Things get worse when they are imprinted in our minds with strong emotional context. Usually, when someone says bad things about our parents, children or loved ones, we tend to first react irrationally, even if some of the things said may be true. Many times in such cases, we don’t even bother to verify or check the information behind what’s said. Many people of various cultures are brought up from age zero to think of a spiritual leader as some kind of parent. A priest or a rabbi may be conceived as a father – a padre. Speaking against him is first and foremost perceived as lies and hatred. Rational analysis of what’s actually said, if any, comes only afterwards.

The Orthodox Jews have a name for this: Emunas Chachomim – faith in the wise ones, the sages. Whatever my rabbi says is sacred. There is no doubt he is right. If something later appears to be wrong, look for the reasons elsewhere, not in the words themselves. It’s important to emphasize again that this is how they feel. And this is based on Biblical text itself: “…and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach thee.” (Deuteronomy, chapter 17, verse 10). This is indeed a closed loop: God says I should listen to my rabbi, which in turn teaches me that everything God says is right!

There are a couple of other issues, worth mentioning on this complex road of forming one’s way of life.

Yehoshua Bar-Yosef wrote the book ‘A Heretic Despite Himself’, which tells a long and colorful story of the road from Orthodox Judaism to the secular world. In the beginning of the story, our hero keeps participating in monthly gatherings with his male friends, away from their wives (for a good religious reason, you know). Their dancing ritual together – producing that high feeling – is described as far better than having sex.

People searching for their “identity” also seek a group of which to be part. We usually enjoy Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ when we’re too young to fully understand what’s going on (The king is naked! The king is naked!). Yet the message is clear and true: The power of the crowd is real. It both pressures and strengthens. The pressure is in the sense that we hate to appear different than the others. As for strengthening – have you ever participated in an event, where a large group of people with a similar ideology were performing some ritual together? Whether in political or religious context, one gets rather emotional in this “I encourage you and you encourage me” situation, and things seem as if they must be truer than ever.

Having a clear and well-defined goal fits well in this picture – just ask any successful high-tech startup manager. If you know exactly what you want to achieve and how you’re going to be rewarded at the end, you are also liable to share that feeling of “I am right”.

Another issue has to do with Newton’s first law of inertia. In addition to our being programmed to follow what we absorb as kids, we start implementing another program in our brain when we grow up – the program that makes it difficult for us to change things. Again, we are programmed to preserve our perception of the world, as we grow older. And yet again, another characteristic of ours is that we think we do a good job in examining the alternatives and choosing constantly.

This is somewhat correlated with what’s known as the Touchy-Feely Syndrome – the tendency for people to overvalue things they have touched or selected personally. This characteristic of ours is often a good reason for why investors stay with an investment for too long.

By the time many people dare to really think about altering their way of life, they have already established their position in the society around them. By then it might be very difficult to change the day-to-day behavior – What you wear, how you speak and where you live – even if perhaps you now secretly believe in completely different things.

Sometimes you unknowingly lie to yourself, only in order not to change things. You may even invent some intellectual excuses to explain why you’re right (“Doctors don’t know anything”, “Praying is proven to physiologically help”, “The king is not actually naked”). You must prove to yourself you haven’t been wasted all these years in vain. Other times you don’t bother lying to yourself any more, and knowingly decide not to change things. It’s a fact that there are people raised in a religious atmosphere since childhood, who are not religious anymore by any definition you may think of, except for their external appearance and surroundings.

George Orwell wrote ‘Shooting an Elephant’ in 1950. This story about life in Burma became quite famous. So did Orwell’s description of the man who grew to do what he was expected to do: “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”

<< Prev Contents Next >>