Because The End of Average was so excellent, I’m imbibing in a second serving of Todd Rose. The thesis of Collective Illusions, subtitle, “Conformity, Complicity and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions” is that we don’t think through things independently. In contrast, we take short cuts, mindlessly going along with what we think others in our favored circles think. Often though, because everyone is taking similar shortcuts, we don’t realize there’s not much of a consensus at all. In essence, everyone is just going along to get along.
This insight is not flattering to the point that a lot of readers will likely say to themselves that it doesn’t apply to them. That they are outliers who often think things through independently. And how sad that others aren’t as stalwart.
The examples I kept wrestling with were, oddly given Rose is a professor, mostly absent from the book. That is, a post-modern progressivism that gripped higher education during the end of my career as a professor. Meaning, more specifically, an apparent consensus around repeated land acknowledgements, the delineation of pronouns, and related signals of “withitness” that struck me as oddly performative at times. A land acknowledgement at the beginning of an academic year seems entirely appropriate, and even at commencement as a type of bookend, but repeatedly at the start of every meeting? But I never even whispered that question that was swirling around in my peabrain. I went along to get along. As did many, maybe even most, of my colleagues.
This excerpt from Collective Illusions isn’t directly related to the overarching thesis, but stupefying enough to highlight.
“Many people will even sacrifice something they care about in order to feel comparatively superior to others. In February 1995, researchers asked 257 faculty, students, and staff at the Harvard School of Public Health to answer a set of hypothetical questions about which of the two worlds they would rather live in. Here is one of them:
A. Your current yearly income is $50,000; others earn $25,000.
B. Your current yearly income is $100,000; others earn $200,000.
Prices are what they are currently, and prices (therefore the purchasing power of money) are the same in states A and B.
Which one would you choose?
If You answered A, you were in the 56 percent majority. This choice would allow you to earn more than others, even though scenario B would pay you more overall. For most people, then, feeling superior was more important than making more money.”
What say you?
