Lately I have found myself reflecting on all of the people in my life, and attempting to understand what I value in all of my relationships. In doing so, I arrived at a realization: that all of the people closest to me are inquisitive individuals. People who think outside of the box and don’t blindly accept things at face value. Overwhelmingly this is the sole trait that all of my inner circle has in common…otherwise the personalities are extremely varied and backgrounds diverse. Why, then, is this apparently such an important factor in who I choose to keep close in my life?

I want to begin exploring this question by getting into a little bit of social psychology. Growing up, my father had season tickets for himself and I to go see the St. Louis Blues play. Starting at the age of 5, I went to countless games with my father…and I have incredibly fond memories of us going together. One not-so-positive memory that has always stuck with me however is how the game had the ability to single-handedly reduce grown men to drooling children. Being a young child and seeing Red Wings fans and Blues fans getting in literal fist fights in the crowd next to me because they didn’t like each other’s teams was simply mindblowing to me. Even as a child I remember thinking “It’s a fucking GAME, and you’re not even on the team?!” It left a sour taste with me regarding sports in general…while I definitely still respect the determination and athletic ability that players display, it’s hard for me to separate that from the monkey show that I see in the stands, at the bars, and in the living rooms.

It’s always intrigued me however…the fact that we love to identify with groups and take pride in that identification. This association with identity should not be understated either…it’s an extremely critical component of our lives. I know of this first-hand. Being 19 years old, I remember driving home from a concert I played in Kentucky, crying and pleading with God to make sense of the struggles I had encountered with maintaining my faith after leaving my bubble at home and having the realities of life pummel me to the ground. This was, first and foremost, not a “faith crisis”…but an identity crisis. My faith was all I knew. It was the only “team” I really was a part of. I had to do everything I could to hold on even in the face of the most difficult challenges to my faith…I didn’t know who I was without it’s comforting embrace.

Months later, I finally was able to simply let it go…to wipe the board clean and start from scratch. This was the most pivotal, terrifying, and liberating moment in my life; the moment that I stopped trying to be what people told me to be, and started the journey of figuring out who I truly was. I no longer belonged to any team…but I felt alive. I felt like for the first time ever, I was the author of my own life.

This experience resulted in me questioning everything. Everything I knew about the world around me had completely shattered in a matter of about 6 months…I felt like a child filled with wonder and amazement at the world I lived in. This sense of inquisitiveness is something I will take with me for the rest of my life, and it’s something that I think, more than anything, has helped me prosper in many areas despite my many flaws.

As I was piecing this blog post together a news article on the Washington Post caught my eye regarding President Obama’s remarks at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. Obama made the point that Islam does not have a monopoly on terrible actions performed in the name of religion; after all Christianity is responsible for the Crusades, slavery, and the Jim Crow laws. This is not an attack on Christianity but a simple historical fact that was intended to provide some perspective on current events. That didn’t stop many people from being outraged at the President’s remarks, however. Many are furious with Obama for what they perceive as an attack on their religion. To truly understand why so many individuals would be offended over the President simply stating facts of history, we have to look at the issue in a certain perspective. To these upset individuals, President Obama is not simply attacking their religion. He is attacking their identity. This strikes an especially sensitive chord because it is seen as a personal attack on who they are.

I want to make the argument that these identities are, by and large, a toxic thing. We naturally have such a strong desire for association and identification with a group which is hard-wired into us. Before modern civilization, this component of our psyche aided us in banding together in groups, in tribes, to pool resources and defend against other warring groups. This social wiring was critical in our survival, and is a big aspect of our intelligence and what truly separates us from the majority of the animal kingdom.

Today, however, we have less of a need for this “ingroup” mindset. Modern civilization has enabled us to not need to worry about other warring tribes coming to pillage our cities…we’ve found that working together as one unit is much more effective than attempting to separate into many separate hostile groups. Unfortunately our brains are still wired for tribal living however, and thus we still see people in today’s day and age banding together in groups of common interest…whether it be with sports, religion, politics, hobbies, careers…the list goes on and on. The fact that we naturally form an identity with these groups isn’t necessarily a bad thing…but if we’re not careful, they can have a quite nasty effect.

