Last week, Soren and I talked about how I tend to claim an identity that contrasts with the identity of the people around me. He called it the peculiarity within the plurality. Those words resonated with me because I do tend to cling to some shred of individuality in an attempt to maintain some sense of autonomy. Maybe I’ve just read too many dystopian novels, but I have this fear of becoming part of some mindless group-think where we all just go along with what everyone else is doing because we assume that they know what they’re doing. The things that stuck with me most from my high school psychology class were the studies about our strong tendency to conform. There’s the Milgram experiment where ordinary individuals ended up delivering what they thought were lethal 450-volt shocks to another person who failed to answer a series of questions correctly because a researcher ordered them to. And there are experiments where individuals answering questions in a group changed their answers when everyone answering in front of them gave a different answer, even when that answer was blatantly incorrect.
And while I’d like to think that I wouldn’t be like those people, that I would stay true to my beliefs and values, I’m sure all of the subjects in those studies would have thought the same thing. So I think that part of my tendency toward peculiarity within the plurality stems from a need to remind myself that I maintain a sense of individuality and autonomy. But I also think I associate with smaller groups in an attempt to distance myself from the actions of a larger group that I might not agree with. For example, I choose to predominantly identify as Lutheran rather than Christian because the Lutheran identification connects me with a smaller number of people so there’s less of a chance that those people will do something that I disagree with or could be held responsible for. And it distances me from actions that other non-Lutheran Christians have taken in the name of their faith that I don’t agree with.
And yet, no matter what labels I choose to give myself, I am still a member of those larger groups. This is something I’ve especially struggled with in terms of my identity as an American citizen because no matter what I think of the actions the U.S. government takes, as a voting citizen I am partly responsible for those actions. Democracy is beautiful because, hypothetically, it allows everyone a voice in government, but in light of these psychology studies, democracy can be a dangerous thing as well. When I look at U.S. foreign policy, I often feel like my answers are being changed before I have a chance to say them. I believe it is morally wrong to take a life and yet, as an American citizen, I am connected to drone strikes and other military operations that kill people every day. I understand that there are people out there who have committed and are committing horrific crimes and maybe it is the easiest and best solution to take their life. But I can’t make that call. I don’t believe that any of us are qualified to decide who is allowed to live and who deserves to die. God should be the only one with that kind of authority.
The funny thing about my aversion to conformity is that I strongly identify as a religious person and yet religion is itself a form of conformity. We are told what to believe and we believe it; or we are told that we must do certain things in order to be saved and we do them without question. Christians are often portrayed as sheep, the very animal most used as an example of mindlessness. Religion in many forms can seem scary and uniform and dangerous. But religion also gives me hope. There may be people who just believe what their pastor or priest or imam or rabbi tells them but there are so many other people who constantly question what they believe. There are so many places where doubt is crucial to faith. And I think that these questions are where we assert our individuality and where we take ownership. As long as we ask questions—‘what does this mean’, ‘what are we called to do’, ‘why are we doing these things’, and even the clichéd ‘what would Jesus do’—all of these questions mark a desire to live out our lives with intention and mindfulness. These questions keep us honest. They allow us to step away from the switches and refuse to give the next electrical shock, they help us see where we’re going and what the consequences might be, they are a system of checks and balances much more potent than the three branches of government. In asking these questions, we take ownership of our group identity instead of becoming lost in it. In other words, we claim our peculiarity without losing the plurality.
I don’t know what this means for the future—of the church, the government, the world, or my own life—but it eases my brain, that has absorbed too many dystopian novels, to know we claim the peculiarity and it eases my heart, that yearns for community, to know we claim the plurality.