How Many of Your Thoughts Are Your Own?

Abeer Al Tamimi discusses how many of our opinions are merely beliefs resulting from unconscious social conditioning and how many of them are based on our own understanding

We like to think we have fully embraced and live according to free will, and we make all our own decisions. But, the harsh reality is that we are programmed by society through positive and negative social conditioning. Without realising it we follow sets of laws and rules that are dictated by our parents, our teachers, our communities and our governments.

It starts the moment we are born and we are assigned a name, a gender, and nationality and these set the tone for our formative years, subliminally shaping the adults we become. 

It’s easier to comply when we’re younger because we’re less eager to stand out from the crowd because the negative outcome for that is generally bullying and being ostracised from popular groups. So, we fall in line.

Some social rules aren’t always clear either. “We are judged on how we talk, the way we dress, laws, social standards, religious beliefs and traditions. In most cultures, men and women are given completely different conditioning,” said Abeer Al Tamimi, adding, “What is expected to be the norm will vary from culture to culture. Sometimes, we might even encounter drastic contradictions to our norms. Judgment occurs due to a lack of acceptance.”

One trap we have fallen into at one time or another is conforming to the norms that have been dictated by the society around us, regardless of whether they are outdated, false, misleading, or do not align with the present world because we grew up believing in them and seeing them adapted by everyone around us.

It raises the question of how many of our opinions are merely beliefs resulting from unconscious social conditioning, and how many of them are based on our own understanding. While we know many things and are in a continuous process of discovery, how much of our knowledge comes from personal experience, and how much from parrot-like learning?

Al Tamimi took to her private Instagram, with an eclectic mix of about 500 followers, and posed the question, “What does social conditioning mean to you?” Aside from the few expected sheep emojis, there was one overarching tenet to the answers, regardless of nationality, upbringing or life experiences – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

“The message is clear,” she said. “If it’s not affecting us, who cares what other people are doing? We should celebrate diversity, understand that people are different and treat them with respect. Being friends with people from completely different cultures and backgrounds exposes you to so much. I realised that there was a trauma that goes across cultures around important life choices based on social conditioning, from choosing a university major to who you marry. There’s a collective weight people carry around about what people would say and what the neighbours would think. Many of the responses carried the similar theme of ‘I wish my parents would be more understanding of my decisions.’”

Parents have the pressure and responsibility of bringing their children up with good values, and a lot of the time they are lessons inherited from their parents and their grandparents, where traditions, culture, religion or habits, are dictated and followed generation after generation with nobody stopping to question them, causing a considerable hindrance to critical thinking. 

Living in Dubai, where the cultural focus is more on living with tolerance and respect and less on a person’s religion, ethnicity or country of origin, Al Tamimi and her husband are active when addressing conditioning and critical thinking with their children.

“My husband and I always talk to the children openly. I find it extremely important to share both the good and the bad experiences we have had in our lives growing up and as adults. We don’t always agree on certain topics of culture and politics but we respect each other’s opinions, and the kids see that. They see it’s okay to be married and have different opinions and thoughts and to have healthy debates. They understand that not everything is black and white. We are raising our kids to understand that everyone is different and that is okay, but also not to worry about what other people think.”