Once, in primary school, I recall one of the students rolling around on the floor, gagging and vomiting and he lay in the fetal position. His pain wasn’t really appreciated by the rest of the class. The teacher was furious, and upon storming up to the small girl who stood over his prone body demanded of her.
“What did you do to him.”
“I kicked him.”
“Why did you kick him?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“If he asked you to jump off of a cliff, would you?”
“No, but if he asked me to kick him again, I probably would.”
At this point, peals of laughter erupted once again from the remaining class, and the girl and boy involved were ushered out of the classroom in the direction of the front office, at least once he could walk again.
It is only on gaining experience that I now realize her answer was actually a pretty good one. The question isn’t a practical one. It’s intended, entirely, to be rhetorical - no answer is expected and most answers would only add to the ridicule imposed by the original question.
The intent of the question is, of course, to ridicule the decision someone has made, whether it’s doing something someone else told them to do, or simply following others like sheep. It’s intended to provoke us to question our judgement. Sometimes it’s used well, such as when the outcome had a fairly obvious detriment, but only to the person doing it. In such circumstances, the ridicule should be shouldered with what little pride remains in the person who has committed such an act.
However, when there is no real detriment to the person committing the act being ridiculed, simply answering in that way is enough to avoid any ridicule intended. And sometimes, simply pointing out that some though was made prior to the act is enough to deflect the criticism.
eg;
“Why did you eat so much.”
“Peter ate it too.”
“If Peter jumped off of a cliff, would you?”
“No, but eating all the ice-cream seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Perhaps these lessons started to sink in over time, at least enough that, by high school, I was able to think for myself.
I recall an electricity experiment. The whole class sat around in a circle, waiting to be attached to a “shock” inducing circuit, so that they could feel the shock transmitted from one to another. I refused to participate, much to calls of being a chicken, a coward, and just not participating. So it went ahead without me, while even the teacher was joining in the ridicule.
Ten seconds later, I reached the power socket and switched it off, as a ring of about 30 kids all fell off their chairs and onto the floor, some crying, some seemingly unaffected. I guess I knew enough about circuits and electrocution by then to realize the experiment had been set up very poorly. Monkey grip is a good choice for conduction, but you can’t always let go if it’s a constant AC current and the voltage is too high.
It can be difficult to think for yourself in the face of peer pressure. Giving in is the easy way out and ridiculing those who have fallen to this weakness isn’t fair. If you want people to reason for themselves, causing them to resent your criticism isn’t the best way.
But if everyone is jumping off the cliff?
Well, here’s a final perspective on this.
There’s an old Italian saying I once heard, and I’m not Italian so please forgive me if I get it wrong. “If one person tell you that you look sick, and you feel fine, then ignore him, but if ten people tell you that you look sick, maybe you better go and see a doctor.”
Likewise, if one person jumps off a cliff, then you can laugh at their misfortune, but if everyone about you is jumping off the cliff, then maybe you should question why you’re still standing at the edge?