One of the most remarkable concepts to grasp about people is to understand the way they think, or as often is the case, do not think. It may surprise you that what we refer to as common sense is not in actuality thinking! It is actually what I call a shortcut to thinking. This is the idea that people put very little thought into forming their conclusions and in our society it is more common than you think.
Everyday, people make connections, where they take what they see and hear and draw a certain opinion. Though opinons are not facts, we often take opinions and attribute the same validity to them, especially if we somehow come to believe that the opinion in question is actually our own. The easiest way to explain this system is the terms that French critics came up with, The Sign and The Signified. In a system where everything that we encounter is a sign and that each sign signifies different things to everyone of us, you can see that actually would require a lot of mental thought, but if we do not calculate or try to comprehend what we think is being signified all the time, we realize that in a lot of cases, we do not even see the sign, just the signified.
Think of the term: Teenage Mothers. Do you already have an opinion? Does the term signify for you young unwed mothers? Or did you think of mothers who have teenage children? I bet you totally thought of the young unwed mothers. The reason is because you did not think, you simply made a connection to the signified image, in this case that one being of young unwed mothers. This occurs daily in our lives and we simply go through most of our day reacting instead of being proactive thinkers.
Con Artists
Next time you listen to the news, read an article, or are being convinced of something, think about just how much proactive thought you have to the information being given to you. The most persuasive people, tend to understand that the best way to win over people is not by giving them a sound argument, but by getting them to think less about your actual position, to make them feel passionate and less likely to oppose you. The most simple of con artist uses distraction, having you keep your focus on something while he does something else behind you, but the really successful con artist is more like a politician, who uses rhetoric to make you believe in something you may have questionable doubt about. In fact, many politicians, lawyers, and salespeople use the exact question: How can I remove any doubts? Sometimes by stating an open ended question, you end up convincing yourself of a proposition you yourself do not agree with.
Perils of Quick Conclusions
Not all shortcuts to thinking are bad, but one does need to understand that all shortcuts are essentially quick conclusions, and quick conclusions do in fact have consequences. It is these consequences that we have to live with, whether we make the wrong conclusions about a simple term as teenage mothers, or if we find ourselves on the wrong side of a political issue for all the right reasons but our own.