Why Challenging Norms Is Necessary
What I watched: We’re wired for conformity. That’s why we have to practice dissent. By Todd Rose for Big Think. Posted May 20, 2022.
This video seems timely. Perhaps collective illusions have always existed. I plan to read Todd Rose’s book, Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions to dive deeper into this topic. But based on the video, it sure seems like we’re awash in a bevy of collective illusions these days.
Whether it's a political belief, spiritual belief, community belief, or any type of commonly held belief, we all hold collective illusions that are indeed illusions but we simply all agree to go along with them, even when we don't truly believe them. I see this often. We feel we need to adhere to consensus because to dissent is to risk exclusion.
Most of us walk through life unaware of the cultural norms that influence our day-to-day thinking and behaviors. We are nudged and cajoled to believe or act certain ways. We might think we’re believing or acting a certain way entirely because of our own conscious choices, but there is often more at work under the surface.
Norms lurk in the background. We rarely think about them, and unless we are actively challenging them and making sure they are valuable, they will eventually become 'collective illusions.' Simply put, collective illusions are situations where most people in a group go along with a view they don't agree with because they incorrectly believe that most people agree with it. And because the people themselves are upholding the illusion, only the people themselves can dismantle it.
Voters end up voting for a candidate or ballot measure that clashes with their sense of truth, but because they believe their neighbors buy into it they buy into it too.
A person gets swept up in religious fervor based on a foundation belief system that they don't consider valid, but because everyone around them is upholding the faith in it they end up going along for the illusory ride.
A member of a circle of friends might adjust their beliefs to conform to the group in which their friends socialize. Rather than buck the unspoken group consensus, it’s easier to just go along with the groupthink so they’re sure to fit in.
Our brains are wired to find ways to reduce energy usage. To do that, it’s often easiest to adopt cultural norms. We collectively believe certain things to make interacting with each other easier, reducing social friction. Life becomes more predictable and therefore we exert less mental energy than when we have to make decisions or construct unique thoughts based on our own set of data and experience.
Interestingly, it’s the prior generation’s consensus that tends to form the current generation’s cultural norms. Perhaps this explains the ubiquitous clash of generations. We’re born into a set of cultural norms for which we had no input in determining. The group consensus is assumed to be something that’s good and true. It’s accepted as a truth without any real decision-making thought applied to assessing that truth.
Many of the norms we accept are entirely arbitrary and not necessarily what everyone actually wants. That’s why we need to be skeptical about norms. Norms can persist for a long time, not necessarily because they’re true, but rather because we don’t question them.
We should always question norms. Always.
Artists have historically been at the forefront of challenging cultural norms and therein lies one of the great benefits of art. We might perceive some artists as a bit odd, weird, or disconnected from society. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
When an artist bucks a norm, it creates a permission structure that allows us to self-examine and determine if we really believe what we think we believe or if we’re really who we think we are. Once confronted with a work of art that runs counter to our beliefs or identities, we might end up deciding that we do indeed believe what we thought we believe and are who we thought we are. Other times that challenge to our way of thinking is the first crack in the norm that might eventually break.
People might eventually end up talking about the artist themselves or the art itself, instead of the norm it’s challenging, thus exposing an opportunity for people to reveal to each other what they truly value. This can crush the norm and disintegrate it, thereby allowing a new norm to emerge.
Each society has members that Rose calls “positive deviants.” These people are members of a community who utilize a solution to a social problem, a problem perpetuated by a cultural norm. For whatever reason, these people have figured out solutions to those problems that are effective but conflict with the norm. So, they often keep such solutions to themselves.
When those people who express positive deviance are discovered and allowed to communicate to others within a community, their voices being elevated, they can bring about change and break a cultural norm that’s no longer serving the community well. New, betters norms are created in their place.
That fact that we're so hung up on top-down, expert-driven solutions to everything, is the only reason why positive deviance seems strange to us. But in reality, it's the only way you can ever drive social change under collective illusions that are rooted in cultural norms. If you understand that fact, and you create the enabling conditions that allow everyday people to reveal who they really are to each other, these illusions can crumble in a hurry, and social change can happen at a scale and pace that would otherwise seem unimaginable.
I found this video quite enlightening. Much of my work is about bringing about positive change in groups, communities, and society at large. However, I never quite comprehended how powerful and necessary the dissenting voices within these bodies of people are to creating positive change.
When you see an artist’s work that makes you dive deeper into validating or repudiating your beliefs or identity, that’s the stuff of great change. When we as a culture push forward those on the fringe, the unique thinkers, the artists and problem solvers who’ve embarked on an entirely new path, that’s where new norms and great change take place.
Let’s listen to the artists. Let’s converse with those who think differently than the mainstream. Let’s challenge ourselves to commune with others who don’t necessarily fit our usual social circle. Maybe that will help create better cultural norms that will give us all better lives.
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