The Future Group Think

The mistakes never get new

I just read a note by Indi. The gist of it was how the effects of conformity have acted against the betterment of humanity and how it’s starting to change with an outside force that is the future. Subjects such as Marijuana use and gay marriage have been historically made taboo for fear of breaking the group think mentality. The note makes its point of how people have slowly started acting against this group think, and the ensuing ripples have grown into waves that are changing our approach as a race to these kind of thoughts.

One choice quote in the article gets you really thinking though.

“It is becoming increasingly clear to judges that if they rule against same-sex marriage their grandchildren will regard them as bigots,” said Andrew M. Koppelman, a law professor at Northwestern. (NYTimes)

I have an issue with this. In fact I’ve found issues with this kind of thing for a long time. this is a fundamental issue when group think works the opposite way. Since everyone is for gay marriage, no one wants to research the counter side. It's all about succumbing to confirmation bias to research why it should be fine. Everyone is against the law of creation so any attempt to even research the possibility of creation of dark matter being linked to the theory of God being eternal would be laughed at.

Right now, many of those who are reading this are probably thinking I'm some kind of homophobic closed minded person. If you are thinking that at this very moment, stop and ask yourself why. What's the point I'm trying to make? It's easy for us to think that homophobia is a result of group think (and it is). But what's difficult, is to stop ourselves from becoming part of a new group. It's easy to look at ourselves being part of the "free thinking" age. What most of us don't realise is that we might just be throwing in our hat with the group that's winning, because that's just human nature. Think about the quote. The reason for not ruling against same sex marriage is the fear of not fitting in with a group. Is that really the reason we should be promoting gay rights? So that other people fall in line? And while you might be vigorously shaking your head in denial, truth is, that’s exactly what people are celebrating every time another country says “yes” to gay marriage. We aren’t celebrating free thinking. We are just celebrating another party joining our feel good group. We are focusing on a group of people for not thinking like us and calling them closed minded.

“No way” I hear you say. “He’s got it all wrong. He’s missed the point. Those guys wouldn’t look at another view point. They’d just blindly call out against gays and weed and they are wrong!” I listened to too many debates between pro-X and anti-X before realising it was just a competition of two groups believing their cause was more noble than the other.

Think about yourselves. Take gay marriage. When was the last time you pondered the other side, and truly dug deep into the constructs and history of marriage to even ask why gay marriage is such a big deal? Is it same sex marriage we should be fighting for to be legalised? Or is it the laws and privileges surrounding married couples that we should be debating?

If you are conforming with the future to not be an asshole of history, you are doing it wrong. If you are promoting that ideology, you might be doing it wrong. My belief based on my observation of history is that as long as we promote some kind of cause and conformity to it, we’ll be forever embroiled in an us vs them war. Whether it’s at the work place, our homes, or between two countries, causes and conformity, whether it be to the future or the present, will just be history repeating itself. To quote Boston Legal,

“That’s what troubles me. This notion that we have to take sides in this country now, you’re either with us or against us, Republican or Democrat, red state or blue
state. No one looks at an issue and struggles over the right position to take anymore. And yet, our ability to reason is what makes us human. Lately, we seem so willing to forfeit that gift of reason in exchange for the good feeling of belonging to a group. We all just take the position of our team.” — Alan Shore

Here’s to hopes that the world will fill itself with more critical thinking. The kind of thinking that will show the gray lines hiding amidst and behind the mass of black and white. A world where we promote the constant questioning that strips away the layers of every side of an argument until what remains is the essence of the problems in their purest forms. That’s when you find the real issues to debate on again. That’s when we finally stop making the old mistakes anew.