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Why do people fear new ideas?

I presented to a group of colleagues recently on ideas. People said ideas tend to arouse fear in people, or that people become more entrenched in their thinking as they get older.

What do you think about ideas? How do you overcome your initial emotional response to a new idea?

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Your colleagues are either themselves irrational, or they believe "people" in general are.

 

Ideas are not to be feared on the premise that life requires them.  Ideas are only feared by those who see them as a threat to their ability to evade reality.

 

Entrenched thinking would be an abdication of the mind if it means evasion or irrationality. To the extent new information or new argument or new ideas require a process of chewing and understanding to fully integrate any potential useful substance, any rejection of that process in favor of simply holding on to past, i.e. entrenched information, ideas, or argument is a failure of the cognitive rational process.

 

This is to be distinguished from purported "new" ideas which in fact have already been dealt with by the thinker, implicitly or explicitly, at which point the thinker may dismiss the purportedly "new" out of hand.

 

 

The best way to "overcome" an emotional response to anything is to ignore it, emotions are not tools of cognition or guides to action.

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Thanks CT.

I thought Rand argued our emotional responses are shorthand for our values.

She wrote:

"Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss."

We may have an emotional reaction to a new idea, an estimate if you will of whether it is threatening or not?

Would you advise someone whose emotions provide good estimates to ignore their emotions completely?

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What type of "new ideas"? Are they well reasoned, logical, and contain facts and evidence that can be pointed to or are they arbitrary postulates? If they are the first and can be proven to be true then fear of them makes no sense. If they are proven not to be true then they can be discarded for that reason or used to integrate into ideas that are true, but fear of that makes no sense either. If they are just arbitrary they can simply be discarded without further thought and of course no fear of them should come up.

 

In other words, I don't see how "fear" could ever even enter the equation here. Maybe excitement if the ideas are true and new or false but with parts that could be true in a different context but reformulated down to a feeling of ambivalence for the arbitrary "ideas" but I don't see how or why "fear" would ever be the result unless someone was irrational.

 

Now that I think about it fear would be justified *if* untrue or arbitrary ideas were forced on a person or group but that's a slightly different case.

 

This edit is to expand on the last statement. Maybe these people don't know how to evaluate the status of ideas and therefore don't know when one is valid. In that case I could see fear being the result because to them any new idea that they can't personally evaluate as true, false, or arbitrary would be scary if the new idea was being implemented. To them it may seem like an untrue or arbitrary idea is being "forced" on them. Since implicitly to them what is true is what others have "decided" to be true since they don't possess the ability (more accurately, *use* the ability) to evaluate ideas. Fear could be the result in this case for these people. But, that's more a function of irrationality or laziness on their part.

Edited by EC
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One could argue that "ideas" led to the murders of millions during the 20th century. I can understand how one can be lured into a sense of security if, having lived for a long time according to a fixed set of ideas, one's life has been efficacious and fulfilling. To change one's ideas may lead to a loss of efficacy or happiness. This is not laziness. In this sense, new ideas are a real threat to the safe status quo. New ideas must prove themselves worthy of adoption. This is a perfectly reasonable and rational principle. After all, many ideas sound reasonable until they are tried. That is why validation is by reduction to perception. Perfect rationalism leads to debates about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. One should not decide based on deductive logic alone. Reality rules! Existence exists.

 

I say that the question in the original post is the wrong question. Emotional resistance to new ideas is not a bad thing. It could be a life-saving thing. However, if new ideas prove their worth, then emotions should yield to the proof of existence. These new ideas must prove more efficacious and that they lead to greater happiness. If that is shown, then no further evidence is needed.

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What do you think about ideas? How do you overcome your initial emotional response to a new idea?

Whether ideas tend to arouse fear by virtue of being new is almost impossible to establish. Do new ideas get resistance? Sure, because often it requires changing or evaluating the idea from how things are. Is resistance sometimes irrational or evasive? Yes! And if you're asking why someone may evade a truly good new idea, then it might be simply comfort in familiarity. Fear implies a perceived threat and a visceral emotional response, a lot stronger than preferring your traditions and habits because they are traditions.

