The film “Inception” recognised the difficulty of persuading someone to accept a new idea, but also that it can be equally difficult to remove an idea. Probably because the two are linked – in order to accept a new idea, you often have to let go of an old one (e.g. I can’t accept I’m middle-aged; I still believe I’m young).
Letting go of anything is hard. People are motivated more by avoiding a loss than by achieving a gain. Changing your mind about something can feel like losing part of yourself, especially if that belief or opinion represents a core part of your identity (so, for example, you’re more likely to be able to talk someone into trying a new ice-cream flavour, than into going to a different church/place of worship).
Computerphile have some interesting insights into this issue with regards to artificial intelligence. Most machines are designed to be easily stopped for safety, repairs and maintenance, or just finishing for the day. If a robot is acting independently based on what it has been programmed to regard as “good” (i.e. completing its tasks), and you want to set it to a new task, it may resist any attempt to do so, because that prevents it achieving its current goal.
Humans are equally resistant to being changed. As an extreme example: no-one would willingly submit to hypnosis to make them hate their own children. But they would submit to help them stop smoking; something that already aligns with what they want to achieve1. Funnily enough, psychology suggests that bad arguments can be more effective than good ones (at changing someone’s mind), because the person doesn’t feel personally threatened, and can actually engage with the ideas presented.
So, what’s my point in bringing this up? Well, I think that ideas can persist in cultures as well as individuals, and be similarly resistant to change; both because individuals don’t want to change, but also because it takes time for cultural baggage to be discarded2.
Back in the early days of the Cold War, the United States in particular were very concerned about Russian spies undermining their way of life, and so got very paranoid and over-aggressive about eradicating anything that even hinted at Communist ideas. While today this is acknowledged as being taken too far, and A Bad Thing™, I would posit that a whole generation being raised with the underlying suspicion, and reflexive avoidance of, left-wing ideas still persists today in the way that something can be quickly discredited by being labelled “socialism”.3
1 I know of people who’ve tried to quit smoking, and – anecdotally, at least – it seems that any method could work, provided the person actually wants to quit (as opposed to just feeling they ought to, or being told by their doctor). If they no longer feel that “smoker” is part of their identity.
2 Think of all the figures of speech that could today be termed micro-aggressions. Why do we still call it “Dutch courage”, for example? It seems to be purely a holdover from times when the British and the Dutch were arguing over who gets to plant a flag in what part of the world (regardless of what the locals have to say about it).
3 This persists in spite of (or perhaps because of) people not knowing any significant details of what socialism or communism actually are (or the system they’re in contrast to, for that matter).
Thought Attempts 