The Power of Perspective

Thomas Hynes

All I needed was a bow tie. Everything else was packed, and I was ready for the weekend, except that I needed a new bow tie. I assumed that some store on Boston’s posh Newbury St. would have one, and sure enough I found a store that sold tuxedos and wedding dresses. Upon entering the store, I noticed soothing classical music playing in the background as the few patrons meandered through the thoughtfully arranged display room. The sole operator of the store was busy with a customer, so I waited for some assistance. Being a scruffy college student, I apparently didn’t invoke any sense of urgency in the store clerk. After a few minutes, he asked me if I needed any assistance in a tone that suggested that I had rushed him through his previous sale, and that he didn’t think I would buy anything of significant value. If that was his assumption, I confirmed it when I informed him that all I wanted to buy was a bow tie. He reacted by saying, “You must be a waiter?” I felt like saying, “Actually, I own my own tux, and I need a new bow tie for a black tie wedding in Virginia that went $25,000 over its $50,000 flower budget.”, but that would have been obnoxious, so I held my tongue.

I’ve waited tables for many summers, so I was doubly insulted that he referred to my being a waiter in a derogatory manner. Walking away from the store, I thought a lot about what had happened. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, so I looked like your generic college student (Boston is filled with about 100,000). I also only wanted to purchase a bow tie, which leads to two likely conclusions. I either owned my own tuxedo, or I needed it to complete a waiter’s uniform for one of Boston’s many fancy restaurants. I realized that store’s salesman simply made an assumption based on how he perceived the situation.

I always try to imagine a situation from different perspectives. When observing someone’s actions, I try to understand the overall situation until I can say to myself “I see where they’re coming from.” In order to do that you need to have some background information on that person. In most cases this involves making some intuitive assumptions, but you must be careful, as wrong assumptions can make a situation worse. With some background information and careful assumptions you can try to put yourself in their shoes as the saying goes, and then judge people by their actions. I’m not saying this would be a functional design for a court of law, but this is how I deal with small social problems.

For the most part I believe that this is an effective method for dealing with small conflicts because usually I can understand a person’s motives, and that is a step towards finding a solution. With small conflicts it’s usually a matter of conflicting personalities. These problems tend to be harder to solve than similar problems generated from conflicting interests, as people with conflicting personalities will do things just in spite of the other person. Such actions tend to create a perpetual problem.

I like my ability to see the other side of a situation, but only for small, insignificant problems. When I look at larger social issues, a sense of hopeless pessimism spreads through me. The pessimism arises because larger social conflicts tend to shape a person’s perspective.

Perspective is something that is unique to each of us. Every decision we’ve made, experience we’ve had, and subject we’ve studied shapes who we are today. While perspective is distinctive to every individual, it can also be applied to a group. Everywhere in our society people are generalized into groups based on their perspectives. Political parties allow people to affiliate with a group that has the same perspective on government, while religious groups allow people to affiliate with a group that has the same perspective on life. Individuals in any group still have unique perspectives, but group dynamics can create a dangerous phenomenon known as groupthink.

As I’ve said, a person’s perspective is something that grows with experience. Groupthink occurs when people in a group share experiences and stories. In and by itself this is not a bad thing, but themes can evolve when those experiences and stories involve people from other groups. The danger lies in the development of these themes.

Groupthink happens often, yet most of the time we don’t even notice. On numerous occasions I have been hanging out with a group of friends in my fraternity house when someone starts to talk about some other kid in the house. Usually the other kid did something that the observer thought was stupid, so he decides to make fun of the person behind his back. Staying with the theme of the conversation someone else in the group tells about a similar incident last week. Soon everyone is simply talking about the kid behind his back and everyone agrees that the kid does stupid things all the time. By sharing our experiences, we are changing each other’s perspective on that person, but by only sharing specific events that follow a theme, we warp the truth. There may have been many situations where each friend saw the person do something really intelligent, but if these events aren’t shared they might as well never have occurred. With a changed perspective, everyone in the group now judges the subject in a new light. In the future they might notice things that are consistent with the theme created, whereas things that contradict the theme may go unnoticed.

