(Heart) Breaking News
By CANSU ORANÇ (PSYC/IV)
oranc@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
What would you do if I would tell you that Lady Gaga will be the next chancellor of Bilkent?
(a) You would start to sing one of her songs and imagine the coming Spring Fest.
(b) You would wonder if there's going to be a dress code in the school from now on and begin to find your old CDs to make yourself a hat.
(c) You would hesitate for a second (I know, sounds good) but then say "Wait. What?!" and keep walking.
Hopefully, most of you would do the latter. Do you think your reaction would be different if I would tell you that the Statue of Liberty was smuggled from Turkey or dinosaurs are now protected species? A young broadcaster from Niğde, Yakup Sağlam, asked what they think about these issues (not the Lady Gaga one but the others) to college students on the streets of Niğde. He broadcast the given answers. Considering the possibility that you haven't watched any of the videos yet, I suggest you to go on any video sharing website and search with the keywords "Yakup Sağlam" or "Niğde Konuşuyor." If you don't want to watch, I can summarize them in few words. In reply to Yakup Sağlam's absurd questions like the ones above, people nod their heads to show their understanding of the issue and start to comment on it right away. The answers are as absurd as the questions, and this is why I recommend you watch them.
This was on many TV channels, newspapers and columns. I also wanted to say few words as a member of the intended audience, a college student. Contrary to what I watched and read on this so far, I don't want to comment on the answers but on the general attitude I observed. When people are listening to the question and start to give an answer, I didn't see any hesitation in their eyes showing a questioning of the question. They don't seem to register any dissonance about it.
They accept the question without thinking and jump right on the answer.
You can see that how much some people base answers on premises that, through being repeated so often, people accept without thinking. We accept without challenge some assumptions, such as "foreign countries love to steal things from us" or "we have to protect what has to be defended," and then jump to answer before asking if the question is a good one. What I saw from the videos is basically this: We love talking! It doesn't matter about what, we just love to give any opinion about anything. The problem is they're mostly not our own opinions but opinions which we know that are accepted. Then we're safe!
This is not about Niğde or college students or just Turkey but the general public. By the way, have your heard about Marilyn Monroe's new movie coming out?