There was once a psychological experiment done that I find terribly interesting. It was conducted by Solomon Asch as follows: a volunteer (the test subject) was placed in a room with a group of other people, sitting in a circle. The volunteer was led to believe that the other people in the room were also volunteer subjects who were participating in the same experiment. They were in fact part of the experimenting team, and were ‘in’ on the trick of the experiment. The volunteer knew that the experiment was investigating human behavior, but was not told what behavior specifically was the target. They were told simply to answer the questions that the experimenter asked. The experimenter asked outrageously simple questions, such as “which line is longer?”, when there were only two lines on the card. The people in the room proceeded to go around the circle answering the questions one after another. The ‘in’ people always answered incorrectly, and it was arranged that the test subject always answered last. Does the subject follow suit with the rest of the group and answer incorrectly, defying his own senses and mind, or does he stand alone and answer correctly?
Can you imagine yourself in this test? What goes through the subject’s mind the first time the question is asked and someone answers wrongly? You would probably assume that the first
person is a little slow mentally. But then the second person gives the same answer. “Hmm… that’s a little weird”, you may think. Then the third answers the same, then the fourth, fifth, six, and so on. By the time the experimenter gets to you, you are perplexed. You know which line is longer on the card, yet everyone is answering wrongly. Do they know something that you do not? Are you missing a crucial fact somewhere? How can so many people all be wrong? Who are you to think you know better than all these other people? What do you do? Answer as you know, or go with the crowd?
The results of the experiment were startling. I do not remember the exact numbers (you can look them up), but qualitatively there was a majority of people who consistently answered incorrectly in accordance with the rest of the group.
This experiment resulted in the first identification of what we call peer pressure, and it is usually discussed in relation to peer pressure. I want to look at it from another angle, however. I want to examine this experiment at its more fundamental level, the epistemological level. (Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that studies how we gain knowledge, i.e. faith or reason, emotions or logic, etc.)
How many of the people who gave in to the group do you suppose believed that they were answering correctly? I do not mean that they were dolts and couldn’t figure out which line was longer. I am assuming that initially everyone knew the correct answer. What I mean is that by the time their turn to answer came around, they had actually changed their mind about what the right answer was. My thesis is that there were many who did just that. In the face of other people answering contrary to their first assessment, they revised their assessment to agree with the group, in effect convincing themselves that they must have been wrong initially. Additionally, I bet that many of the subjects eventually just stopped looking at the cards as the questions were asked, and instead just listened to their neighbors’ responses for guidance. (Now undoubtedly there were also many people who knew they were answering wrongly and were just caving in to pressure, but I am less interested in them.)
This phenomenon was identified by Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead as the principle of the 2nd hander. A 2nd hander is someone who relies on other people for his mental processes. The 2nd hander forms ideas and convictions based on the ideas and convictions of other people. To a second hander the value of an idea is gauged by how many people agree with it. When confronted with a problem the first response of a second hander is to seek guidance, form a committee, ask an expert, take a poll, search for someone else’s previously tried solution, etc. In contrast, an independent minded person, when confronted with a problem, would look first to reality, then, relying on his own mind struggle to come up with a solution.
Now before anyone objects let me add some caveats: I am not saying that it is bad for other people to be of assistance to you, or that you have to discover everything about life on your own. As the bromide goes, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Getting aid from others does not make one a second hander. What does make one a second hander is when other people’s thought is substituted for, or given prominence over, your own.