 

The way I see it, you should be courageous towards new ideas, engaging in ideas with the confidence that good ideas have the strength and power to overcome bad ideas. Fear is the mind killer.

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I agree Eiuol.

 

I've had some training on reading body language, and individuals exhibit what is sometimes called a 'limbic response' when discussing ideas - especially serious ones (I asked them to think why some Muslims were receptive to the idea of fighting for IS and to share their ideas on this). The limbic response can materialise for instance by the individual showing certain tells. They may angle their feet towards the nearest exit, they may touch certain parts of their face or comfort themselves, anchoring their feet, or frown or change the position of their legs and body in certain ways. You can tell that the idea they are hearing, or when they are being asked to share their own ideas they are becoming distressed or afraid. 

 

An idea should not be threatening and nor should a discussion of them be. However people's limbic 'survival' brain often says something else. It is pre-empting an action. What is really insightful is when the limbic response shows someone is stressed or uncomfortable with an idea, and how this affects the presentation of their own idea and the language they use (words, tone, body language). I wonder why sometimes people are so afraid of sharing their thoughts. Is the sense of a hostile reception what stops people from thinking rationally - i.e. if in a social setting one is punished for putting forward an unpopular or different idea, does this cause a fear of thinking? What do you think?

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Is the sense of a hostile reception what stops people from thinking rationally - i.e. if in a social setting one is punished for putting forward an unpopular or different idea, does this cause a fear of thinking? What do you think?

 

Punished exactly how and to what degree? And more importantly what does this say about the person who cares about such punishment?

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In other words, how can their be a contradiction when one of the premises that supports the "contradiction" is not true. I.e., that some people are charging for land usage that they didn't obtain by right. You might be questioning HOW they obtained their property and if that was right which is valid, but assuming that it was a legitimate transaction, via production, inheritance, "whatever legit means" then there is no contradiction and the question is invalid.

 

Oh and I might be missing something else because I am just semi-skimming these threads since I haven't been on the forum in a few months.

Edited by EC
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I would say that people who place value on thinking rationally would be cognizant of any internal emotional response and apply the proper focus to analyzing any specific idea.

Speaking in public could cause communication of their ideas to be tempered with apprehension of expected hostility from the audience, though I do not think this would have any bearing on their reasoning, if they valued rational thought above acceptance, and if they value acceptance of the audience above reason, who cares "what" they think?

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Thanks CT.

I thought Rand argued our emotional responses are shorthand for our values.

She wrote:

"Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss."

We may have an emotional reaction to a new idea, an estimate if you will of whether it is threatening or not?

Would you advise someone whose emotions provide good estimates to ignore their emotions completely?

 

 

You asked :

 

"How do you overcome your initial emotional response to a new idea?"

 

If "overcome" means not to affect you at all, then ignoring the emotion is what I suggest.  What did you mean by "overcome"?

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EC, I was focusing on how others react to ideas.

I think some people get immense value from social networks - information sharing, cooperation, acceptance and appreciation of their virtues, perhaps even perceived safety. I'm not one of those people, you can probably tell. I think punishment comes in the threat of exile from the social network.

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Post #9 should of been in the other thread. Not sure how I did that. LOL Guess I think of multiple things in parallel without realizing it.

Edited by EC
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Why do people refuse to consider the possibility that their ideas are just stupid, instead of arrogantly assuming that people dismiss them out of fear?

When this is the case, that happens if the other party uses emotion to dismiss the idea, or uses sarcasm/subtle insults instead of reasoned arguments. It could be that the person dismissing an idea is evading a better idea. This happens anywhere from youtube comments to pundit TV shows to public arguments. I've seen it on this forum. Even if the reason is nothing to do with fear, often the fear accusation is trying to make sense of other people jumping straight to irrelevant/irrational arguments. Other times, the fear accusation is evasion of one's own errors.

