blind leading blind
There's a reason teenagers want to be individuals, yet end up sounding like carbon copies of their peers: they actually want to be like everyone else. And while most grown-ups probably think they've grown out of such mindless conformity, they haven't. Adults discussing hot-button issues sound like clones of each other for the same reason: they're not actually thinking for themselves.

College and university professors, the mind vice of social media like Twitter, mainstream political pundits, or just everyday peer-group influence: all provide the material with which to form convictions and opinions that are not really your own. It may be comforting to know you're just like everyone else, and all the evil is within the people you disagree with, but it doesn't make you original, authentic, or right. And to anyone looking in from the outside, you just sound like a mindless automaton speaking someone else's words.

Today on MindMatters we discuss these issues: conformity, originality, authenticity, and breaking free from the prison of ideological language designed not to find the truth, but as a weapon to bludgeon one's ideological enemies.


Running Time: 01:06:57

Download: MP3 — 61.3 MB