Daily Herald opinion: Independent thought
We all like to believe we think for ourselves; it's healthy to understand how much we don't
The other day in horrified fascination, we watched “Ordinary Men: The Forgotten Holocaust,” a remarkable documentary on Netflix that examines how everyday people could commit heinous, unprovoked murders.
(If you have not seen it, we highly recommend that you do, although that reference is not the point of today's editorial.)
The documentary, set during Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II, follows a police unit that was turned into a death squad to murder defenseless Jewish men, women and children by the hundreds. These units were made up of ordinary men. They were not necessarily antisemitic. They were not bound by politics or ideology.
The documentary points out that the men as individuals were given an opportunity to refuse the murder order. They were not threatened and there is no evidence that anyone ever suffered a significant punishment for backing out.
Yet, only a handful declined.
Why? The conclusion of the documentary is they were coerced by social stigma. They did not want to be viewed by their comrades as weak or cowards.
Think about that. The power of social stigma was so strong that ordinary men, who otherwise seemed to possess normal human decency, committed unimaginable murders simply to fit in.
Such an invisible power. And one that is all around us.
We tend to think that we humans are an intelligent species. And of course, we are. No other species on earth matches humanity's ability to reason, learn, advance and pass on wisdom.
And as individuals, we tend to think we arrive at our conclusions and opinions on the basis of experience, logic, reason and independent thought.
But you have to question how much intelligence drives our actions. At the very least, it should be clear, our thought is far from independent.
The city is not blue simply on the basis of unique urban needs. Nor is downstate red based solely on unique downstate needs. Nor are the suburbs purple — once red, lately turning blue — simply because we share some of the needs of both.
We are, each of us, products of the cultures that surround us. Some of that, simply cultures we are born into. Some of it, cultures we gravitate toward. E.g., the college culture, the gun culture, the Hollywood culture, the suburban culture, etc. We do not live in one culture. We live in multiple cultures, even travel between cultures.
And they all influence the way we look at things. They all, to one degree or another, reward certain points of view and penalize others. No one wants to be an outcast. Everyone wants to fit in.
Independent thought?
Absolute independent thought is an impossibility.
The only way we as individuals approach it is by energetic and relentless research. And by constantly and courageously challenging our points of view.