The idiocy of crowds
Posted by Christie Malry on October 30, 2010 at 10:31 pm
There has been much discussion in economic circles about 'the wisdom of crowds.' This is the phenomenon that suggests that crowds can often produce far better answers as a group than any one individual. So, for example, if you plot all the answers for a 'guess the number of sweets in the jar' competition, you'll end up with the average of their guesses being closer to the right answer than any expert could produce. Spooky, eh?
However, what is not recognised in formal sociological theory is what I shall call today the idiocy of crowds. This is where sensible, well-educated people, behave like complete dunderheads, even when surrounded by other sensible, well-educated people. You're left gasping "wtf did no-one say that this was a patently terrible idea?". Yet that person never steps forward.
Take Harriet Harman, who referred to Danny Alexander in a speech as a 'ginger rodent', and in doing so managed to insult every single ginger-haired person in Britain and many others besides. But, as London Tory councillor Nigel Fletcher points out, did nobody think to strike this line out of her speech? Because, for a politician who has made an entire career out of whining about equal treatment for women and other minorities, it's ridiculous to use childish taunts like she did.
Or take Frannie Armstrong, the obnoxious, plummy-mouthed harpy who runs the 10:10 campaign and who believes it's okay for her to fly around the world telling the rest of us that we must stop. Her organisation commissioned the appalling 'No pressure' video that told people that they must believe in global warming or they will be murdered. Surely someone in that organisation could have piped up to say that, while Richard Curtis has achieved great things on his other projects, this one was an absolute stinker?
Or the poll tax. Clearly, there are elements of the design of the poll tax that are good - because everyone benefits, everyone should pay. But there are also some profound difficulties with the idea. Didn't anyone feel able to raise these concerns with Mrs T or her policymakers?
Or the firemen in London, who have clearly suffered an appalling clusterfuck in deciding to call a strike for their busiest night of the year. Rather than the public rallying behind them, people are really angry that they could jeopardise lives just to try and preserve their gold-plated contracts. Did anyone in the FBU's leadership team want to point out the flaws in their strategy?
In each of these cases, nobody was able to speak up against these strategies, each of which - in the cold light of day - is absolutely and totally daft. Why is this? Shouldn't the wisdom of crowds kick in? Unfortunately no. The idiocy of crowds tends to dominate - in which no-one wants to appear disloyal by contradicting the groupthink - so objections never get raised. Ironically, especially for Harman who is supposed to be in favour of diversity, the selection of lots of people who are 'just like us' means that organisations end up reinforcing idiotic behaviour instead of counterbalancing it with alternative points of view. While this is particularly bad within a political setting - where parties tend to only choose 'their own' - it's hardly limited to them.
In response, organisations everywhere need to take account in a meaningful way of their diversity. Not because it's good to hire disabled or black people. But because people who are different to you might think differently to you. And sometimes you're wrong, and they're not.
