Group-Think and Worthy Groups
Contrary to expectations, work hasn’t yet tapered off to “normal” levels. I am back though because I started missing the blog! Yeah, how does one miss something like a blog? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I missed being able to spout verbose on things that catch my attention.Â
Lately, I have been thinking of the effect of “group-think.” Now I know that sounds very Orwellian, but I don’t have anything sinister in mind. What set it off was that about ten days ago, I spent an evening with two of my aunts at the Ramakrishna Mutt in Chennai. (Beautiful place, for those of you who haven’t been there - worth a visit just to inhale the heady fragrance of the Champa trees in the well-maintained campus, even if you are the non-spiritual, non-religious sort). Â We went to attend the evening Aarti and Bhajans, and while I enjoyed those very much, what struck me was the immense quiet and peace that filled the cathedral-like room. There wasn’t a single board asking for silence and no one was policing the place. Yet, all 40-50 people attending the session sat down quietly and participated, including the many young children in the audience.Â
On our way out, there was a small vessel with holy water, with a lid on. One by one, in a queue that formed itself, people walked out, opened the lid, took some water with the spoon kept in the vessel and moved on to let others do the same. Now, can you imagine this scene in any temple in India, regardless of the city it is in or the community it serves?Â
Of course, one explanation is that as opposed to people who go to most temples, visitors to RK Mutt are likely to be a more educated lot - perhaps people who have read the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and been inspired, not simply people who bow their heads to a deity as part of a ritual. On the other hand, fly anywhere in India and while air passengers are likely to have some fairly high income as well as education levels (high proportion of business travellers), the bid to get off the airplane as though those at the end will be carted off to Siberia, is amazing. So, one could maybe say that education is a necessary but not sufficient condition for socially civilized behaviour.Â
My theory is that it is not so much because of education or affluence as because of what we think the group expects us to do. While I was a stray visitor, it is likely that many of the other worshippers were regulars. Perhaps they have internalised the codes of the mutt which stipulate it as a calm refuge to focus one’s mind on a higher plane. When others enter the prayer hall, they see the behaviour of these, more enlightened devotees, and subconsiously, they realise the unwritten code. Unlike an airplane where one couldn’t care less about the views of one’s fellow travellers and is prepared to nudge them aside to get off (or on) first, here, as a spiritual seeker, perhaps one is more conscious about the views of the group. This is a group whose approval is worth seeking. Being part of such a group makes one feel better about the self - by association, you become a calm, peaceful and enlightened being.Â
That means, there are two things at play:
- The views (expressed or unexpressed) of the group are important to us
- With the caveat that the group itself must be considered worth following
It’s not just group-think, it’s also about identifying the groups one thinks are worthy enough to follow.Â
Â
Apu, nice observations. Methinks there’s group-think, there’s social conditioning, but there’s also a space-function, and lowest common multiple, highest common factor (not to sound like a mathematician!).
Space function relates to the fact that some spaces are associated with some clearly defined function, like a temple, or hospital, which distinguish our actions from those in places like an airplane or railway station dont. About the temple comparison that you bring out, I would also add in crowd/pop.density as a factor,as a big factor, where Tirumala may be different from, lets say, “K.K.Nagar Pillayar koil”, which may be different from Aurobindo ashram.
As far as LCM and HCF factors, as a person who has been endlessly shocked and bemused at people jumping queues, esp. in India, I can say that there is a mob tendency, where people in the group tend to readily descend to the lowest common acceptable social behavior, in other words, once some one has cut through the queue, without a whole lot of outrage from the group, then it immediately makes it less intimidating/embarassing for others to follow suit. This is the default state, particularly in places like India today, where due to the socio-economic conditions for past several generations, people are used to the idea of limited resources, and therefore the urgency of acquiring these resources takes on a more rabid/careless form. Case in point, queueing for water in poor communities. In other cases, where there is no conditioning of resource scarcity, people are more willing to follow the highest common factor, like in an ashram, or at a dinner party, people will do “pehle aap” to an exaggeration.
and nice add-ons too Sri! I think what makes people descend to the LCM is also partly space function and partly group-influence…