The previous situation is a very simplified example, but one that applies to many different situations. When that example gets expanded to a society, the focus is not on an individual, but on a group of people. Another problem that arises when the problem is expanded to a larger scale is the fact that the theme may have been present for hundreds of years. Growing up constantly bombarded with prejudices about other groups creates a severely ingrained and warped perspective.

I value my ability to see myself in other people’s shoes when I deal with small and insignificant problems, because the problems are small and insignificant. I consider myself a rather socially conscious person, and I don’t like this ability when I contemplate social issues because my method still works. If I spend enough time thinking about a situation, I can begin to understand why people do things.

Earlier this fall an issue occurred that really hit home and made me think about perspective. CNN was reporting that Catholic children in Ireland had to have police escorts to leave school safely. The report showed footage of riot police who literally formed a protective path for the little kids. What was on the other side of the police barricade? Protestants. The battle between Protestants and Catholics has been going on ever since England started ruling Ireland in the 12^th century. In this situation the Protestants were protesting Catholic attacks on Protestant homes, but throwing rocks and pipe bombs at schoolgirls arouses similar repugnance in Catholics. This circular problem is caused by a mutual hatred that runs so deep that the only way out appears to be to make the other group more miserable. This situation creates an unavoidable hate-filled fate for future generations.

I’ve spent every summer of my childhood in a pleasant town on Cape Cod called Woods Hole. My best friend and I would spend every day together sailing, riding our bikes, and doing all the fun summer activities you can imagine. He is a Protestant. I am a Catholic. If we had grown up in Ireland, we might have thrown rocks at each other. The environment that we grew up in did not place any emphasis on this difference, so neither did we.

How then, you must say, can I put myself in other people’s shoes and begin to understand how this contradiction is possible? The answer lies in understanding the power of perspective. Relating back to the earlier scenario of my friends sitting around my fraternity house, imagine instead of my friends bringing up a petty issue with one person one day, that my parents continuously talked derogatorily about a group of people my entire life. Ever since I learned to understand language, I experienced little hints or blatant acts of prejudice towards a whole group of people. My older sister and her friends shared the same view as my parents and made similar comments. All of my friends, who happen to be in the same group as me, had similar experiences and we all began to share the same feelings. Not surprisingly, there was tension any time I had an experience with people from the other group, and those experiences only further justified the feelings engrained in me since birth. My experiences and all of my impressions while growing up made me the person I am today. I make decisions and act based on my perception of the world. What may seem completely rational to me may make no sense to a person who grew up under very different circumstances.

I use this imagined scenario to paint a generic picture of what could represent numerous different situations anywhere there is an us vs. them mentality. The social tension could be between black and white, Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, Nazi and Jew, American and Afghan, and many other groups. This situation applies to almost any situation where there are social differences. The hostile feelings and misunderstandings run both ways and are passed from one generation to the next. Slavery was abolished over 130 years ago, but not long ago blacks needed the same protection as the Catholics while entering American schools. There are many examples throughout history of social problems rooted in perspective; I leave it up to readers to think of the ones that affect them the most.

It is bad enough that such prejudices naturally occur just through normal human interaction, but my final concern is that many times perspective is purposefully warped in order to guide public opinion. Propaganda is basically strategically implemented groupthink. Groups, especially nations, use this tactic to mold people’s perspective to fit specific goals. When looking at history, it is scary to see the power of propaganda, and in hindsight it is easy to think that one would have acted differently. But how is our perspective affected today? With America’s war on terror just getting started, we have only just begun to experience the media’s ever-powerful influence. One of my aunts from Belgium was in recently in the U.S. for business and I was interested to speak with her about the current crisis. She was concerned because she viewed our news coverage as having an American filter, and thought that that might allow the American Government to take advantage of the country’s grief and fears.

Now more than ever people have to be careful and try to understand that their perspective can be manipulated by outside forces. To stop the warping effects of groupthink, people have to take a step back from their position and really conduct introspective contemplation. It is very hard for people to try to change their perspectives, because it is part of who they are, but it’s not impossible. People need to be more conscious about how they interpret information, and avoid having a selective memory.