How Social Media Amplifies Unsubstantiated Attacks on Authority.
One of the central ideas of Awakening the Genie Within is that much of what we believe has been shaped by influences we did not consciously choose.
From childhood onward, our families, schools, religions, cultures, governments, media, friends, and life experiences influence how we understand ourselves and the world. Becoming aware of this conditioning is an important part of learning to think more consciously for ourselves.
But there is another side to this. Recognizing that we have been conditioned does not mean that everything we have been taught is false. We can become so determined to question conventional beliefs that we simply replace one set of unquestioned beliefs with another.
When Healthy Skepticism Becomes Automatic Distrust
We should be willing to question governments, corporations, pharmaceutical companies, scientists, religious institutions, and the media, but we should apply the same scrutiny to those who challenge them, and also to ourselves. Governments make mistakes. Corporations can put profit ahead of people. Scientists can be wrong. Individuals and institutions sometimes behave dishonestly.
But examples of wrongdoing do not establish that everything an institution does is wrong. As the old expression reminds us, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Questioning authority is healthy. Automatically trusting authority is not. But automatically distrusting authority isn’t independent thinking either.
Vaccines provide a good example. It is reasonable to question the safety or effectiveness of a particular vaccine or to debate government vaccination policies. But that is very different from claiming that vaccines as a whole are fraudulent or that we have been conditioned to believe they work.
Vaccines are not without risks, but the historical evidence of their benefits is substantial. A major global analysis published in The Lancet estimated that vaccination against 14 diseases saved approximately 154 million lives over 50 years, including 101 million infants.
Recognizing that achievement does not require us to believe that every vaccine, pharmaceutical company, doctor, or government decision is beyond criticism. It simply requires us to consider all the evidence, rather than only the evidence that confirms what we already believe.
Social Media and the Power of an Opinion
Social media has transformed this problem. Throughout history, people have held strong opinions. Today, almost anyone can publish those opinions instantly and potentially reach thousands or even millions of people. A claim no longer needs to pass through an editor, researcher, publisher, or other form of scrutiny before it reaches an enormous audience.
That freedom has tremendous value. It gives a voice to people who might otherwise never be heard and can expose genuine injustice.
But it also lets unsubstantiated opinion take on the appearance of authority.
An article, video, podcast, or confident speaker may sound convincing without providing reliable evidence. When we encounter the same message repeatedly, familiarity itself can begin to feel like confirmation.
And ego can become involved. Being one of the people who has supposedly “seen through the deception” can provide a sense of certainty, identity, belonging, or even superiority. Once a belief becomes part of our identity, questioning the belief can begin to feel like questioning who we are.
The person who believes they have escaped society’s conditioning may therefore unknowingly have entered another form of it. Perhaps one of the most useful questions any of us can ask is:
What evidence would cause me to reconsider what I believe?
A belief is something we accept as true, although the degree of evidence supporting it can vary enormously. Some beliefs are based primarily on faith, trust, tradition, or personal experience; others may be supported by substantial evidence.
The difficulty arises when a belief becomes so firmly established that we no longer require evidence to support it, or are unwilling to consider evidence that challenges it. A child can believe completely in Santa Claus without requiring proof. As adults, our beliefs may be far more sophisticated, but we are not necessarily immune to the same tendency.
When a belief becomes closely connected with our identity, values, emotions, or sense of belonging, contradictory evidence may feel less like new information and more like a threat to something we need to defend. We may dismiss the evidence, question its source, or search for information that confirms what we already believe.
What We Choose to See
There is injustice, greed, dishonesty, and abuse of power in our world. We should recognize it and, where possible, do something about it. But that is not the whole human story.
There is also extraordinary kindness, cooperation, compassion, generosity, discovery, and service. Millions of people go to work every day in governments, hospitals, universities, corporations, charities, and other organizations genuinely trying to make things better.
I have made a conscious choice about where I want to direct my own attention and energy. I choose to focus primarily on what is good in humanity and on what we can do to make our world better, rather than continually searching for evidence of everything that is wrong with it. This does not mean ignoring injustice or pretending that corruption and wrongdoing do not exist. It means refusing to allow them to define my view of humanity.
As I explain in Book One, I have hope for humanity for three fundamental reasons.
First, I believe there is goodness within all of us, although sometimes we may have to look deeply to find it.
Second, our most fundamental instincts and biological processes are designed primarily to sustain life, to keep us alive, protect us, maintain our health, and ensure the continuation of our species.
Third, despite the many differences we emphasize, human beings are remarkably similar. More than 99% of our DNA is shared. The biological differences among us represent only a tiny fraction of who we are. Yet we frequently allow those differences- race, nationality, religion, politics, culture, beliefs, and social identity to divide us.
The same principle applies to the institutions we sometimes attack. “The government,” “the medical establishment,” or “the pharmaceutical industry” are not separate entities standing apart from humanity. They are made up of people just like us, with the same capacity for goodness and selfishness, wisdom and error, compassion and ego.
Of course institutions must be questioned and held accountable when they do wrong. But examples of wrongdoing should not lead us to condemn everything they do, or everyone associated with them.
When we focus primarily on our differences, we create division. When we recognize how much we share, we create the possibility of connection.
There is no simple “us” and “them.” We are all in this together.
Question Everything; Including Yourself
Independent thinking does not mean believing the opposite of what authorities tell us. It means examining information, considering the quality of the evidence, recognizing our biases and emotional reactions, and remaining willing to change our minds when better evidence becomes available.
That standard must apply equally to conventional wisdom and to those who challenge it.
Awareness should not lead us from unquestioning trust to unquestioning distrust. It should lead us toward something more valuable: discernment.
Perhaps true independent thinking begins not when we learn to question everyone else, but when we become equally willing to question ourselves.