Revisionist History Ep. 3 The Big Man Can't Shoot

When people are in the crowd, they no longer act as individuals, but become a creature of the crowd. This is exactly what happened with Wilt Chamberlain and what Rick Berry survived from. In the ‘Revisionist History’ episode 3, ‘The Big Man Can’t Shoot’, Malcolm Gladwell explains about the threshold effect with the examples of Berry and Chamberlain. Although no one shot underhand and underhand shots were thought as ‘granny shots’, Rick Berry shot underhand and became a great free thrower. However, because of such peer pressure, another basketball player named Wilt Chamberlain quitted shooting underhand.

What makes smart people do dumb things? Why does people do something that is out of their characters? At first, sociologists thought that it is because a strong force, the crowd changes one’s belief. Mark Granovetter explains it in another way. He says, “It’s not about people having belief about what’s right and that belief changing because of the crowd. It’s about threshold effect.” Belief is an internal thing but threshold is external and threshold and belief sometimes overlap but sometimes they don’t. Everyone’s threshold is different. Some people’s threshold is really low so they just need a little push while some people have high threshold so they need a lot of people knocked off through domino effect before doing the action themselves.

Let’s ask once more. Why do people make irrational decisions? In my opinion, it is because the society, especially the Korean society, doesn’t accept ‘different’ people. Smart people stand out of the mob because they are different. But humans want the society to be maintained homogeneous. It is hard to break out of this atmosphere of the society. Since people tend to like the conformity and conservatism of the society kept, breaking out may seem radical. Korean ‘us society’ is what makes becoming an outsider more difficult. Koreans are inclined to refer to ‘our family’, not ‘my family’ and ‘our school’, not ‘my school’ as individualistic western countries use. The devotion to the community is more accentuated than the life as an individual. For example, Koreans have very high working hours and consequently, sacrifices the time for their individual life. Then, what must be debated here is whether ‘us society’ is positive or negative. It makes development of the community very speedy and efficient since every member is ready to absolutely devote themselves. However, the sacrifice or the thoughts must not be forced. The awareness that you are a member of the society such as patriotism is great but it must be voluntary.

Overcoming peer pressure and gaining high threshold is extremely difficult for all human beings are ‘social animals’ eventually. We should first accept that people are different and unique, not only by our heart, but in real life. We should refrain from scrouging someone into a stereotyped frame. Also, it is important to guarantee a second chance. In the western society, the winner in the end is a true winner while in the eastern society, a loser who failed in their first shot is always a failure. Second chances must be ensured both in social norm and policies.

In order to make myself free of social standards, I have to try to accept differences and grant second chances. Also, the difference between being ‘good’ and being ‘great’ is whether you have the mental strength to overcome peer pressure and pursue different, innovative methods. Let’s make a more heterogeneous society where creativity and diversity flourish and people are praised for what they are.