| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/4/2009 2:58:45 PM | Cambride Definition
-aholic, -oholic Show phonetics
suffix
unable to stop doing or taking something:
a workaholic
an alcoholic
a chocoholic.
You should read some psychology on mass behaviour and so on. All about how we feel safe from an evouloution perspective. I bet you like either tea, coffee or coke - does that make you predictable as everyone else - your indiviual taste likes it just as the majority of people like it, nothing unconcious behind it = is it? | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/4/2009 3:44:36 PM | Mister Logic kudos to you, that is probably the most intelligent thing I have heard in a fair while.
Might I add that humans generally are a very social species, we are great apes after all. A lot of our species prefer to do things that their social colleagues do. Few humans actually break that behavioral pattern, we are thankful for that otherwise we would be still be paleolithic hunter gatherers with no symbolic thinking and all the benefits (art, music, technology beyond simple stone axes etc). | |
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ceoil
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Joined: 6/12/2009
Msg: 53 | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/4/2009 10:18:12 PM |
Marrionettdolls ruled by media for society and government....
That is profound,
Why should we have to think? That is what the talking heads on TV, the ministers of the church, and government officials are for. If you think differently than Johhny Law, he will come and get you "Bad Boy, what you gonna do?" | |
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ceoil
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Joined: 6/12/2009
Msg: 55 | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/5/2009 6:37:00 AM | Uh, I think Mister Logic doesn't like rap music or sports stars. Hated hippies back in the day, is a global warming denier and is probably a republican. But that's a quick judgement on my part, I didn't look at his profile so . . .  | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/5/2009 9:31:47 PM | It's a no brainer that you are making waaaaaaaay too big a deal over.
It's ironic that a few people, including myself, go off topic on a side discussion and receive the a few lashed with a wet noodle in a negative or snarky comment here and there. Yeah, gee, how dare we think outside the narrow lines of the discussion that bashes people for following the rules?
Breaking the mainstream can have enormous consequences. Letting those with resources think for the masses is a survival instinct. One must have the resource to break instinct. Do you live in standard housing, four walls and a roof, in neighoborhood? Your resources dictate that choice. Do you drive a car instead walk or ride the bus? Your resources dictate that choice. Do you take a freeway route to work instead of breaking your own trail? I mean, other people made the choices to plan that route and build that road, maybe you should prove what an independent thinker you are and quit your job to build one of those minicar/planes.
It's a more intelligent thing to work within your resources on most areas and to find the small or large ways in which you can be an individual. Conformity is never an absolute. These "lemmings" and "sheeple" are not all clones of each other. They are just average people doing what they can with what they have, trying to enjoy their own independent version of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We aren't perfect, people DO think for themselves, when they have the freedom and resource to do so, but even while doing that, they also think in terms of survival and that means fitting in.
If no one fit in and everyone thought for themselves and not for the group, we'd have constant conflict, misunderstanding, and a stripping of resources.
We are social group creatures. You wanna think for yourself because you have a lot of resources to do so 24/7, start showing gratefulness that you are so lucky, or teach others how to identify and develop their own resources, but bashing people for their poverty isn't cool. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/5/2009 11:36:33 PM |
\It's a case of "monkey see -- monkey do"...It also manifests itself in our everyday thinking (or, more properly, in our non-thinking).
I wonder about some forums I’ve participated in where this swarming mentality prevails. Fact is, if they don’t like what you post – emails flow amongst each other requesting others not to respond. In fact, it has come to my knowledge that some forum participants discuss the post among them selves leaving you the poster to reason with yourself…which can be quite comical. Heaven forbid that you question their conclusions / you will be labelled an aggressor or basher.
I offer another possibility by saying not all people critically think with all thoughts or beliefs as they may not be aware of - there are alternate realities people scribe to. Some tend to listen attentively hoping to lead themselves eventually once they become knowledgeable testing different theories for themselves.
