This post is definitely inspired by Erykah's Window Seat video, and all the controversy surrounding it. On her twitter she brought up the theory of groupthink, coined by William H. Whyte an American urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher.
So the idea of groupthink is that people give up their individuality to be part of a larger group. They stop asking questions for fear of upsetting the balance of the group.
But groupthink is just an extension of culture's affect on humans, almost like an extreme culture scenario. The idea of groupthink is an example of what happens in American culture. In many groups the individual is overshadowed by the group. Like in corporate business doing whatever it takes to make money is what the group does, but as an individual you might feel like doing certain things aren't worth it. Groupthink says you won't voice that, or even acknowledge it inside of you because you don't want to make vibrations in the group (your other business partners/ peers). I mean why would you? They'll look at you like you're crazy ya know.
Its all a big product of our culture. I can't even put into valid words how epic it is for people to understand what American culture is really all about.
Mar 4, 2010
Theories on Society: Rejecting the Culture That is You
I've been studying culture a lot lately. Its been a subject in 5 of my 6 classes and the basic conclusion is that we are slaves to our cultures. Our culture pre-determines everything for us. It tells us what is cool, what's healthy, what's good or bad, and what's beautiful or not. It even affects how we look at other cultures in such a way that we are judgmental if the other culture doesn't meet standards of our culture.
On top of that, almost everything presented to us as good through society brings a profit to someone. All the things promoted as cool are multibillion dollar industries: Nike, North Face, the Music Industry, vegetarianism, gym memberships, smoking, the hipster movement (through the clothes), Apple, High Fashion and name brands. These things we think are cool because thats whats promoted. Its promoted because its paid for. Millions go into advertising because ads tell us what's cool. If somebody paid enough money to promote Light-up superhero shoes as cool, the next generation would wear them faithfully (i say the next generation because our generation is influenced by our culture and we'd still see them as such).
My main question during all these discussions was how do you get rid of it? How do you null the agreement you made with your culture to live by its standards? How do you create a you that doesn't have to abide by the laws set up by culture?
On top of that, almost everything presented to us as good through society brings a profit to someone. All the things promoted as cool are multibillion dollar industries: Nike, North Face, the Music Industry, vegetarianism, gym memberships, smoking, the hipster movement (through the clothes), Apple, High Fashion and name brands. These things we think are cool because thats whats promoted. Its promoted because its paid for. Millions go into advertising because ads tell us what's cool. If somebody paid enough money to promote Light-up superhero shoes as cool, the next generation would wear them faithfully (i say the next generation because our generation is influenced by our culture and we'd still see them as such).
My main question during all these discussions was how do you get rid of it? How do you null the agreement you made with your culture to live by its standards? How do you create a you that doesn't have to abide by the laws set up by culture?
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