- In a perfect world,
the relationship between private opinion and public opinion
would be basically like a mirror.
At its best, public opinion holds a mirror to us,
and it reflects exactly who we are.
What 'collective illusions' do to that relationship
is turn it into a funhouse of mirrors.
You're still seeing yourself,
but it is distorted in ways
that make it almost unrecognizable.
A collective illusion is a situation where most people
in a group go along with an idea that they don't agree with,
simply because they incorrectly believe
that most people in the group agree with it.
The majority of people in a group
believe the majority thinks something that they don't.
They lead individuals to make decisions
that are contrary to their private values.
And as a result,
the entire group can end up doing something
that almost nobody wants,
which is fatal to free society.
My think tank, Populace, studies collective illusions,
and uses what we call 'private opinion methods,'
which are just methods that help reveal
people's private views, free of social pressure
and other distorting influences on public opinion.
And every question we ever ask,
we always ask what the individual thinks,
and what they believe most people would say
to that question.
And that combination of methods
helps surface collective illusions all across society.
We have found them almost everywhere we look-
from the kind of lives we want to live,
to the country we want to live in,
to the way we want to treat each other.
And even what we expect out of our institutions
from education to the workplace.
The most damaging consequence is that an illusion
in one generation tends to become the private opinion
of the next generation.
One of the most important collective illusions
we've ever discovered, has to do with
the way that people define a successful life.
It turns out that the vast majority of the American Public
believes that most people in the country care about:
Wealth,
Status,
Power.
When in fact, the opposite is true.
The vast majority of the American Public are focused
on a more personal fulfillment orientation,
but our kids are paying an incredible price
because they do not understand that this is an illusion.
They try to chase fame because they believe
that's what other people will recognize as success.
So, if we do nothing about collective illusions now,
our silence will virtually guarantee that our children
and our grandchildren will have this view
as their private opinion.
We've known about collective illusions
for over a hundred years.
And up until the last, say, 20 years,
you could've probably counted on two hands and two feet
the number of serious, societal, collective illusions
that had existed.
Since then, that number has exploded.
They affect society as a whole,
but we are all part of creating
and sustaining the illusions.
Even when we fundamentally end up disagreeing,
a truthful disagreement is always better
than a collective illusion.
Being aware that collective illusions exist
is the starting point.
The only way to discover those is the same way
that you actually dismantle them.
You got to have conversations.
You got to talk to each other.
If you understand that fact,
and you create the enabling conditions,
that allow everyday people
to reveal who they really are to each other,
these illusions can crumble in a hurry,
and social change can happen at a scale and pace
that would otherwise seem unimaginable.
This series is brought to you by Stand Together,
a community of changemakers tackling our biggest challenges.