Dialogue: Woolly thinking makes sheep of us all

In a television programme called Human Zoo, humans were experimented on in candid-camera-style situations.

One subject - a man in a busy service station (everyone else was an actor) - witnessed another man stealing a wallet from the woman in front of him. Other customers saw this but chose not to say or do anything. Our man looked around and tried to catch the eye of other witnesses but, although he was disturbed by the situation, he ultimately followed the example of his peers and did nothing.

In another scenario, a woman sitting a test became disturbed by smoke billowing under the door. She expressed her desire to leave, but a fellow exam-sitter (an actor) persuaded her to wait until the administrator returned.

Everyone else was calmly completing his or her paper, so the subject decided to ignore her own instincts. The social desire to not be seen to be the odd one out clearly outweighed any imperative for survival.

This type of behaviour - the belief in conventional wisdom, the desire to be one of the crowd - has led to our greatest human tragedies. Would Hitler's atrocities have been permitted if the German people had thought for themselves?

Let's remember that once it was thought radical to question whether African Americans should be enslaved, or to consider whether women should be allowed to vote. Once, many people just accepted South Africa's system of apartheid. Such are the insidious powers of the status quo.

These themes are explored and exposed in Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, where small-town bigotry is rife and questioned mainly by innocent children who have yet to be indoctrinated into the narrow-minded ways of the world.

Similarly, polls before elections can be a dangerous thing. Those who are unable, or unwilling, to make up their own minds may be guided by what the majority are purportedly doing. To many people, there is something comfortable and easy about following the leader and becoming part of the victorious side.

Thus, the polls can end up actually guiding and shaping the result rather than predicting it.

In the school playground, one or two unfortunate children often somehow emerge as the geeks, the ones the others pick on. The ring-leaders are responsible for who is selected but it is the silent majority - who just go along with the collective wisdom that so-and-so has nits, or stinks, or something - that gives this system power.

We need to teach our children to think for themselves and to challenge established beliefs.

Once I joined a queue outside the Louvre in Paris, congratulating myself that the line was so much shorter than ones I had previously seen snaking for miles. Like a seasoned visitor, I said no to the postcard-hawkers who worked the queue and patiently waited to enter the museum.

Eventually, the line broke up and the message filtered back that today the Louvre was closed. My assumption that the 30 people ahead of me could not all be bumbling idiots was wrong. I was merely simpleton 31 in the line.

We must all take responsibility for our own decisions instead of automatically believing what we read or see or hear. We must apply brain power and analytical thought to issues, and arrive at conclusions with which we can truly live.

Sure, one of the inputs can be conventional belief and what everyone else thinks, but that must never be a substitute for exercising our own ability to reason.

It is the people who think outside the accepted square who often illuminate some shady and unpalatable corner of society. We should be grateful to those who challenge the status quo and destabilise our belief systems.

We may come from a nation of sheep, but we do not have to emulate their behaviour. Or maybe we do. Go figure that one out for yourself.

* Shelley Bridgeman is an Auckland writer.