Echo Chamber of the Dresden University of Technology. Author: Henry Mühlpfordt. Wikimedia Commons.

• What Is An Echo Chamber?

Here’s the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition:

“Echo chamber:
noun: a room with sound-reflecting walls used for producing hollow or echoing sound effects —often used figuratively:
“Living in a kind of echo chamber of their own opinions, they pay attention to information that fits their conclusions and ignore information that does not.””
James Surowiecki

Surowiecki’s words accurately explain the symbolic meaning of the phrase ‘echo chamber.’  It can refer to individuals or groups of people. Some people have rigid views and they totally block out anything that challenges these views. Their own ideas constantly reverberate in their heads, obliterating doubt and swiftly rejecting any challenge to their fixed ways of thinking.

The Challenge of Living – Georges Rouault. Wikioo.

Thinking in the same ways as other people can sometimes be creative and constructive, but when there is coercive pressure to do so, then there are dangers. It can be painful and challenging for those who are the butt of such pressure.

Wanting everyone around us to have the same opinions as us, and not tolerating different views, is the way an echo chamber is formed, with ideas circulating and reverberating back and forth, constantly bouncing off the walls, with no change, modification or challenge.

“The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

 Salman Rushdie

When some of these closed and fixed groups of people share views, either face-to-face or on the internet, and no one is permitted to express doubts or contrary opinions, people can become radically absorbed in their own unchanging ideologies and the group’s shared echo chamber culture.

Often, the views of such a group, or of an individual, can be misinformed. Subsequently, a kind of Chinese Whispers game develops, ensuring that the misinformation, or partial truth, becomes enlarged and further distorted, as it echoes and spreads between people.

Helen Harrop. Catherine Stones’ Chinese Whispers. Flickr.

It is easy to be taken in by such untruths, especially if they reinforce our own biases and prejudices, either conscious or unconscious. This is called confirmation bias, an erroneous thinking process, where we choose to believe what suits our own pre-conceived ideas, regardless of evidence or truth.

“With enough mental gymnastics, just about any fact can become misshapen in favour of one’s confirmation bias.”

Criss Jami, Healology.

Hussein Yoga performing a combination of a cheststand and dislocation. Wikimedia Commons.

Perhaps a better term would be ‘psychological contortions’…

There is an intimidating force within the echo chamber to conform to the group’s prevailing worldview, whether contorted or not; this can be powerful. Should anyone dare to put forward contrary views to that of the group, or to think for themselves, they will likely be shouted down, ridiculed or roundly criticised.

They may also be expelled from the echo chamber, a little like expulsion from a cult, rejected and vilified by a powerful system of groupthink. This will be exacerbated by gossip and hearsay and the victim of such attitudes will be condemned as wicked for being different. Any diversity from the echo chamber’s established ‘norm’ will not be tolerated.

This happens regularly in society, where groups of people can band together and, in a potentially dangerous way, share views that defame, distrust and denigrate those who do not conform to their ‘standards’ or beliefs. This ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude creates a ‘we’re right, they’re wrong’ culture, where the world is made up of absolutes and unquestionable rules. Those within this culture tend to feel reassured by their constant regurgitation of the same old, same old…..

It is important to examine our own behaviour when this is happening, as it is a powerful situation. When people are all thinking the same and we are not, can we dare to be different and stand by our differences, perhaps at the cost of being pushed out of the echo chamber and the social group?

“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.”

William Sloane Coffin

In the echo chamber culture, there is no opportunity for dissent, diversity, or contradiction; everyone will have to toe the party line. There will be no new ways of thinking, no learning, and no difference will be made to anyone or anything. This is a powerful, negative form of control and domination. It can creep up on us in a subtle way; when people are bad-mouthing others and persuading us of their ‘truth’, we need to be careful not to get sucked in.

“Tyranny sets up its own echo-chamber.”

Bruce Chatwin

The Echo – Georges Pierre Seurat. Wikioo.

“All history is fictionalised narration of an opinion and good authors keep coming up with new opinions on existing narrations. Those who have locked themselves in ideological echo chambers and thrown away the key consider any difference of opinion as an unwelcome perturbation on their sea of conforming tranquillity.”

R. N. Prasher

Those who think in rigid, controlling ways, who cannot tolerate diversity, will tend to want a relatively unchanging world. The formulaic nature of such ways of thinking leads to an immovability, a manner of asserting one’s views that tolerates no contradiction, no possibilities, no choice.

In this group of people who all think alike, where there is rigidity and inflexibility, there would indeed be no contradiction, no disagreement, no challenge, no innovation and certainly a lack of creativity or original thinking.

“Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Often, those who routinely adopt this black and white approach to life have not been able to trust their own thoughts, feelings and ideas, lacking the confidence, strength and conviction to do so:

“Indeed, compulsive and rigid moralism arises in given persons precisely as the result of a lack of sense of being. Rigid moralism is a compensatory mechanism by which the individual persuades himself to take over the external sanctions because he has no fundamental assurance that his own choices have any sanction of their own.”

Rollo May

Verbal Agreement Six Figures – (Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet)

“You can’t make a difference in an echo chamber.”

R.A. Delmonico

If we think the same as those around us, we will not be able to bring about anything new; making a difference involves affecting the world around us in a way that is helpful and contributory to constructive change. Creativity and original thinking will have no place in such a closed atmosphere, where old ideas become repeated endlessly.

The Cultivation of Ideas. Rene Magritte. 1927. Wikioo.

It takes courage to think differently, for thinking differently may invite both admiration and criticism. Whatever happens, new ways of thinking will be noticed and can lead to change.

Marcel Duchamp. Fountain. Wikimedia Commons.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

 Rob Siltanen

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

Carl Sagan

Valuing Difference And Diversity.

Recognising and appreciating the merits and benefits of a diversity of views and opinions is a good way to escape the echo chamber. Instead of demonising and depersonalising others, seeing them as bad and ourselves as good,  it is important to understand them, their different points of view, perhaps their different cultural norms. Exploring perceptions and beliefs that may be the polar opposite of our own can sometimes be helpful in making our minds more elastic and flexible.

Questioning

When an opinion is put forward  that might feel controversial or different, we need to explore and question, rather than accept or reject it immediately. An open mind is important here, so that we can learn and gain new knowledge from others who may have very different approaches to us.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

 Rainer Maria Rilke

A belief that every person’s views are relevant and important is crucial if we are to avoid creating or partaking in echo chambers. Learning to trust and accept others and to value them is also central.

Do you have the courage to challenge the consensus, confront the status quo? Or are you trapped in an echo chamber?

Echo Point. Kerala. Unsplash.

“The noble-minded are principled, but never dogmatic.”

Confucius

© Linda Berman.