Illusion of independent thinking

 

Was it Meryl Streep or Glenn Close who decided, as she started college, to disregard everything she been taught was true?  One of the two, but can't remember which.  Her point was that she didn't know the difference between what she'd learned from a valid source or experience & what she'd picked up along the way, what she'd processed as a small child & held onto as sacrosanct as an young adult.  So, she suspected & suspended all.  To get back into her pantheon of beliefs, a belief had to earn its way.

Most people like to think of themselves as independent thinkers, when we are anything but.  More than truly unique personal beliefs, we think from & reflect back the cultures of our place & the attitudes of our day.  

 

Yesterday was National Siblings Day.  I took the opportunity to thank mine - Peter, Mike, Mim & Ian - in a Facebook posting.  Through them, particularly through Mim, I learned about the cultural roots of our beliefs & thinking.  It was through & because of my older sister that I started stepping back to look at the environment of my thinking, first started valuing clarity over agreement, that I first understood the challenge of recognizing the influence of the many different cultures in our lives on our thought process, our belief system.  

Clarity doesn't mean being right - just a dedicated effort to keep quantifiable facts front & center, rather than emotions & assumptions.

People - particularly Americans - like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers.  Yet, our life view is determined by the cultures into which we were randomly born.  Our thinking is bound in ways we can't begin to imagine.  Genuinely independent thought is virtually impossible.  The independent thinking we take such pride in is, in reality, illusion. 

 

My life was blessed by having a considerably older sister who observed & shared her sense of others, of the cultures around us.  From an early age, I learned that our natural inclination is to take in & process information that reinforces that our personal beliefs are right & proper, while filtering out information that could cast doubt or disprove core beliefs.  That has a name - confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is what makes it so wretchedly difficult to achieve truly independent thought.  Even when we actively seek out corroborating evidence - 
independent evidence that a present belief is accurate - we view what's found through a filter clouded with an astonishing mish mash of prejudices & incorrect beliefs, a shocking number rooted in childhood, beginning with infancy.  

I am a big fan of clarity.  That doesn't mean clear thinking guarantees working from an accurate premise.  If only that could be true!  And that being so doesn't mean we throw in the towel & give up striving for independent thought.  It just means - remember.  Remember that we're never as right as we'd like to think, others are never a wrong as we might like to assume.  We think with an entrenched confirmation bias, on beliefs & assumptions literally rooted in our cradle.  

I applaud Meryl or Glenn (I suspect it was Glenn) for her noble experience in stepping away from all previous beliefs in order to only embrace what she & she alone held to be true.  And I guarantee she did not completely succeed.  The belief she had simply became part of her confirmation bias!

Personally, all I can hope for is to remain aware that my independent thinking is anything but, that it will always be clouded by forces & influences that are impossible to detect.  Still, will do my best.  Will seek clarity, realizing that someone who believes the total opposite could be doing the very same.  

Closing with a great quote from the film, The American President.  It's not really about the challenges of independent thought, yet it is....

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? ... Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free."