On Peer Pressure

continually astonished by the number of people I’ve experienced who let other people do their thinking for them.

I say that because of the negative, disapproving, pejorative comments I’ve heard them make at the mere mention of a name, someone they don’t know, have never conversed with, have never rubbed shoulders with. Such being the case, the nature of those comments had to be determined by others.

Let me give you a few names: Rush Limbaugh, John F. Kennedy, Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Jackson, Mark Fuhrman, Bill Clinton.

Now what makes people react the way they do to the mere mention of any one of these folks? I don’t know. But I have a theory that you might wish to consider.

One of the more powerful human needs is the need for peer approval. Keeping that in mind, how do you think you’d be viewed by your peers were you living in Berkeley and you gave your neighbors the impression that you were a fan of Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich?

Or, at the other end of the political spectrum, by your peers in Hillsborough were you to give them reason to believe that you are a Jesse Jackson or Bill Clinton booster?

Now peer approval is all very nice, given that it can foster social harmony.

But it can also be dreadfully expensive.

You see, it doesn’t confine itself to any single area of your mind, such as the mental pigeonhole you use for all matters political. But like a cancer, it continues to expand until it takes over all of your mind. At which point, you don’t own you. Your peers own you.

So tell me, is it worth it? In Biblical terms, is it worth losing your freedom and integrity just to gain the approval of others?

Think about it.