Everyone says you should "think for yourself". It's become an applause light. Everyone knows you should "think for yourself". And yet everyone knows that the vast majority of people are sheeple that don't "think for themselves". Yeah, part of the explanation is the tired old "motivated cognition" thing - who really wants to admit "No one thinks for themselves and I don't either!"? But I think there's actually more to this one. I think people really don't get it.
There's a very particular look people get when they're about to make a profound realization. You can see the curiosity. You can see the attention focused inwards as the face goes blank. Not taking in or spitting out anything of interest. You can see the testing new and never before tested beliefs in the twitching facial expressions. You can mirror the look and get a feel for what they're going through. If you've spent some time giving people realizations, it's very recognizable. I like to call this "actually thinking", but people never understand when I do. People don't seem to have a name for it.
