A Semester in Amsterdam
I am a junior at Washington University in St. Louis studying abroad in Amsterdam. Since my first semester at college, I have made sure to constantly keep myself busy either studying in a library, taking part in athletics, maintaining a social life, involving myself in various extracurricular activities, and wasting time watching pointless YouTube videos and Netflix shows. I had what I now consider a naïve mindset for a successful life: work hard to excel in class, leverage my academic success to get a quality internship, receive a return offer, accept that offer and make a lot of money working for the same company for the rest of my life.
I decided to study computer science and financial engineering to put myself in a good place for future internships and jobs, and my mindset remained the same for the first two and a half years of college. Fortunately, my master plan came to fruition; I accepted an internship for my junior summer before flying to Amsterdam in late January where I just need to pass my classes to receive credit. I had achieved my vision of security; I had an internship, my classes required little effort, and I had enough credits that failing a class or two did not matter. This combination generated an excess of free time, which, coupled with my newfound interest in reading and listening to podcasts, led me to think about many random topics.
The fast-paced, busy life I had in the US vanished and my mind aimlessly wandered through the vastly different topics of sports analytics, internal and external motivation, American versus Dutch culture, college education’s importance (or lack thereof), and individual thought. The latter is what I will address with the rest of this essay. When I say individual thought, I simply mean someone who can think critically about an idea and arrive at a logical conclusion without being severely influenced by external opinions. To get a better picture of the topic, I will illustrate a snapshot of my high school experience.
High School
Growing up I was fortunate to attend the Collegiate School for thirteen years before moving to St. Louis for college. Collegiate provided me with lifelong friendships, instilled the importance of hard work, and taught me to have fun, joke around and stay positive in times of difficulty. I could not ask for anything more from that school; I could have only asked more of myself.
English was my least favorite subject in high school, and I dreaded writing essays for humanity classes. I rarely read the assigned literature and felt unmotivated to write because I believed I sucked at it. Reflecting now, it seems like I put myself in a great position to succeed as a writer! Maybe not so surprisingly, I enjoyed the math and science classes instead.
I liked algebra, calculus, and physics because they were all very formulaic, and that is precisely the issue. The further you go in these classes, the more abstract and complex they become; solving a problem such as, what credit rating should we assign to this person, is incredibly difficult because there are infinite solutions. Finding a good solution requires reasoning about the problem in many different ways, creating a model, seeing how it performs, understanding why it fails, and finally improving it. This iterative process of solving a problem with infinite solutions, however, does not present itself in high school math classes. Teachers, instead, give students problems that have a single correct answer; these questions are black and white. Sure you need to be creative, looking at an integral and thinking: ‘hmmm, I need to take this u-sub, split the result using partial fractions, use a trig identity, substitute back the original variables, plug-in the bounds, then I will have the correct answer’ is not easy. But that sort of thinking is also very different from what higher level math and humanity classes require.
Though it has been five years since my sophomore year, I still have vivid memories of my English class. We read Paradise Lost but claiming I read more than an eighth of that literature would be an outright lie. Usually, I would read the SparkNotes plot summary and analysis before class and that was the full extent of my effort to prepare for class. Sorry, Dr. Beall! In class, when the professor asked a question about the meaning of a specific passage and why it was important, I would listen to other student’s responses and passively agree with their analysis of that passage.
It is clear that my preparation was lackluster, but what does any of this have to do with individual thought? If we ever had a reading quiz, I would simply regurgitate what I read from SparkNotes and do fine. When the professor prodded the class to think about a passage I would listen to my fellow students’ ideas instead of coming up with my own. In both scenarios, I adopted other people’s thoughts as my own without ever thinking for myself. I squandered a perfect opportunity to read the epic poem, form my own opinions independent of the external influences of my classmates, and develop those thoughts in class through discussion. The common phrase “you get out what you put in” illustrates my high school humanity classes well. My scarce effort inhibited my ability to think critically for myself, and instead encouraged me to spew other peoples’ opinions proudly as my own; I became a great deception artist.
I am not necessarily saying other people’s opinions are bad; most of my classmates’ thoughts were probably superior to what would have been my own. Not thinking of my own ideas, however, was the fundamental issue. If I agreed with another student, I would have wanted to agree because I came to the same conclusion of my own accord, or that he changed my mind from my original opposing premise. I regret my younger self’s actions because I wasted a unique opportunity to read literature, removed from any external influences, and discuss my thoughts with an incredibly knowledgeable professor who could illuminate the strengths and shortcomings of my analytical thinking. Borrowing my peers’ thoughts stagnated my own ability to think, and I missed out on feedback from my professor that is crucial for improving internal creativity and logical thinking.