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Oh I see. So your fear about discussing ideas is that if you get it wrong, people will disengage with you and you will be exiled from the community. That sounds very much like the hypothesis I stated earlier:

"I think some people get immense value from social networks - information sharing, cooperation, acceptance and appreciation of their virtues, perhaps even perceived safety. I'm not one of those people, you can probably tell. I think punishment comes in the threat of exile from the social network."

Well if that approach is worth taking for you then I won't criticise it. I appreciate the comfort it can give.

Personally I think no one should fear expressing an idea. I once argued at length with Georgists about George making a lot of mistakes in my case, not unlike Objectivists here. It was their patience in explaining and my willingness to deepen my knowledge by reading and understanding George's arguments which led to my concluding George's argument was a good argument.

I was arguing forcefully before as some people here have been. But for me reality is the ultimate judge of what's foolish or not. I'll abandon an argument or idea if its not realistic. A lot of people won't if it hurts their ego.

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It's true that people sometimes don't want change and new ideas. At other times, people get excited and carried away by a weak old idea that has been slightly re-packaged.

Why are people resistant? Well, for starters, there are rational reasons. When people have thought about some topic, heard different sides, and settled on one, they do not want to revisit the rejected idea, or ideas that they think are variants of it. It really would be a waste of their time: at least that's the best probability-based guess.

Take, for instance, the idea of a perpetual-motion machine. The new "inventor" who comes up with an idea can be very convincing, and it can take some mental teasing to show where he fails. Instead, just having a rule that perpetual-motion machines are impossible, saves time for the decision-maker. For many people, the same thing is at work in areas where debate still rages.

 

For instance, a person might have been averagely altruistic and then read Fountainhead and admired it, and then moved on to Atlas, ending up thinking that governments should be shrunk to a small core. However, further experience and reading might change this person's mind. Finally, they might think something along the lines: the government needs to do far less than it does, but far more than the Objectivists want. Now, imagine this person meets an Objectivist. You might observe a limbic response or whatever: but, that does not mean they fear the idea that they have (at least partially) rejected. Perhaps they have no desire to open up that can of worms. Often, they would not even be able to articulate all the thoughts very coherently. They see themselves as having looked at the options and come to a conclusion, and they think there's no point flipping through all the details again.

 

I'm not saying people are never afraid of new ideas, but I'd question if this is a proper description of the typical situation.

 

Of course, there are many people who don't take ideas too seriously. They generally accept something from within the middle-ground that surrounds them. Today, this means they adopt some of the religion and morality of their parents, and blend it with what they learn in school and college. But, what is lacking is a deeper examination. So, the American ends up with a few vague negative ideas about communism and the Soviet citizen ends up with some vague positive ones.

 

Fear of social alienation over an idea is quite different. This would mean that the person does agree with the new and different idea. If the person is afraid to share this, it implies that their existing social relations are based on the opposite idea. In other words, their new idea would actually be seen as heresy among their friends. Once again, I would question if fear of alienation is the typical primary reason for holding back. 

Edited by softwareNerd
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Oh I see. So your fear about discussing ideas is that if you get it wrong

No, getting something wrong and sounding stupid are two different things. One can make a well thought through, intelligent argument that ends up being wrong. 

 

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about saying stupid things: making arguments that are thoughtless; having very low standards about what comes out of one's mouth. Such a person might even stumble on a position that happens to be right, but their defense of it will still be stupid, if they don't put enough mental effort and intellectual honesty into speaking/writing/carrying on a dialogue in a compelling, intelligent and honest way.

 

It also doesn't mean that such a person IS stupid (incapable of intelligent thought). It just means that, for whatever reason (arrogance, laziness)  they don't bother putting in the effort to sound intelligent, when having a conversation about a topic that requires it. That's why I guard against it. I'm comfortable with the possibility of getting something wrong. I'm not comfortable with sounding stupid as I do.

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I guard against it too Nicky. I think everyone does. You do realise that when one fails to achieve that, they may not be aware of it, Nicky. A group of foolish people may sometimes mistake themselves as wise and believe themselves to be most reasonable. Look at the history of witch hunts for example.

Edited by Jon Southall
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