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By Root 1298 0

hold tremendous significance for people. In the late 1960s, for instance, the tendency of many young people to think and act and dress differently from their parents drew surprisingly angry responses from many adults. To them it represented much more than an assertion of young people's independence. In some vague way it threatened the idea of order itself, for the parent-child relationship represented only one aspect of a whole network of higher-lower relationships: God-human, leader-follower, master-servant, employer-employee, rich-poor, teacher-student. To challenge one was to challenge all. And to challenge all was to attack the very fabric of civilized society. Given this perspective, the rabid rejection of hippies and communes and peace signs was understandable. To the traditionalist, long hair and bare feet were not just matters of appearance; they were symbols of anarchy.

Despite such resistance to change, however, many new ideas do manage to take hold. We might think that when they do, those who had fought so hard for them would remember the resistance they had to overcome in others. Ironically, they often forget very quickly. In fact, they sometimes display the same fear and insecurity they so deplored in others. An example occurred in psychiatry. Sigmund Freud and his followers were ostracized and bitterly attacked for suggesting that sexuality was an important factor in the development of personality. The hostility toward Freud was so strong, in fact, that his masterwork, The Interpretation of Dreams, was ignored when it was first published in 1900. it took eight years to sell 600 copies of the book.5

Yet when Freud's ideas became accepted, he and his followers showed no greater tolerance – they ostracized and attacked those who challenged any part of his theory. Karen Horney, for example, challenged Freud's view of women as being driven by "penis envy." She also believed that neurosis is caused not only by frustrated sexual drives but also by various cultural conflicts and that people's behavior is not determined by instinctual drives but can in many instances be self-directed and modified. For these theories (today widely accepted,) she was rewarded with rebuke and ostracism by the Freudian dogmatists.6

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

It is important to overcome resistance to change for two reasons. The first is that all creative ideas are by definition new and unexpected departures from the usual and the accepted. Resisting change therefore means opposing creativity and the progress it brings about. The second reason is that resistance to change blocks the impartial judgment essential for critical thinking. Here are three tips for overcoming your resistance to change:

Expect yourself to react negatively to new ideas. In addition, expect your reaction to be especially strong when the new idea challenges a belief or approach you have become attached to.

Refuse to let your initial negative (or, for that matter, positive) reaction to be the measure of the new idea. Force yourself to set aside that reaction long enough to appraise the idea fairly.

Judge the idea on the basis of your critical appraisal and not your initial reaction. If there are good and sufficient reasons for rejecting the idea, by all means do so. However, be honest with yourself. If your "reasons" are only excuses in disguise, acknowledge (at least to yourself) that you are too prejudiced to judge the idea fairly.

APPLICATIONS

To what extent do you tend to resist change? The ideas listed below will give you an opportunity to reach a tentative conclusion. Read each one, react to it, and observe your reaction. If you notice yourself resisting it at all, examine the reaction more closely and determine what parts of the chapter shed light on your resistance:

A federal law should be passed requiring women to retain their maiden names when they marry (that is, forbidding them from adopting their husbands' names).

All high school and college varsity sports should be eliminated, all varsity sports budgets should