival or success?

JP

Christopher Lord

phaedrus, I realize I was using language that did not make my point clear now. Permit me to clarify

No. I am saying there are people who just want to fit in no matter what (for example, by doing whats cool, etc.), and there are people who set the trends by exploring posibilities, and perhaps failing. my point was that having too many of either group is bad.

Of course, I'm not talking about political leaders, appointed or voted. I'm talking about real leaders who have the ability to move out from under the group mentality and try other things. Using the word that way, leaders always exhibit original thinking.


Yes. Consider, for example, a small tribe. If everyone is questioning the 'ways', the members become dis-illusoned and in the end group unity is the victim.

If there are too many followers, then the tribe stagnates.

Modern society is more complicated because of technology, so it helps to break things down to basic tribes.

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Christopher Lord ]</p>

Adrian Selby

In answer to your question to me Phaedrus, I can only think that if one has a sense of wonder will one be drawn into thinking hard about things, a virile imagination if you will.

This is how it started for me, and was perhaps supported by my politically aware grandmother and father, and friends that got into anarchy (we were teenagers) who had all kinds of literature I didn't have access to otherwise, album notes for Icons of Filth and Conflict that offered views I'd never heard before. Perhaps then, my 'descent' into critical thinking came about from a soup of something that was natural to me (daydreaming) and people and things I was surrounded by.

Certainly I would argue that pure intelligence is no prerequisite for critical thinking, at least at a younger age. I would think that as one matures, if one has had some form of higher education, it usually has components in it that force the student to be critically analytical of something.

Where this leaves those that drop out of school at 16 I don't know, but without a developed critical faculty, I wonder how much not having one is affecting them. I saw it as a teacher of 16-18 yr olds who'd dropped out of school and were on a training scheme. I taught them spelling and in some cases reading. These kids would never continue education and didn't have the remotest interest in it. In the occasional debate we'd have, where I would be keen to see how they supported their views, a lack of basic facts meant they were drawing conclusions about other countries, the monarchy, almost everything that they couldn't support when facts were presented to them. In a test for example, a class of 25 16-18 yr olds, only one guessed that the second world war started in 1939, and one suggested it was in the 60's. Nobody knew when we landed on the moon. Nobody could name more than two British prime ministers, and even then more than half got the political party wrong. A number of them didn't know who won the first world war.

All in all, their grasp of anything from history to science to literature etc. was so very basic that it is hard to see how a critical faculty could be said to exist, if part of having that faculty is the desire to question what we have been told. Well, perhaps some more sensible conclusions can be drawn out of that lot.

Tani

that problem imo is unavoidable, we don't have time to analyze everything. when you need to know something and without the means to examine it first hand, you rely on someone else's words. i mean it is better than nothing assuming that someone else is perfectly reliable in regard to the information.

this reminds me of how ridiculous a class on children education is. it taught me that all children has unique learning ability. as an educator, i should _not_ try to standardize the materials but rather teach each child according to their own ability. but then i had to write a standardized test at the end about that subject. what an orthodox heresy, but we are living right in it right here in the "west" right now nevertheless.

those who insists to question everything needs a lot of vigour, not everyone has it. and even for those few people who has the vigour, they don't have it ad infinitum.

jpbrooks

Interesting!

VS

Why would a "middle ground" not be possible here? Why would developing one's own standards for judging traditional thinking, and using those standards to determine what aspects of a tradition are worth following, not be a prudent way to avoid the problems that are delineated on both sides of this issue?

Furthermore, thinking independently from the "herd" seems as much to involve "creative" rhinking as critical thinking.
Critical thinking, while indispensable for evaluating existing ideas, does not (usually) generate new ideas unless the critical assessment of the existing ideas has been, up to the present time, inadequate.

-John Phillip Brooks

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

Tani

[quote]jpbrooks said:
Why would a "middle ground" not be possible here? Why would developing one's own standards for judging traditional thinking, and using those standards to determine what aspects of a tradition are worth following, not be a prudent way to avoid the problems that are delineated on both sides of this issue?

Furthermore, thinking independently from the "herd" seems as much to involve "creative" rhinking as critical thinking.
Critical thinking, while indispensable for evaluating existing ideas, does not (usually) generate new ideas unless the critical assessment of the existing ideas has been, up to the present time, inadequate.[quote]

for my part, there is not a middle ground. why not? the opposing views are not from 2 different ends of the spectrum. phaedrus's rhetorical questions were basically saying of course we shouldn't just follow the herd, but i said no matter where we go, we are still following the herd. his is more of an instruction, mine is just pessimistic observation. lol... sigh...

following your own judgement is certainly good, but who doesn't have an opinion? the most critical minds of all would follow his own way, but we praise him merely because he had examined his path to a certain degree. no matter how much he were to examine everything around him, he would have to at some point accept some ideas as basic and intuitive, without them being necessary basic or intuitive. even the most foolish of all humans would follow his own way, we mock him merely because what he consider as basic and intuitive are what we conceive as neither basic nor intuitive. however, the problem lies in that, obviously, the fool can't see beyond his own limit, yet, so can't the wise. the same applies when there are 2 opposing views, we always consider ourselves as wise and the oppenent as foolish. think about those terrorist who flew the plane into wtc, we consider them utterly unreasonable, perhaps even foolish, precisely because what they see as basic and intuitive (flying the plane into wtc for god), we see the otherwise - the lack of thorough thoughts and insight.

just think about it, perhaps it is after thorough and deep thinking that you have concluded that following the herd is not prudent, but was "blowing buildings is bad" an epiphany? or something you were raised up with, but somehow you view it as intuitively right that it require no explaination?

as for creativity, logic would dictate that anything logically understandable (theories) must be also derivable from other existing understood stuff (axioms and/or theories). so i say, anything that is logically understandable cannot be something new, aka created. on the other hand, anything that is created, aka new, cannot not something at all derivable logically from what is known. now how can i say something that is created, hence not derivable from known stuff or just unreasonable, to be understood, yet something that is understood, be created? this is my critical view of creativity. yet it'd be only creative if you don't understand it, or how else is the argument so creative?