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| Edited By: Birender Ahluwalia |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Sep 18, 2016, 04:02 PM IST
Writing this column seems rather hypocritical. I keep asking myself this question— have I have enclosed myself in an “echo chamber”?
First some background. For a few moments, allow me to take you back to the advent of civilisation when men and women started forming groups or tribes. Each person was designated roles based on perceived skills and competence. These were times when a single tribesman’s mistake could wipe out the entire tribe. The flourishing of the tribe depended on every member behaving in accordance with designated roles, established norms and values. Any member who did not perform their role would put the entire tribe at risk. Transgressions were met with outrage, anger and disgust. Informal systems like bullying or formal corrective action would be issued to get them back in line.
When the emotion of anger and disgust work together, the tribe’s response would be to eject the “offender” from the safety of the tribe. The highest form of punishment would be ostracising or ejecting them from the entire tribe. A sole person being removed from the tribe meant certain death.
Tribes had to compete with other tribes for scarce resources— land, food, wood and water. With the advent of trade, tribes evolved to cities and states. Wars were set off over the trade of opium, gold, silk, tea, spices. With a growing populace, land was at a premium— to cultivate food, raise livestock, build cities for their citizens —and rivers precious for water.
The elders of the tribe would use “us” against “them” to keep the unity within forces.
Language evolved with an us-and-them mindset. We would label the enemy with harsh, negative terms. Example: Vermin need to be exterminated. If the enemy had values different from us, we would label “them” as immoral, barbaric and uncivilised.
Over centuries, countries began to align on linguistic, religious and political ideologies. “Our way” was deemed to be intellectually superior as compared to “their” barbaric ways. Every tribe created their own bubble or a chamber.
Fifteen years ago, the “us” and “them” got a new lease of life.
History suggests that this statement was used earlier by Lenin, Mussolini and George Orwell to exhort people to take sides like everything was black and white. Anyone with an opposing ideology was to be eliminated.
Forty months after Bush’s statement, Mark Zuckerberg, who was studying Psychology and Computer Science at Harvard, began writing code for Facebook. Two years later, Jack Dorsey started developing Twitter. Unwittingly, they created what psychologists call an echo chamber. Perhaps the world’s largest echo incubator and echo chamber.
The echo chamber effect is a condition arising in a community where participants find their own opinions constantly ‘echoed’ back to them, thus reinforcing a certain sense of truth that resonates with their individual belief systems. In well-established groups, once a consensus is formed, it is hard to change the norm. On the contrary, presenting any contrarian information leads to a further entrenching of beliefs.
In social media, the norms are enforced with even more brutality. If someone puts up a post which you like or, to put it more accurately, which conforms to your self-belief, you will be inclined to follow or send a friend request.
A colleague put up a post about how she feared street dogs. She did so with great balance and respect but it set off—what we call—a troll. Well, a mini troll. So it’s pretty much “with us” or “against us”.
A telecom operator announced their new services. The echo chamber was at work again. Messages began to appear in the digital space, causing little bits of confusion, outrage and perhaps a little “I told you so”.
An accomplished heroine made a rather human and innocent error on television. Despite her accomplishments in the field of cinema, jokes about her continue to be circulated. Those jokes make sense to us, but not ones about a singer or cricketer?
The recent shutdown in Bangalore and the destruction of valuable infrastructure was caused when two neighbouring states, who swear allegiance to the same flag, Constitution and judiciary, would not or could not find the generosity to share water resources.
Sometimes we stick to established social scripts. Sometimes we build on them. It makes us seem more likeable. But it can also make jokes, ridicule and bullying the norm.
The opening episode of Newsroom season one poses a very interesting question. Will McAvoy tries to sing along with the social script. Then, he lets go.
Lynn Hasher and her colleagues wrote down statements such as “basketball became an Olympic Sport in 1925”. They presented people with 60 facts from History, Politics, Current Affairs, Sports, Science, Arts, Geography, Demography and Religion. Some of the facts were true and some were blatantly false. Spread across six weeks, participants had to rate these facts on a scale of one to seven. A rating of seven meant that they believed the statement to be definitely true, four meant they were uncertain and one meant definitely false. Participants had to do the same study three times. Twenty of the statements (ten true and ten false) were repeated throughout the three studies. What they found was that for repeated statements, participants were more confident in their beliefs for both true and false statements. Just repeatedly hearing the same statement increases how much we believe it, even if we hear it’s not trustworthy. If we have heard the statement before we tend to forget the source, but the brain retains the factoid.