Have you ever known someone that is a reasonable, intelligent individual but has one component of their belief system that leaves you confused? Let’s say for instance a relative who denies science such as global warming or evolution, or a friend that is blatantly racist. These types of individuals have fascinated me for years on end. How can one be logical in so many areas of life, but be willfully ignorant in another? Science points to the fact that when certain information threatens an individual’s identity, they don’t apply their standard criteria for processing that data. Instead, they enter a state of denial in order to preserve that component of who they are. One extremely common method of ensuring this is through confirmation bias. Additionally there is a response called “The Backfire Effect” that actually suggests that when your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your irrational beliefs get even stronger! We are extremely adept at avoiding critical reasoning when we feel our identity is being threatened.

Another common method of preserving our threatened identities is to seek social reinforcement. Take Westboro Baptist Church, for example. This church is infamous for its hateful, vitriolic views and most notably picketing soldiers’ funerals littered with signs such as “God hates fags”. One interesting thing about this church is that it is almost entirely comprised of one family, the Phelps family. This is absolutely not a coincidence. It’s extremely difficult to convert people to this particular brand of extraordinarily irrational and senseless hate…but if you grow up in that environment and everyone around you believes that way, it’s much easier to rationalize in your head. After all, it can’t be that stupid of an idea if everyone believes it, right?

Westboro is an extreme example, but this happens more subtly on a more pervasive level throughout society. Many people, for instance, I truly believe would not be able to preserve their irrational beliefs if not for the simple fact that they are able to form into groups and take solace in the fact that others believe the same way. When these ways of thinking pick up enough steam to spread throughout regional areas, they become what we call “culture”. This is why it’s not a coincidence that the South is predominately conservative and the Northeast is predominately liberal…people form an identity with the area that they live in, and the culture is an inseparable component of this.

This is a problem. How are we to be rational individuals if our identity is so stubborn? You may be sitting there thinking “Well this doesn’t apply to me…I’m not one of those people.” If so, I encourage you to try a little experiment with me. Think back to the Trayvon Martin case and the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson. Which “side” were you on initially? If you answered anything other than “I wasn’t on any side, there wasn’t enough information available to make a judgment call one way or the other”, then you fell victim to this irrational tribal brain that we have (as I did). With both of these national events, the media capitalized on our frothing at the mouth to pick a “team” and compete against the other side. For instance with Ferguson, it appeared as though most people either chose one camp of “that racist pig cop killed this poor child in cold blood” or “this thug kid who stole from the convenience store must have done something that validated the fine upstanding officer’s actions.” So many times we are so eager to team up and identify with a group that we see sitting back and saying “I don’t know” as an unappealing, weak option…but most times it’s the only rational route to take when there is a lack of critical information. All of us struggle at times with being impartial and giving in to our internal biases. We can never completely eliminate this aspect of our lives, but at least being aware that we are susceptible to it allows us to take countermeasures to reduce this irrationality as much as possible.

So how can we effectively battle against our flawed nature? To me, the answer is to lead an inquisitive life. To question everything, and not ever take anything at face value or give in to initial emotional impulses. We fear what we don’t understand…so naturally, the solution to absolve fear and hate is through understanding. In order to do this, we are required to step outside of our comfort zones…away from our world of understanding and into the world of the unknown. Some people are forced into this world, such as Republican senator Rob Portman and previous Vice President Dick Cheney. These men had children who ended up being homosexual, which shaped their understanding of the lifestyle and allowed them to empathize with these groups whereas the rest of their party predominately did not. Not all of us have the opportunity to have these novel circumstances placed on our doorstep however…it is our responsibility to seek them out. To be mindful and inquisitive of all facets of life, even if they lie outside our established identity. Every time you expand your consciousness through understanding, you increase empathy with those around you. Empathy is what allows us to connect with others and work together…and in the United States of America, it’s about time we lived up to our name.

– Chief Bromden; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest