Taking a Stand

It's hard to stand up for something the first time one is exposed to something evil like Love and Logic, because first of all that person may be so appalled that they are speechless and second of all they may wonder if they are really right or not. And we definitely don't want to infringe on others' agency. But once one knows if something is right or wrong, by thinking about it, researching it, etc. then it is their duty to stand up and call it for what it is, evil.

Evil gets a foothold and spreads when good people stay out of the way and let it go. It is hard to do sometimes, especially when it involves people I care about, but protecting children and standing up for what's right is more important than people's delicate feelings. Maybe I won't be able to convince those who are already doing it, but maybe they'll remember what I said at some point, and it will help them. Also, maybe I can put people on guard before they are exposed to this philosophy so that they can give themselves permission to not accept it right off the bat.

This is from the BBC psychology website:

"Psychologists have discovered that even the most independent- minded of us will conform to social pressure when we are with a group of people. In one classic experiment, people were shown a vertical line and asked to find a line of identical length from a selection of three.

You might think that this is an absurdly easy task, and when people perform it by themselves they do very well.. However, psychologists have discovered that we are very easily swayed by the opinions of other people when we do this task in a group. In one study, a group of three people was set up, where two of the people were confederates of the experimenter. When the confederates deliberately gave wrong answers, people were often swayed to give the wrong answer also. In fact, 75% of people gave at least one wrong answer, with some people conforming to peer pressure on every occasion."

Here is the link to the original study.

We have to be so so careful.