By Nabendeh Wamoto S.P
The recent boat cruise disaster on Lake Victoria drives me to ask as to why Ugandans love to go along the crowds.
There is a lot of evidence from history to suggest that people can be persuaded to do highly immoral (sinful) things under extreme group/peer situations and one such example is during war time. My children behave differently at home from how they do when they with their school/college mates. You probably also behave differently at home, at work, or when you are out drinking with friends.
We all belong to different social groups. Our family, classmates, Churchmates, workmates, sports teams. Even groups of friends and we tend to be heavily influenced by them especially by their unspoken expectations of how we should behave. Psychologists refer to these as social norms. And we feel compelled to behave in different ways depending on what time and which group we are with.
Chances are you can remember the times when you have felt this unnecessary pressure and maybe we have even felt we had to behave in ways that didn’t fit with our usual feelings because we had to go along with the group being driven to wear the latest beach fashions that include nakedness!!!
But does this sort of things only happen as a result of terrible group pressure or is it something that takes place all the time? Or are we all hopelessly inclined to go along with the crowd even in quite ordinary situations?
This is an important question which psychologists have thought about deeply because of its serious implications in the way we live are our everyday lives. Imagine a very typical situation in which you are with a group that you see often, friends maybe or work colleagues. You are all discussing some controversial issue and you quickly notice that everyone in the group shares one view while yours is completely different then everyone turns to you and asks your opinion. What do you do? Say what you really think and risk a confrontation with the rest of the group or go along with the others even though you believe something different.
There were training courses for everything in ancient Athens (Greece) and a young friend of Socrates sought to be trained to become an Athenian Army General. When Socrates asked the young man about the course, the friend replied that while at the Academy, he was taught Logistics, man-management and marching. “Was he taught strategy?” Socrates sought to know from his friend to which the young man replied “No”.
Socrates had a piece of advice for his friend. “Go back and train in strategy and planning or ask for a refund of your money”. This he said is because the study of planning, strategy and tactics sits at the Centre of the execution of the work of a General.
We must always be architects of our own destiny and not expect others (even the rich) to make decisions for us. While all of us must not ignore our weaknesses, it is prudent to focus only on our limitations and remember that Excellency is rarely achieved in minimizing error. It is not the landmark monuments we build individually but those small, strict decisions we make for the good of humanity that count.
Nabendeh Wamoto S.P (0776658433)
simonwamoto@yahoo.co.uk