{"id":13876,"date":"2023-03-04T06:44:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T06:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/?p=13876"},"modified":"2023-03-12T03:08:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T03:08:21","slug":"2023-03-05","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/2023-03-05\/","title":{"rendered":"How Identity Causes Problems in Our Society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Scott Wakefield<\/h3>\n

11 a.m., March 5, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Join the Humanist Forum, in person OR on Zoom.<\/p>\n

This Sunday, Humanist Community board member Scott Wakefield will speak to us in Mountain View about How Identity Causes Problems in Our Society.<\/p>\n

Have you had an experience like this? When discussing a social topic with someone, you find them merely repeating things they have heard from a group that they strongly identify with. They are not interested in seeing, let alone discussing, your point of view.
\nStrong identity with a group symbolizing power can be worrisome. After all, democracy often caters to the groups that \u201cplay the games right\u201d. While these groups may not have a big membership, they certainly have a big political clout, enough to get politicians to take their sides.
\nDoes a person’s social identity interfere with rational, objective thinking?
\nIs this more likely to occur when the group is more powerful?
\nDo others behave this way? Do I?<\/p>\n

About our speaker
\nScott first moved to The Valley of Heart’s Delight in 48 years ago. (You may know it by its other name, Santa Clara Valley.) He had already heard of Sunnyvale as the home of the phone hacker Cap’n Crunch. For several years, Scott served on the Research Advisory Committee of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute in Palo Alto. For the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, Scott volunteered as a Case Investigator for the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. Scott’s sons live in Davis and Seattle.<\/p>\n