I’m sure that among the masses that read this blog (just kidding), some might wonder why I think any of these random thoughts I’m sharing even matters and/or why I think about this stuff. I think it’s something about the way I’m wired. Let me put it this way, and yes, I’m going to use some obscure quote to make sense of it again.
In the film Along Came a Spider, Dr Alex Cross (played by Morgan Freeman) has the following to say: “I mean, you do what you are. You’re born with a gift. If not that, then you get good at something along the way”. For as long as I can remember, I have been curious about why people do the things that they do, but most specifically in the context of groups, including families, friendship circles, classrooms, schools, churches, committees, etc. More than that, I’ve found the connections, but especially the contradictions, between what they say and do to be very interesting.
Alex Cross: You do what you are Jezzie.
Jezzie Flannigan: You mean you are what you do.
Alex Cross: No, I mean, you do what you are. You’re born with a gift. If not that, then you get good at something along the way. And what you’re good at, you don’t take for granted. You don’t betray it.
Along Came a Spider (2001)
The [cognitive dissonance] theory addresses competing, contradictory, or opposing elements of cognition and behaviour: for example, why do people continue smoking, when they know that smoking damages health?
A Dictionary of Sociology (Oxford Quick Reference)
As much as I’ve benefited from the work of psychologists, that way of approaching things, focusing primarily on what’s going on in the individual, didn’t provide the kinds of thinking that interested me. Understandably, the notion of cognitive dissonance has intrigued me, but more so the dynamics within groups.
When someone needs that sense of belonging to a group and/or the way they see themselves (personal identity) can’t be separated from being a member of that group (social identity), to the extent that even their self-esteem is connected to how that group is perceived by others, they might be willing to say, do, and/or agree with things they otherwise might not.
One only needs to look at arguments over a disallowed goal in a football (the one where most of them actually connect foot with ball) match and you’ll see that, at least among ardent fans, their opinions will often fall along whether that decision was in their favour and not even an attempted objective or independent opinion. The same is often true of political parties and/or social movements, but I digress…
Does any of this matter? I can simply respond by echoing what Dr Cross said, by saying “I do what I am”… and, “I write as I am”.
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