Liberty Jubilee

“And the word “courage” should be reserved to characterize the man or woman who leaves the infantile sanctuary of the mass mind.” – Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly

In the privacy of our minds many of us disagree with the ideologies, political agendas, and government mandates of our day, yet in public we comply.

We do what we are told, say what is politically correct, and justify our hypocrisy by telling ourselves that we are powerless to change society, and so we might as well blend in with the crowd. In this video, we explain why publicly conforming to what we privately disagree with makes us complicit in tyranny, and why each of us has far more power to influence society than we have been led to believe. 

In the 1950s, the social psychologist Solomon Asch conducted an experiment which demonstrated the degree to which individuals will reject what they think is true in order to conform to the majority.

In the experiment, Asch showed a test subject two cards. On the first card was a single line, and on the second card were three lines, A, B, and C, with only line C being the same length as the line on the first card. Asch instructed the test subject to state which line on the second card was the same length as the line on the first card.

However, before the test subject gave an answer, they witnessed 7 confederates – or individuals who were in on the experiment – state that line B was the same length as the line on the first card.

Rather than state the obvious truth, the test subjects gave the same wrong answer as the group 37% of the time, and of the 123 test subjects who took part in this experiment, two thirds went along with the group at least once.

Asch’s experiment confirms what philosophers have been reiterating for thousands of years: for most human beings conforming to what others say and do – no matter how objectively false or absurd – takes precedence over adapting to reality and discovering the truth. In reflecting on Asch’s experiment, the psychologist Todd Rose explains: 

“…we care about being in the numerical majority even when we don’t necessarily care about the group and even when the group opinion is merely an illusion. Acting on instinct, in social situations our brains don’t actually bother to make the distinction between appearance and reality…Even in the absence of intentional pressure or incentives, we like to go along with what we think is the consensus because, quite simply, we’re biologically wired to do so.” – Todd Rose, Collective Illusions

Our inclination to go along with what we think is the consensus makes us vulnerable to propaganda and easily manipulated.

For one of the primary ways that governments, corporations, and global institutions influence public opinion and shape mass behavior is by manufacturing illusions of consensus.

They harness the power of the mainstream media and social media for the express purpose of making it seem as if the majority supports certain agendas, ideologies, and mandates. Slanted narratives, biased reports, rhetoric that appeals to emotion, misleading “fact checks”, outright lies, dubious opinion polls, and social bots are some of the weapons used in this subtle form of psychological warfare.

Todd Rose heads an organization which investigates the misconceptions that people hold regarding what is the consensus on social and political issues, and as he explains: 

“Name anything that truly matters to you, and I’ll wager that you are flat-out wrong about what the majority of people really think about at least half of them. And that’s being generous.”  = Todd Rose, Collective Illusions

These illusions of consensus lead many of us to censor our real opinions, and to comply with socially destructive agendas and ideologies.

Todd Rose references a study conducted in July of 2020 which revealed that nearly two thirds of Americans are not comfortable voicing their political opinions in public. But to make matters worse, when others see us conforming in public, they assume that we agree with what we are conforming to, and this heightens their inclination to conform and opens the door for collective illusions to form and spread throughout society. Or as Todd Rose explains: 

“Collective illusions are social lies. They occur in situations where a majority of individuals in a group privately reject a particular opinion, but they go along with it because they (incorrectly) assume that most other people accept it. The result is a pernicious, self-fulfilling prophecy. By making blind and ultimately false assumptions about the opinions of those around us and worrying that we are in the minority, we become more likely to perpetuate the very views we and others do not hold. Worse, because the very same people who disagree with the status quo are the ones enforcing it, it becomes all but impossible to dismantle the illusion.”  – Todd Rose, Collective Illusions

Read the rest, Why are People so Obedient? – Compliance and Tyranny