Archive for the ‘Reputation and Societal Perceptions’ Category

Agreeing With the Group and Consensus

Apr 29th, 10 / 2 Comments

In the circles I run with, people value independent thought. It’s considered a sign of intelligence when you can consider things from every angle and form your own beliefs. And I agree that it is.

However, consensus beliefs (that is, beliefs commonly held by a large group of people) remain quite common, and many people hold to them, by definition. So why do we have them?

The simplest explanation is that they have merit. If a lot of people individually come to hold the same beliefs and ideas, there’s a good chance there’s some truth to them. As such, I think any commonly agreed upon ideas are worth examining. This doesn’t mean you should blindly follow them, of course, but you should consider there might be a reason for the ideas to be so popular.

Of course, there’s also the possibility the ideas caught on somehow, and once they became popular, people used my reasoning above to think that if lots of people think in a particular way, it must be the right way. This only perpetuates itself unless people know how to think for themselves.

Of course, it’s also possible to have more than one set of consensus beliefs, held by more than one group of people. The example that comes to mind most readily is politics, in which we have a conservative consensus and a liberal consensus. There’s also a growing libertarian consensus in the U.S. This is still an oversimplification, but it illustrates my point of multiple groups of consensus.

So, why buy into it? Because it makes sense to you. To take an example, of all the political views I mentioned above, I most identify with the ideas of liberals. The idea that people should all have a minimum standard of living makes sense to me. But, that doesn’t mean I agree with liberals on everything. For instance, I think gun control laws should be minimal. The right to own weaponry is a Constitutionally protected right, and shouldn’t be given up. While I can see some laws limiting weaponry to be reasonable, they all need to be carefully considered and weighed against the Constitution, as well as be narrow in scope to not have unintended consequences later on.

I use this example to show that you can buy into the general idea a group espouses while still holding your own opinions. Gun control isn’t the only area I disagree with liberals on, but it’s a well known area and easy to explain quickly. I still like the general philosophy of liberals, and I picked it up because it was out there and well known because a lot of people agree with it and can explain it well. But then, I examined it more, and brought in my own experiences to refine it into a worldview that makes more sense to me.

My point in this is to show that generally agreeing with a group consensus isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes, there is merit to consensus beliefs. That merit is how many become popular in the first place. The problem is only when you accept consensus beliefs blindly, without examination, simply because it’s popular. I have no problem with anyone who disagrees with me, so long as they disagree intelligently and not just because the group says it has to be one way. I’m certainly not saying that liberal ideas are the only ones that make sense, but it’s all in how you think about it and the process you use to come to your beliefs and ideas. I only used liberals as an example since that’s generally where I fall on the political spectrum.

So, if you commonly treat what’s popular, or common beliefs, as bad solely because it is common, I’d urge you to reconsider. Sometimes, there’s value to be found in beliefs that are held by a large group of people. Don’t take them all at face value though, just consider them and think about the merits they may have. Sometimes, the crowd really is there to see something good. Just don’t follow the crowd without thinking first.

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Personal Development, Reputation and Societal Perceptions

Everyone Has a Story

Oct 5th, 09 / 0 Comments

No one’s life is boring or a blank slate. Sometimes, our lives seem that way when we look at ourselves, because everything we do seems normal… to ourselves. But, for anyone looking into our lives, not everything we do is normal, and some things are going to stick out to them. These are the things that grab the interest of a lot of people when they look into the lives of others. I guarantee you that you have these habits and events in your life that, even if you find them positively bland, other people will find them fascinating.

Of course, not everyone will agree with which parts are interesting, but that’s not the point. The point is that people will find you interesting. Furthermore, there are some things people just don’t know, and possibly won’t ever know, about all of us. But if it were ever published as a story, people would love it. Learn to recognize this, and you may find your life less bland and more exciting. You may also learn to accept the bad in life as a challenge to overcome instead of something that’s dragging you down, though there are certainly other ways to do that.

Here are some examples from my life:

-I’ve informally studied various forms of magic and the paranormal since the seventh grade. I’m still learning new things about it and related topics over ten years later.

-I had a friend who got herself locked into a pair of real handcuffs, thinking we had the key to them. We didn’t. We needed to get help from a real police officer to get them off.

-I was an outcast when I was younger. I had no social grace and didn’t know how to empathize with others. As I grew up, I slowly learned to do these things. While I’m still a little socially awkward, I have tons of friends now and love getting out and being around others.

-On a related note, I’ve always had a strong sense of wanting to do the right thing. Unfortunately, when I was younger I thought this meant blindly following the rules. As I grew up, I learned that just as often, it means challenging those rules which are unjust or immoral. And actually discovering what is moral and just.

-I went to college to learn more about things that interest me and to push my social boundaries. Finding a job was of secondary importance to me. In hindsight, this may have been a bad idea, but it still led to me growing a lot as a person, and I don’t think I’d take back that decision.

