Imagine you have an instinct for expressing and recognizing in others agree/disagree/uninterested, which I suppose in its most simple form can be gestured with a shake of the head or nod, or turning away, or/and spoke or written. Consider the yes/no we’re so familar with to be as instinctive as turning and looking in the direction of someone calling your name.

Given all the things that humans might be said to have native potentials for recognizing, some for example like dead/alive, near/far away, in pain/pain free, anxious/relaxed (to name just a few that many other animals would possess), how much of a stretch would it be for humans, conscious apparently with an advanced mental tool box, to juggle the seeming contradiction of strong group norms and too powerful respect for the idea that they should not to be imposed on any member of the moral community.

If you had to bring together the most basic of instincts (or native abilities) to work on that apparent contradiction what would they be, and how would resolving them/it influence your moral and political views.

Mein Kampf could be a starting point?

bob(from black rock) said:

Mein Kampf could be a starting point?

Not sure why.

> how much of a stretch would it be for humans to juggle the seeming contradiction of strong group norms and too powerful respect for the idea that they should not to be imposed on any member of the moral community.

There is a psychological principle that relates to this. It divides people into two groups, those who openly embrace peer group pressure and those whose immediate reaction on becoming aware of peer pressure is to reject it. This is referred to non-scientifically as matcher/mismatcher.

Looking it up on the web, though, I find that “those whose immediate reaction on becoming aware of peer pressure is to reject it” are treated as a disease to be overcome by persuasive selling, rather than as an ideal or as a variant to be embraced.

Let’s see if the scientific literature has anything to say on the topic. Same as the web – the resistance to imposition of wrong ideas is treated as a disease. Even to the point of recommending that all employees be “yes men” in a 1996 scientific paper. Not a thing in the scientific literature about the acceptance of or statistics of or history of innate resistance to peer group pressure.

Oh dear, I think I’ve tracked down the history. The matcher vs mismatcher psychological theory was first proposed in a 1987 book titled “Unlimited Power” – shudder. So that’s why it’s tied into sales strategies.

There’s much more scientific literature on a different meaning of “mismatching” in terms of “exploiting the mismatch between body language and verbal language for personal gain”.

… to continue

> how would resolving them/it influence your moral and political views.

Personally, I have my own moral standards – Bentham’s – and from that work out what I consider an ideal set of political policies. Then I match the political policies of all the political parties against those that I’ve set up.

But I do this from written language, so that I’m as immune as possible to peer group pressure. I don’t trust my “instinct for expressing and recognizing in others agree/disagree/uninterested”.

Peer group pressure usually seems to be pressure to conform to something negative/moronic, the intrawebs takes this so far that idiots risk their lives to impress Facebook friends, go figure