High School No More
Through six semesters in college, I am still yet to take a humanity class. As stated before, I had a starkly different mindset and erroneously considered humanities a waste of time. One thing I can guarantee, however, is approaching humanities with the aforementioned mindset I had in high school will most certainly be an inefficient use of one’s time.
Listening to people is great, reading books and learning how other people think is great, listening to a podcast is great, but I do not think we should blindly follow anyone’s ideas, even when they are very convincing. We should be cognizant whether we are actually thinking for ourselves or agreeing with someone else’s viewpoint; these two actions could lead to the same view, but I think they are fundamentally different for previously stated reasons. Say someone gives a speech on a topic you know nothing about, do you just agree with them because their arguments are convincing? Say you read an article about the importance of individual thought, do you just agree to what the author says!? I hope not, take what the author has to say with a grain of salt. When you ingest any source of information, there is a stark difference between passively nodding your head versus actively trying to pick apart the argument to see where it thrives and fails. Questions are crucial for becoming more similar to the latter; they force one to reason to themselves why something may or may not be true.
While some might think this comparison extreme, I believe one can compare cheating to labeling someone else’s opinion as one’s own to cheating. Looking at someone’s sheet of paper on a test and scribing their answer on your own piece of paper is clearly immoral, but how is repeating what someone else’s conclusions without thinking for yourself any different? If you copy peoples’ answers you will never learn how to do the problem on your own. If you copy other peoples’ opinions, you will have difficulty thinking on your own.
Groups
Though certain settings are great for incubating and developing individual thought, most scenarios are not. We will generally find ourselves in group settings working with others, so we need to be aware of when we begin to passively nod our heads and agree with people without thinking for ourselves. At this point take a little break, close your eyes, and think about what role you want to have in a group. Don’t say something shallow like “I want to be a leader” or use similar phrases you have repeatedly heard. Dig deeper and articulate precisely what you want to do. For example, I want to play devil’s advocate; when my group makes a decision I want to analyze it from many different perspectives and try to understand how it could potentially fail or where there might be inconsistencies. I want to find edge cases and consider when our idea might fail while not coming off as a pretentious and argumentative snob that my group dislikes. I want to question more than persuade and hope inquiry and discussion will lead to a better group decision. So, how do you want to help your group?
Working in a group is great. In fact, Faust, (1959) illustrated groups generally perform better than an individual on many tasks. Collective thinking tends to outperform individuals because people can pool their strengths and are not affected by their weaknesses in a group setting. Though groups can be good, they also introduce a problem not present with just an individual: the free-rider problem.
Albanese & Van Fleet, (1985) studied the free-rider problem from an economic perspective and defined it as individuals reaping the rewards of group work while contributing nothing themselves. I, however, am less concerned with whether it is economically practical for individuals to contribute and more with how an individual contributes to a group. There is nothing stopping you from offering no input, never questioning the group opinion, and doing all the work asked of you. I do not believe this makes you a good group member because you are replaceable and can be aptly compared to a monkey. Though you have helped put together a PowerPoint presentation or a word document, you were simply a scribe and not a contributor. Thus, I urge you to be cognizant when you are working with a group to not be the former (this is not an excuse to blow off potentially boring work).
Some groups perform better than others, maybe it’s the people, maybe it’s the incentive, maybe it’s another unknown variable, probably it’s a mix of many. Regardless, I posit groups which are successful have people articulating their own opinions. Consider two different groups of four people: the first group has its members communicate their own ideas and they collectively discuss whether it is a good or bad idea. The second group has one leader who tells everyone what to do. The latter will generally perform worse than the former because collective thinking tends to outperform individual thinking, and I view the latter as an individual rather and not a group for obvious reasons.
The phrase wisdom of the crowd refers to a collective intelligence that aggregates independent contributions, and there is no bigger success story than Wikipedia. I believe that groups should function in a similar way; every member should contribute their own thoughts to the project. Actively listening and asking questions is the best way to learn and form one’s own opinion. I understand that there are people more knowledgeable in almost every topic than I am, but I do not think that is ample justification to follow their thoughts without inquiries. When I was younger and got in trouble, I would always say “but my brother told me to do it” to which my parents would reply “if he told you to jump off of a bridge would you do it?”
I wonder how many people actually think for themselves, is it 5%? Is it 95%? A consultant asked me a similar question during an interview, how many golf balls can you fit in an airplane? I have absolutely no clue. Yes, approximating the golf balls is possible if you know the dimensions of the plane, but I cannot think of a good metric to determine if someone thinks for themselves — one question is inherently objective and the other subjective. Rather than trying to answer either question, ask yourself this: Do you consider yourself an individual thinker? Why? What examples do you have of thinking for yourself? What examples do you have of listening to others rather than thinking for yourself? If you believe you are truly that good of an individual thinker where you cannot think of a single counter-example, then you are not thinking hard enough. If you are still stuck, I will help you; let us talk about politics because I believe this topic encapsulates a lack of individual thinking best.