For example, suppose you are taking a backpacking trip in a wilderness area. You would need to decide what equipment to bring with you. A first handed mentality would consider what sorts of conditions they would be likely to encounter, and plan equipment accordingly. A second handed mentality would ask their neighbor what to bring, because they know that the neighbor likes camping. A first handed person would know exactly where he was going on the map, will have studied the surrounding area, memorized landmarks, mileages, trail junctions, elevations, etc. A second handed person would be sure to bring along a first handed person who knew where he was going, or he would not make the trip. On the trail a first handed person would have a good (if not exact) grasp of where he was based on time of travel and landmarks. A 2nd hander would be constantly asking everyone else how far they had gone, where they were, and when they were to reach the summit (even when the summit was clearly in sight). Upon arrival at the destination, a first hander would begin looking for a good camping sight, based upon definable criteria such as tree cover, flat ground for a tent, logs or rocks for seating, proximity to water, seclusion from the trail, etc. A 2nd hander would follow the first hander he brought along, and uncritically accept whatever spot was chosen regardless of its merit, or lacking any 1st hander, the 2nd hander would simply look for evidence of someone else’s previous camping spot. When it came time to fish the 1st hander would search for the right spot where he suspected the most fish to be. The 2nd hander would look for the side of the lake with the most people fishing on it, assuming that to be the prime spot.
Now of course, the second hander in my example was carried to the extreme. No one is entirely second handed. We all form some thoughts on our own. The question is, what is our primary orientation? What is our default setting? Most people have some areas in which they feel confident, but when they are outside their comfort zone they switch to 2nd hand mode. It almost seems that the more important the issue, the more second handed some people become. They feel fine forming their own opinions about trivia, but allow the course of their life to be set (through the ethics they accept) by what they have always been told. (“Traditions of their fathers”)
Now the 1st handed person may receive help from other people, but that is not necessarily 2nd handed. For example, the first hander above may have received advice from someone who had been to the wilderness area before about which lake was the best to go to. But he would have expected reasons to be given in support of the person’s suggestion. He would have inquired about why the person thought it was the best lake. Was the fishing good? Was it picturesque? Was it less crowded? He may then decide, based on this information as well as any other corroborating evidence, to act on the person’s advice. But the key is that he still made his own judgment call based on the information available to him, including the person’s testimony. The 2nd hander by contrast is not concerned with why the person recommends the lake, but merely that he does recommend it. To a 2nd hander the persons advice is not information in the decision making process, it is the entire process.
A similar pattern is evident in gaining knowledge. I am not expected to discover on my own that energy and matter are interchangeable, and that the equation governing that interchange is e = mc2. I learn from those who went before me. But I cannot claim that I know that e = mc2 unless I have gone through the mental effort necessary to understand the concept. Einstein may have discovered it, but the concept becomes mine when I can make the mental connections on my own. Any trained parrot can squawk “eee equals emmm see squared!”, but none of us would claim that it has mastered the Theory of Special Relativity. A first hander gains knowledge from many sources, including other people, but he takes the responsibility to learn that knowledge himself, whatever the source. And he never accepts the knowledge uncritically. He demands that it makes sense, that it jives with previous knowledge he has gathered, and that all the sources are valid. He goes through a process of validating everything he believes.
A second hander however accepts ‘knowledge’ (if you can call it that) uncritically. He doesn’t bother to look at the experimental results, reason through implications, or check credibility. The fact that it was in a text book, or said by a professor, or an expert, etc. is enough for him. And the second hander rarely makes an effort to understand for himself the knowledge he has managed to copy. They simply memorize sayings, slogans, formulas, or bromides, such as e = mc2, use the formula on the test, and promptly forget any semblance of meaning they may have randomly associated with it. 2nd handers rarely have an original idea or conviction of their own. When confronted with a choice they always look outward for answers.
Now I ask you, how can you to be true to yourself? You are, in the deepest metaphysical sense, your mind. What you think makes you who you are. You can call it your Spirit if you like, it makes no difference what the name is. But to be true to yourself you have to have a self. When your mind is a junk pile of recycled ideas, borrowed convictions, or hastily accepted evaluations; when it is open to any and all comers, and its course is dictated by their whim, based on no criteria other than that they are someone other than you; when your greatest fear is trusting yourself (your mind), how can you ever be true to yourself? The only way to be true to yourself is to reject 2nd handedness fully, to think for yourself, to make your own judgments, to stick to your convictions, and to never accept any authority over the authority of your own mind. When you accept yourself as the only sovereign over your own mind, then you are true to yourself.
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." –Thomas Jefferson, inscribed on his monument
“I recognize no authority higher than that of my own mind” – Me
(p.s. thanks to Brandon who encouraged me to do another post)
