Why “Don’t Care What Others Think” Is Terrible Advice
One of the most common pieces of advice you can hear is “Don’t care what others think”.
It is often given out in a range of social situations, from someone taking a personal dislike to you or in relation to failing at at a personal goal.
At its core, it’s meant to be comforting. Yet it comes up against our core nature: We are social animals.
This obviously, does not mean we need to be loved or liked by everybody. Likewise, before I descend further let me be clear, in this article I will argue there are two types of collectives in which the individual inhabits.
The first being society, which I am defining as a number of people living in an ordered environment (such as a state). Meanwhile, the second is a group, which can involve a number of people in a society, that form together out of choice or for example as the result of ethnicity, age or religion.
To continue, as social animals we seek approval from others around us. Hence, we conform to certain expectations of the groups, which we belong to.
It doesn’t mean that groups don’t pursue or do things that the rest of their society disapprove of. Yet it does mean we do worry about what others think of us.
Hence, this why the advice “Don’t care what others think, is so misplaced. This is particularly the case as the group who needs such advice least, is often the recipient: young people.
This demographic group is in the process of forming an identity and finding groups to which they can belong.
They have a fundamental need to identify in relation to others and to place themselves within the conflicting values of the society in which they live.This is not a straightforward journey for many young people, but a necessary one.
The wait to find a group we feel that we belong to, can last well into our twenties. Nevertheless, this becomes important to how we live and lead our lives. This affects the solo entrepreneur as much as it impacts the Bohemian musician. They both require the justification of others.
“No man can be an island for long”
It can be reflected in values. For example, materialism and creativity. We see this in the partners we choose to spend our time or even our lives with. It is often why we see lawyers or the musician and the actor together.
There are obviously cases, where we see couplings that don’t fit this pattern. Although, in cases where there maybe a political or age divide for example, there maybe shared love of art or a materialist approach to life.
It is not just how we define ourselves, that highlights why “Don’t Care What Others Think” is such bad advice. It can be seen in how human punish and persecute.
Exclusion from the society in which you inhabit is traumatic for human beings. Whether this is on a micro-level against individuals or across time against religious and ethnic minorities, from Jews during the Nazi regime to African Americans in the United States.
There is no better analogy for this exclusion from society, than by incarcerating individuals.
This can be seen from the concentration camps in Nazi Germany to the prison systems in many countries today. On the surface, their punishment is the removal of freedom to movement. But, on a psychological level, the harsher punishment for the individual is the separation from their family and friends, as well as their community.
This can be seen no more clearly than in the case of solitary confinement. You are totally alone, removed even from those who you are incarnated with. This is why it is considered more and more as a form of torture. Under such circumstances, people will often lose their sanity, and enter a deep depression.
Only those who can continue to relate to the outside world, whether that is for a greater political cause or to their child or partner, can maintain a sense of sanity.
The flipside to caring what others think, is its effect to create functioning societies. We behave in relation to others. We want a sense of belonging as previously mentioned. Even for the global cosmopolitan, they wish to belong to a “group”.
Such behaviours and values can come in different guises. They maybe positive or negative. Nevertheless, whether it is a violent act or an act of kindness, the individual will care how members of their group see it.
In bringing this all together, I would say that are inherent need to care what others think, does not infringe on our sense of self and individuality. It enhances it. We can only define ourselves apart from others, by defining how we differ from them.
By caring how we are viewed, we strive for self-improvement and adopt behaviours that benefit our group and the society around us. We create an environment, where the inward and outward face we present to society hold similar worth.
