Do your own thinking!

How many times did you came across this message? ‘Do your own thinking!’. ‘Do your own research!’. ‘Don’t believe everything you are told!’

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? What’s wrong in googling up a subject before making up your mind? What’s wrong in storming your brain before calling something one way or another?

Let’s examine something else first.
There are ways in which we relate to ‘reality’. ‘Conservatively’ or ‘open-mindedly’.
And no, this has very little to do with our intelligence or with our level of education.

It depends on how important the subject at hand is to our well being and whether we have already made up our mind about it!

How open minded are you when it comes to spending the last money you have in your pocket? With no prospect of getting any in the near future?
How open minded do you remain after you have already declared, publicly, one way or another?

Most of those lavishly spraying their audience with ‘use your own heads’ – in my FB feed – also told their followers to avoid vaccines, at all cost. The one against Covid in particular – ‘it will eventually kill you’, but also those against measles. ‘It might cause autism’.

How this thing works?

Survival bias.
We not only want to survive, physically, but also to ‘feel good’. To preserve the good opinion we have constructed about ourselves.

This being the reason for which those of us who struggle to find their next meal will not take time to consider any philosophical subject. Will gladly accept the more ‘convincingly’ stated opinion and get back to the more important task of ‘foraging’.
And this being the reason for which those of us already entertaining a strong opinion about a subject see the world ‘differently’. Effectively associate different meaning to the same words!

“Do your own thinking” actually means different things to different people.
For those who have already made up their minds it means “feel free to stick to your own opinion”.
While for those who, for whatever reason, are open-minded about the subject at hand it means “please hear me out”.

Take your pick.