In the early 70s, I grew up a nerdy patriotic idealist. When I learned to read, the first books I pulled from the library shelves were about dinosaurs and the U.S. presidents. I read Meet George Washington, Meet John Adams, and all of the rest of the series. I didn't stop there. I wore out the binding of our World Book Encyclopedia and Bicentennial Almanac learning all I could about our founding fathers and the beginning of the country. I believed in self determination, democracy, and that our government was guided by principle and that those who were elected were to be respected and revered. After all, the majority, voting on principle, would only elect those who were of the highest principle. Right? How could the majority be wrong?
My fourth grade social studies teacher is responsible for crushing my idealistic vision. One day, she gave us a pre-test that we would review in class. Most of the questions were pretty straightforward but a few were more complicated. The last question, however, required more thought. Although it was a multiple choice question, it required you to understand not just the individual concepts of the lesson, but how they all worked together.
For each of the answers, the teacher asked how many students answered each way. The first answer received 2 responses. The second answer received 23 responses. The third answer received 5 responses. The fourth answer had 1 response.
The teacher looked at us puzzled and then did something strange. She asked if anyone wanted to change their answer. The people with the first and fourth answers immediately switched to answer two. 2 of the people with the third answer did so as well. This now split the responses 28 to 3 between answers number 2 and 3. I was in the group with 3 responses.
The teacher went further. She pointed to me and the boy next to me and asked us each to explain why we thought our answers were correct. I went first and explained my position. I detailed how everything fit together and pointed out the other questions on the test and how the information built on itself to support my position. The other boy basically said, "Isn't it obvious? We all know the answer is answer 2." He pointed around the crowd of students to indicate how many were on his side. He highlighted the more popular kids in the class. When he finished, the teacher asked one more time, "Would anyone like to change their answer?"
I expected that I would have persuaded some to my side. Instead, I was disheartened when the girls who had previously agreed with me switched to the majority opinion. They both looked at me guiltily when they did so. The teacher paused and said, "I'm surprised to hear that. The correct answer is answer 3." She chided the class for their lack of understanding of the material. I'm not sure she realized that she'd just put a 4th grade class through a psychology lesson in group think.
I took two things away from class that day. First, I quickly learned that some people wouldn't take kindly to being told publicly that they are wrong. While the teacher didn't catch hell, I got some hallway shoving for the sole fact that I had been highlighted as being right when they were wrong. The second thing I learned was that the majority is not always right; even when they strongly think they are. I determined then that I would do my best to be swayed by logic vs. crowd opinion, no matter how strong a temptation there would be to "fit in." As I studied more, I realized that all great changes in science, business, and society come not by fitting in, but by thinking differently. New things aren't invented by the majority. The greatest businesses provide new or better products or services. Society advances and changes because people venture to change rules that restrict our freedom.
Today our society has so much potential. We have social media products that give us each a voice. Blogs let people develop and communicate their own thoughts. There is greater discourse through more avenues than at any time in history yet there is still a tendency to embrace group think. Messengers are attacked personally by people who refuse to question logic. Others refuse to listen to anyone's opinion other than those they hold themselves.
Healthy discourse is essential to growth and to changing others minds. Like anyone, sometimes I cringe when I hear another's opinion. On some subjects, part of me wants to condemn them. It's easy to do so and move on. However, what does that solve? If I'm wrong, I remain so, and have remained close minded to a valid position. I relegate myself to being one of those students from 4th grade who wouldn't change their position. On the other hand, if I'm right, I've missed a chance to help someone else think differently.
While I've always remembered this incident from 4th grade, I was recently reminded of it when someone on Twitter informed me that their daughter's class had been discussing the 2nd Amendment in class. It sounded as though her daughter was changing her personal opinion not due to a change in her thoughts but rather because the rest of the class disagreed with her. She changed her opinion to think that it was possible that licenses should be required. Reading her tweets, it hit very close to home to me. I could see the teacher leading the discussion, a majority of the class having another opinion, and the gradual shift of thought, rightly or wrongly, as the majority became stronger. I suggested to her that she have her daughter ask whether licenses should be required for other rights. Should we have to have a license to speak freely, for the press to publish, or to exercise religious choice? People should form their opinions on societal issues based upon logic and facts and not simply because they think that's the way the majority feels. After all, sometimes, actually often, the majority is wrong.
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