I just re-listened to this Hidden Brain podcast: "Our Brands, Our Selves."
This was from 2019, but I found two things in it that didn't change in the message, but my interpretation of the information is different because circumstances changed.
The podcast description is this: "All of us are surrounded by brands. Designer brands. Bargain-shopper brands. Brands for seemingly every demographic slice among us. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how brands influence you? This week, we bring you our 2019 conversation with Americus Reed, who studies how companies create a worldview around the products they sell, and then get us to make those products a part of who we are."
If you don't want to listen to the entire podcast (better if you do), go to 17 minutes in and there is a discussion about how political parties are brands and indeed tribal in today's world. This is just like earlier in the podcast when the guest talks about being in high school and having the brand and style of shoes one wore as defining which group you are in. In 2020 and 2021, it is not what you wear, but what you don't wear — when it comes to facial masks. It has become part of the Republican "brand" to not wear them. Even when Republican congressional members where hiding from the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, they politely declined the offer of masks to wear — while crowded into a conference room with over 100 other people. To put one on would have gone against "their brand."
Then, skip to 26 minutes and 20 seconds, to hear a segment on "decoupling" and how we as individuals make rationalizations for what we believe. This is another behavior I see in this time in history, where an individual's behavior does not mesh with what we personally believe is honorable and true, but we manage to "decouple" one aspect of a person or brand to allow us to continue to follow the brand/person.
I perhaps have not written about this in the past, but I strongly believe that what really gets people into trouble is when they are not "self-aware." This might be of their physical talents, mental abilities, psychological strengths and weaknesses, etc. For example, my son was a soccer player and had a cannon for a leg. I thought he would have been a terrific football field goal kicker, but he did not have the mental confidence with a game on the line to make that type of kick. Fortunately, he knew it and didn't try.
We have to know when we ourselves are doing "mental gymnastics" to excuse the behavior of other people. Otherwise we are not only fooling others, we are fooling ourselves. If we don't do a close internal examination for what we believe, we are decoupling from reality and our personal values.
