When we place our faith in leaders and forfeit our curiosity and desire to form our own judgements, we make ourselves susceptible to corruptions of power and manipulation.
One of the symptoms of the present polarised state that we find our societies in is the pedestal on which we put so-called 'thought-leaders'. The idolisation of leaders seems to be a recurring theme in human societies and groups. Perhaps 12,000 years ago, humans put their confidence in village elders; perhaps 500 years ago, they relied on monarchs and nobility. In the 21st century, we put our trust in ‘thought leaders’. In fact, we trust them so much that we put all our faith in their views. We agree with them on several issues that we know about, so we subscribe wholeheartedly to their entire set of views.
A term I coined to help me think about this issue is 'the idea bundle'. The ‘idea bundle’ is a group of ideas that you subscribe to simply because you agree with a specific idea within that mindset. Whether stemming from human nature, from group-think or from sheer laziness, we find ourselves turning to figures whom we admire. We place the burden of decision-making and of critical thinking on them. We look to them for what we should think and blindly accept their judgements on highly complex and nuanced ethical and political issues simply because we respect or admire them. We accept all their views and ideas and find ourselves subscribing to their whole ‘idea bundle’ without any further discrimination or consideration. I’ve fallen fowl of this in the past and found myself advocating blindly in favour of views that I simply hadn’t thought through. The ‘logic’ goes like this:
1. I agree with, for example, Sam Harris on X, Y and Z.
2. I’m confronted with a situation in which I feel I must espouse a view about A, a topic I know nothing about.
3. I know Sam Harris has a certain view on A and I generally agree with Sam Harris on most things, so I’ll commit myself to his view, even though I know nothing about it.
Those of you with built-in impeccable critical thinking skills might just call me irrational or easily influenced and move on. But I see this happening all the time to people around me. I notice my own tendencies towards this mental short-cut on a regular basis, too.
It certainly is possible to admire people without subscribing to their 'idea bundle'. Given the current mainstream media and social media landscape, though, we're increasingly finding ourselves divided by the views that leaders and public figures espouse via these platforms. We pick a side and we run wholeheartedly with all the views that come as part of the package. When we place our faith in leaders and forfeit our own curiosity and desire to form our own judgements, we make ourselves susceptible to corruption of power and manipulation.
We should move away from modes of thinking that idolise these leaders. I certainly believe that there are experts out there that make extremely valuable contributions to public discourse and thought on moral and political issues. However, we are each individuals and must think for ourselves, must accept human fallibility and must take ownership over all our own ideas and critical thinking processes, rather than merely accepting all the items in someone else’s ‘idea bundle’.
This is the first time I’ve written about the ‘idea bundle’ concept, so if anyone has any further thoughts or feedback on the topic, I’d love to discuss it more and develop the concept further.
I'm really glad I came across this, Laura. What a great phrase that describes something so many of us fall into, including myself.
This is a very worthwhile conceptualisation, and it is an issue that does need to be promulgated more widely. That two ideas are commonly thought of as going together, or that a person who espouses one idea also espouses another, does not necessarily mean that both are right or that both are wrong, but it seems that a significant number of people often think the contrary.
Indeed, the whole notion of politics being divided into "left" and "right" wings, even where (1) neither "left" nor "right" wing politics are stable over time; and (2) the ideas that make up either wing are not consistent with one another (e.g., those who espouse free trade were traditionally thought to be "right-wing", whereas those who espouse open immigration were traditionally thought to be "left-wing", but there is no principled reason to distinguish the two, as freedom of movement of labour is a subset of free trade generally) is probably based on this fundamental fallacy.
The important thing is always to assess each claim individually and with the utmost rigour before accepting it, and to ensure that the confidence with which one believes an idea is precisely matched to the strength of the available evidence. There is never a need to commit confidently to an idea without having considered it carefully. Being uncertain about a claim is not only acceptable but desirable in such circumstances.