Once we begin to believe something, we think the entire world thinks in a similar fashion. For example, if you believe that the Great Wall of China is visible from space to the naked eye, you might think that everyone believes that. (Note: It’s not true. The Great Wall is not visible from space to the unaided eye).
If I believe in the existence of God, I hold the belief to be universal. I might not be open to any arguments which might shake me from my ritual of offering prayer and visiting religious places of various religions.
Facebook has very interesting options called “unfollow”, “unfriend” and “block”. Think about the people you remove from your feed?
I remove anyone who puts up any political post from my follow list. There are three exceptions because they remind me of Kushwant Singh, the noted author who wrote a column called ‘With Malice Towards One and All’, and, gosh, they are funny.
So in this purge, I remove any views about politics or, for that matter, people who oppose non-vegetarians. I have enclosed myself in an echo chamber.
Brexit was a classic case. From what I had heard, I was convinced that Brexit was not going to happen. Without any knowledge of the issues at hand, I had already made a judgement. Post the referendum, I was quick to view it as an economic disaster. Somehow, I became an expert on the resilience of the British citizens to build a future of their own making.
I disagree with Trump’s policies. Therefore, I reject Donald Trump. I reject his supporters. I might even ridicule them for supporting him. The more I ridicule them, the more their beliefs are strengthened. Even if he happens to come up with a rational argument or if he tempers his rhetoric, I might view him with suspicion and wait for a slip-up. I will keep looking to resolve the dissonance because I do not like the man and what he stands for.
On the other hand, I might reject emerging information on any potential health issues that Hillary Clinton might have. I have not even fully understood why Hillary Clinton is the right choice, but in my mind, Trump needs to be stopped. How did I arrive at these conclusions? I have no idea. I just did. My brain forced me to make a choice.
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Cass Sunstein in his book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness suggests that people make choices that later baffle them. He suggests that we should be able to exercise our choice to not choose. Why should we choose between values? Why can we not integrate values?
Over the last couple of years, I am beginning to understand the power of the simple statement ‘I don’t know’. It works like a reboot button. You delete the overloaded memory and are ready to write a new software code.
Relationships are difficult to maintain. As I had written in a previous column, values become standards against which we measure people. When presented with a different perspective, remind yourself that you are arguing an issue and not the person.
Talk to different people with different opinions and just listen. Do not respond. Absorb the words and feelings of the speaker. Do not judge. Just listen. Once you have finished listening, try and paraphrase what you heard in a couple of sentences. You can start your sentence with “If I understand you correctly…” or “What I hear you saying is…” It gives the person the assurance that they have been understood, which is a great foundation to make a deeper connection. If needed, you can ask a question to clarify any doubts, but start by saying, “I would like to clarify. When you said ____ did you mean ____?” Needless to say, the question should not be loaded with judgement.
In our personal echo chambers, sharing a caricature that mocks an actress gives out a signal that we think alike. Ridicule and gossip help you bond within your own chamber. Then the question you have to ask is this— are you seeking validation from your echo chamber? Is there some new information that has been uncovered? Take the trouble to verify the truth, instead of saying, forwarded as received.
Think of your values as a lens with which you view an issue. It’s not about being nice. It’s about integrating another point of view in your value systems.
To conclude, let’s look at the most pressing issues. Physical and mental health, fundamentalism, poverty, space exploration, scientific endeavours, education standards, global warming, sustainable energy, cross-border and urban migration, border disputes, nuclear proliferation; global infrastructure, global banking, global trade and trading blocs, global stock and investment markets; the looming water and food crisis. Phew.
We need a different mindset where two divergent views would be held to be equally valid, a mindset that is curious and courageous enough to explore a worldview different from our own. It starts with stepping outside our echo chambers.
The author is the Founder of The Positivity Company, where he helps business leaders become more positive and productive. Birender can be reached on birender.ahluwalia@gmail.com.
