The Parable of Pubic Hair

We humans are a group species. As such, a great many of our behaviors and thought processes are geared towards conformity. What the group thinks, we think, because for most of our evolutionary history to be outside the group meant death.

Although today we are members of several groups and our survival rarely depends on any single one, our habits of mind remain unchanged. We conform to group norms unconsciously, adopting whatever beliefs the groups we identify with happen to hold. Rarely do we question these group beliefs. In fact it’s comforting to know that we believe what those around us believe. We don’t really want to question group norms.

And thus we are very frequently led into error. We don’t need to be students of history to know that most of what people believe is usually poorly supported by real-world evidence or by solid reasoning. Yet too often we dogmatically proclaim some arbitrary group belief and proceed to cause harm in the world.

Instead of illustrating this point by reference to racial prejudice or notions of manifest destiny or the garbled pseudo-economics of Marxism I want to focus on something relatively trivial that nevertheless has potential to induce all manner of mischief. I’m choosing this example because it’s typical of how mistaken ideas are adopted by a group for political reasons and then propagated into the world…