I have been asking myself if people were always that stubborn. Of course people refuse to learn from their parents. But recently I was trying to help a friend in selection of a major purchase. I was able to only tweak the decision. I am certain I could have saved this person hours, if not weeks of due diligence, but the person insisted on going through the motions and making an independent decision, that I am still convinced, was the wrong choice.
But there are influencers who have the spell on others. Often people have such a high esteem for these mentors that they accept every advice, especially the detrimental guidance. My question if this is a permanent condition or perhaps subject to the historical change and evolution. Mainly perhaps because we are exposed to so many pitches, the carpet bombing by commercials, so we become immunized and people refuse to believe of accept anything. Perhaps this is also the origin of uniquely American cult described by David Brooks in his last book, the obsession with knowing everything and reading everything about a particular narrow area of interest, learning to be an expert in pez dispensers, scotch, fly fishing, etc. Say reading every blog on earth about the Apple computer for example. So back to my question, is this stubbornness a new evolutionally cultural reaction or the result of having the information to feed the inner geek? I am not certain, but I am rather sure that the inoculation against listening to any advice is wasting years of human lives.
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