I may elaborate on some of these in the future (if I haven’t in other posts already), and I also may not. To me, this is just normal, but other people I’ve talked to seem to think it’s either cool, or find themselves identifying with me on a particular point because it’s something they’ve found others don’t relate to as well. Some of you may find one or more of those things I mentioned interesting. Others may think they’re positively bland. I’m willing to bet most readers will be interested by at least one point though.

In any case, if you really think life is boring, examine your personality and events in your life and think about the story they all weave together. I bet you’ll find your life isn’t as boring or normal as you think it is.

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The Smart Kid

Apr 7th, 09 / 0 Comments

Growing up, I was the smart kid. When I say that, I don’t mean to say I was smarter than everyone else. Rather, I was the one who had the reputation for being smart. I was the recluse, had few friends (though they were very good friends), and got good grades. In short, I fit the stereotype.

If you looked around the class, you would find plenty of people who were as smart as me academically. They had other characteristics that garnered more attention though, so smart kid fell to me. At first, I really liked being the smart kid. After all, I was interested in how things work, and figuring that out always gave me a sense of accomplishment. With the free time I had not being out with friends all the time, it was a simple matter to put in the effort to do well on my work.

Now, this reputation of being the smart kid followed me through middle school and high school. The thing is, I struggled just like everyone else. Yes, I was good at math and most sciences, but everything else was quite a lot of effort for a very long time. And in my experience, most people have one or two subjects that they do well with, so that’s also quite normal. But, with the lack of a social life, I had lots of time to put into getting work done well.

Over time though, I developed more of a social life. This still didn’t get in the way of me getting my work done, as I was still quite a recluse, so I saw most of my friends fairly infrequently.

Towards the end of high school though, there was a change. I decided I wanted a social life, and that was going to be a priority for me. I stepped out a bit, took some chances when it came to making friends, and put them before anything else I might have to do. At first, this was easy, and I had the time for them and for work and everything went on as normal, except I was seeing friends a lot more often.

Of course, this couldn’t last. There came a point in time where I had to choose what to put first, my friends or my schoolwork. Since I’d already decided that my friends would be my first priority from that point on, I put my schoolwork on hold. Which is to say, I did the work without putting in much effort, and decided I’d be happy with B’s knowing that I wasn’t trying on the work. If I thought a teacher wasn’t grading an assignment, I didn’t do it at all. I ended up with a couple of C’s due to these strategies, but that was ok, because what I was really interested in was my social life.

Due to my focus on my social life, it picked up a lot, and I learned a lot in the short time I had left in school. Oddly enough, even with my slipping grades, I maintained, without trying, my reputation as one of the smart kids. I guess once you have a reputation, it follows you for a long time.

In fact, I chose my college based first around where I thought I could grow the most socially. Naturally, I also wanted to get a good academic education, since that’s what I was paying for, but my social goals still were first in my mind. This meant two things: I had to choose a school away from home, and I decided to choose a school with a reputation for being a party school.

There was a purpose behind that choice, and it wasn’t to party away from home so my parents wouldn’t find out. Rather, I chose to be away from home because it would force me to make new friends on my own, something I hadn’t had to do since middle school. I chose to go to a “party school” because, while I wasn’t looking to go to parties all the time, I figured it would still have a lively community, something that would be helpful in making friends.

It turns out that this was right, and I made a lot of friends very quickly once I arrived. So, I achieved my primary goal of making a lot of friends, and I still graduated and earned my degree while doing so. Perhaps this isn’t the standard reasoning people use while choosing a school, but it worked for me, and I got what I needed out of my education on both social and academic fronts.

So what’s my point in saying all of this? Well, first, and least noticeable in this piece, is that your reputation follows you through the school system up through high school. Once it’s established, there isn’t much you can do about it unless you’re vocal enough to change it. I didn’t care one way or the other, so I didn’t bother.

My next point is that those who everyone perceives as smart or talented usually work for it, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Just because it doesn’t look like they put in any effort, doesn’t mean they don’t. In my case, once I didn’t have time to waste on all the work I got, I triaged ruthlessly to cut out all the stuff I didn’t need to do. So, it looked like I was putting in little effort to get good grades, but I was gaming the system in a way, putting in effort where needed and not trying where not needed. Before that happened, I just put a lot of effort into everything. And gaming the grading system takes some effort too, but there’s a great payoff in the return you get.

Finally, it would have been entirely possible for me to maintain my grades while building my social skills. The problem was, it would have taken a lot longer to do so, and I would have missed a lot of chances to make new friends or develop friendships I already had. So I made the choice to sacrifice work a bit for the sake of friends, but I certainly didn’t have to. It was simply the way I wanted to go about meeting my goals.

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Reputation and Societal Perceptions