Because people here appear to be accepting of leaders and followers agree that the non-thinking individual is seen as follower is not to be viewed as being negative. I say this to reinforce the belief that in order to be a true leader, one must also learn to be a servant. Look at Obama’s history and how he found his humble beginnings serving others to becoming a servant of his nation.
I don’t agree with the workaholic being dependant. I find for myself, if I should choose to be identified as being a workaholic, it is only because I might have a passion for what drives me.
I was teaching a class and students quickly caught on to who the leaders were in the first ten minutes. The rest of the morning was more or less debating with the three students their position and what drove their conclusions. I, after an exhausting day called them aside to have an informal discussion. I reviewed with them what I observed of them and asked them to evaluate how much they knew of their peers. The answer was that they were reserved and shy. I requested of them to help me bring out in them what they saw in themselves and that would be their challenge in the first two weeks. I was amazed with the results…talk of pushing personal limits.
As one human being o another - I think that in order to develop critical thinkers, one must experience it and what better way by you questioning rather than always accepting ‘non-thinkers’. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/6/2009 8:20:17 AM | | It all depends on the limits people place on themselves. In some environments, this would be called the box or envelope. How broad are the confines you place on yourslef compared to the confines others place on themselves. What does it take to think outside the box? Chances are, you never think outside your box but you will think outside someone else's box. When say a professor asks you to think outside the box, does he mean his box or that of the class average? I quite often find the limits of other's boxes, including the professors, and as a result, have created several technologies and changed several industries. It thrives only on its own personal rewards as being outside someone else's box does not endear them to you. | |
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rhodax
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Joined: 6/11/2009
Msg: 62 | |
| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/6/2009 10:25:41 AM | Definitely conditioned behavior.
I can't tell you how many email discussions of mine come to an immediate halt the moment I diverge from the norm. Pavlovian responses should push me to stop saying anything other than the most mundane things but I just don't like bells and dog food.
Most people's idea of "radical" is what is most popularly against the status quo. If its not talked about as being fringe on the nightly news then it is too weird.
DeToqueville pretty much nailed it with the exception that he misses the fact that people do it to one another, not just government doing it to us.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/6/2009 3:56:05 PM | | No one wants to be responsible for their own actions. Presidents, lawyers,clergy and anyone else put into a position of power preach and teach and brainwash the sheeples because free thought could lead to a revolution...and often does. So, if they follow the leader..they feel "safe". I myself beleive in questioning authority...on all levels. Peace | |
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rhodax
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Joined: 6/11/2009
Msg: 65 | |
| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/6/2009 10:18:07 PM | Funny, three pages of text about thinking for ourselves yet there's no examples of ideas reached through actual thinking.
I start it off.
When watching, listening to, or reading the news I always ask myself.
1) Is this news that I actually need to know?
2) Why am I being told this
3) What am actually being told
4) Who is telling me this
5) Who benefits from me knowing this
As an example a radio piece today spoke about how Microsoft's new search engine was overwhelmed by requests for information about Michael Jackson's death but that M$ had since made improvements to the system to handle that kind of traffic.
1) No
2) Because Microsoft wants me to hear about their search engine
3) That Microsoft Search Engine is "New and Improved"
4) Microsoft - the news agency likely took the M$ written piece off the fax and gave it to the announcer.
5) Microsoft
In other words this is not a news story it is an infomercial pretending to be news.
I would guestimate that around 80% of what is put out as "news" is nothing more than advertisements pretending to be news yet nobody around me seems to notice.
Anyone else have examples of actually thinking critically? | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 5:12:12 AM | Living vicariously affects cognitive function so I'm not sure whether fashion junkies bother me or not. Certainly where a social establishment forces me to rely on one for any problem solving, but where in a position this is never the case and I am free to leave their vicinity and intrusive tendencies I would consider them their own best punishment.
Obviously it is more socially responsible to find it abhorrent in the majority of cases. But since marketing is a key of industrialism and associated government it is also politically incorrect to do so without a fundamental shift in domestic and economic policy. Then there is the consideration that some amount of education curriculum is by vicarious learning techniques.