Politics
While we are actively involved in groups for school or work, there are other larger groups to which are hard to contribute and instead just regurgitate the general group opinions. Miller & Prentice, (1994) discuss the concept of pluralistic ignorance, which they define as individuals making systemic errors in their perceptions of the members of a collective and their relation to those members. Simply stated, pluralistic ignorance is the phenomenon where people base their opinions off of their perceptions of the group, which could be inaccurate, rather than thinking for themselves.
Imagine you are in a college lecture listening to the professor trying to explain an incredibly difficult concept. The professor pauses for a second and asks the students if there are any questions, to which the students look around the room to gauge their peers. Seeing no hand raised, a student will misinterpret this silence and lack of questions as an indication that their peers understood the lecture, and that they were the only ones confused. This scenario has happened to me in many of my classes, and I have always remained silent but wish I just said: “that was so confusing and I have no idea what is going on.”
Miller & Prentice use the above example to illustrate the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance and go further to partition it into three distinct categories: minority-enforced social norms, prototypical social norms, and conservative lag. Prohibition, which is an example of the first, seemed to have public support in the United States when the law was passed; however, people were reluctant to share their private opinions because they went against the perceived public sentiment. The second scenario arises when the public norm emerges that represents an idealized but not average value of a group. For example, many juveniles in youth gangs were privately uncomfortable with their own behavior but publicly supported similar behavior. The last scenario is one in which a public norm once had private support and despite shifting private views remains the public norm despite the shifting of private views. An example of this would be Whites attitudes towards integrating Blacks in America or legalizing weed in the United States. The public norm lags behind the updated private values. Each scenario has the same root cause: either people do not think for themselves and base their opinions off of their perception of others, or they are afraid to share their own thoughts, which they believe diverge from the norm.
Politics is an incredibly sensitive topic where newspapers, news shows, and those that run for office all have a public image they need to uphold, and there are potential repercussions for saying something they believe privately to the public. There is no need to delve any deeper into the subject, but I implore you to think of some examples to show how a lack of individual thought can arise in politics. Does a person who rattles off headlines they read on CNN or Fox think for themselves? How many people try to read political information or interpret current events without a confirmation bias leaning towards either the Republicans or Democrats? I am ignorant about most things related to politics and am fine with that; I would rather say “I do not know” in response to a political question than spout off someone else’s opinion like a zombie.
In Conclusion
Because I reflected on my high school English classes in this essay, I will relay some advice I actually remember that my professors taught me: never start your final paragraph with the words, “In Conclusion.” And never start a sentence with a conjunction. Now I can tie this viewpoint together and answer a seemingly self-evident question, why is individual thought important in the first place?
Though I believe individual thought is great, it is unrealistic to expect everyone to think for themselves. Listening passively to others is easier than thinking for yourself. It is easier to watch a Netflix show than write an essay. I realized that I had a problem of not thinking for myself in late January and even now, in the middle of June, I realize I still struggle to think for myself despite being proactive. However, I have made progress; I am more conscientious of what thoughts are my own and what thoughts I take from others. And when I take opinions from others, I try to ask myself questions on why I agree and disagree with the opinion. The same way one gets stronger by consistently lifting weights, one becomes better at thinking for themselves.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often”
Winston Churchill
Consider the following unlikely scenario, the CEO of a company advises you on what to do with your life. Should you just blindly follow what he says because you believe he is credible? Should we follow those more knowledgeable than ourselves? It is great to listen and to learn from others but be sure to think for yourself. How do you think the CEO became CEO? How do you think an inventor invents something? At a certain point, they need to come up with their own original ideas. Leaders in their respective field of thought can always listen to opinions from others and even agree, but they must also be individual thinkers. Without individual thought, there would be no new visions of the future, no progress, no innovation, no improvement.
I urge you to think for yourself and make mistakes. Learn from those mistakes and improve your thinking. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s elegantly has Razumihin describe the importance of individual thought in Crime and Punishment.
“Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird.”
Razumihin
If you just read this article and are passively nodding your head in agreement to some of the points made you have learned nothing. You have done the opposite of what the author intended; do not simply listen to what I have written. Close your eyes and ask yourself the question, is individual thought even important? If so, why? Obviously, I arrived at the conclusion that it is important, but you should think of your own reasons. Question my thoughts, modify them, consider what important topics I failed to talk about, contemplate what I talked too much about that was unnecessary. Ironically, if you disagree with me and believe that individual thinking is not important, well you that is good because you are thinking for yourself.