I guess modern capitalist government would stress it is the role of parenting to teach independent thinking. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 6:13:20 AM | I think the biggest hurdle to independent thinking is fear of failure and the embarrassing ridicule which would follow. What did people first think of the man who invented the steam engine; or those who watched the garage tinkerer as he experimented with his McIvored prototypes until eventually inventing the first working string trimmer.
What about the guy who wasn't going to be a member of the herd when it came to taking on a huge debt in order to have a house and instead solitarily builds his own, painstakingly learning all the trades as he does so.
No one will show the way when it comes to thinking for yourself lest you might, to their jealousy, be successful. Your intuitive ideas come from within. It's up to the individual whether they have the courage and faith to respond to their own intuition. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 6:19:46 AM | Mister logic
The purpose of your original post is nothing more than a *rant*
I would have opted to delete. Its too bad I didnt see this earlier.
Granted you do make some obvious points....but nonetheless.....they are obvious
everyday points a moron knows. The only purpose you had with this thread was to
argue. Waste of bandwidth
Next.. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 7:09:45 AM | ^^
But it was a good question. Should the rest of us bow to your obvious wisdom and suggest that the whole thread be deleted because the OP didn't know what a monster thread he had created? I don't figure I will put myself in your box. I will "think for myself" and figure the rest of the contributions are worth the bandwidth. "Why do so many people have to think negatively?" might be another great question.
"Any moron" was taught by a responsible adult: "If you don't have anything nice to say...." | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 7:15:22 AM | Nah
Re read the OP's first post in its entirety. Its more of a rant than anything else.
What question does it really ask? If others hate it all as much as him?
Its full of I hate this I hate that....ever notice this ever notice that? It serves no
real purpose other than a long drawn out rant.
As far as why do so many people think negatively...thats a great question. Consider the
Op in that one.  | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 7:18:29 AM | | Two wrongs don't make a right. Or as Ghandi said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" The best part of the OP was the question in the title bar. It was all most of us needed. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 9:20:05 AM | The examples that the OP gave (of fashion trends and language glitches) are harmless.
Where the "lemming" mentality becomes scary is when it leads to harmful mob action such as religion or war.
There is not much difference between a charismatic evangelist or war-mongering president and Hitler. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 9:37:16 AM | It's funny to read, 'everyone is an idiot but me', over and over again.
To best understand why "everyone" is so afraid to think for themselves it might be best to understand why we, ourselves, sometimes choose to go that route. It might also be wise to examine what the benefits are of herd-mentality behavior, both personal and social (and there are many).
I am often influenced by my fellows around me and I have found that the fear of social rejection runs quite deep.
For some time, I had made it a goal to 'not give a damn what people think'. I had given myself certain rituals to practice and had decided that no matter the place or situation, when the time for the ritual came I would practice it. It was quite a challenge to act in a way that, to others no doubt, appeared quite antisocial even insane, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to perform acts of ceremonial magick. In the end though, the exercise was useful for me and I haven't been as preoccupied by what people think since (though I am hardly completely cured of this malaise).
I say this often and I will say it again, it is immensely more valuable to examine ourselves and question our behaviour than it is to question the behaviour of 'that faceless mass of humanity'. In other words, don't leave yourself out of the equation, unless you believe that you are somehow 'special' and if so, please explain why. | |
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| Why is everyone so afraid to think for themselves?
Posted: 7/7/2009 10:08:24 AM |
Re read the OP's first post in its entirety. Its more of a rant than anything else.
What question does it really ask? If others hate it all as much as him?
Its full of I hate this I hate that....ever notice this ever notice that? It serves no
real purpose other than a long drawn out rant.
As far as why do so many people think negatively...thats a great question. Consider the
Op in that one.
I would have to say this is a perfect example of excusing thought based on a behaviour. Ops post surfaced as a result of his frustration with the lack of critical thinkers. Your behaviour shows that critical thinking is not being observed – rise above the message and challenge yourself! Go beyond what is expected rather than sitting flaccid.
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