To believe that if 100 people tell you you’re dead… you should probably lie down?

[OneJadeWren]

I heard this phrase the other day and it stuck with me. It made me think about situations where lots of people are saying the same thing about you - even if it doesn’t feel true to you.

Is there a point where the consensus becomes the truth or is there value in holding your ground, even if everyone thinks you’re wrong?

Is this phrase wisdom… or just dangerous groupthink?

Surely this 100% depends on the context.

It really depends on what they are telling you... I feel like over 100 people at this stage have told me I will definitely have another child and I can tell you I definitely will not!

Honestly - your posts are so obscure.

Actually thinking on this some more, the phrase "if everyone was jumping off a bridge would you do it, too?" comes to mind.

I'm not sure it's a good saying. Seeing as dead people are not walking around, even if 100 people say it, it's not going to be true!

First post actually but if I’m already being called obscure, I must be doing something right 😄

It depends how many people are telling you you're still alive.

Look at Donald Trump, it seemed impossible he would be president when he first decided to run. He won. Then, beyond impossible that he would be re-elected and yet here we are. Turns out you can come back from the dead.

The truth remains the truth, no matter how many people say otherwise. Objective reality doesn’t change in the face of multiple opinions

Depends on so many things. Who are the people, is it reasonable to assume they speak the truth, are they qualified to comment?

This saying could be used to describe a rude person being told they are being rude by a range of people who have experienced their behaviour, independent from each other, over a period of time. Equally, it could describe someone being bullied and abused in a dysfunctional team or family.

I think even if I am dead, no harm in continuing to walk around, I'm already dead so might as well carry on if I want to.

If the 100 people don't know/communicate with each other it can't be group think. So if a lot of people in unrelated areas of your life all hold a similar opinion of you, it's worth considering if they might be correct.

However a person can project their insecurities and vulnerabilities into the people around them. An abused person made to feel unworthy by those closest to them, may project that into their friends, teachers, colleagues. So then not group think, and not a truth, but a trauma response.

What a fucking stupid thing to say.

If everyone else around you thinks you're wrong, then you should absolutely consider the possibility that you're wrong. However it's pretty bloody easy to determine whether you're dead or not, the first test being "are people talking to me". So this "saying" makes absolutely no sense, or possibly means the actual opposite of what you think it does.

Then Kathy Burke, Chrissy Rock etc wouldn't be on TV because they were laughed at when they said they wanted to be actresses. Likewise Maryln Monroe fought to be heard (her interviews on feminism were usually buried, but hit the mark). My peer group (Women near 60) still fought against lots of sexism and misogyny, if we listened to the people around us, things would have progressed less.

I'd say if bad things are expected of someone, or they feel people see them in a negative light, they're much more likely to conform to that expectation and behave accordingly.

If someone is told they have no flaws whatsoever then they'll start to believe that pretty easily because it makes their life a positive experience. So very successful people end up believing all their own hype.

Your first interpretation is correct.

It's not meant literally.

It's like 'don't throw the baby out with the bath water', for example. It's a saying. There wasn't actually an epidemic of people throwing their babies out of windows/letting them drain down the plughole.

If everyone else around you thinks you're wrong, then you should absolutely consider the possibility that you're wrong.

I agree there.
But I think the most important one is the next part. Which is that you REALLY dint have to assume you’re wrong.

Let’s say, you’re living with a narcissist that is the pillar of the community, respected by everyone etc… but is abusive behind doors. You might have 100 people telling you he is an amazing man and he can’t possibly be abusive. It doesn’t mean he is amazing and you’re wrong to think he is abusive.

or threads on here where the majority of posters are saying ‘the OP is wrong’ and find it awful that the OP still disagrees. Because if 100% of people say you’re wrong then surely you are.
But actually those posters reflect a social rule that the OP might not agree with/she has a different cultural or historical background etc…

This is a saying that, for me, encourages group think and lack of critical thinking tbh.

I think the point is, if everyone’s of the same opinion they can’t all be wrong so why dig your heels in and do it (whatever it is) anyway rather than listen to advice

It’s clearly shite. If you’re walking around and 100 people tell you you’re dead, you’re clearly not, are you?

I’m sure more than one hundred people told The Emperor his new clothes were lovely, but that doesn’t mean he was actually wearing any! It’s not a profound saying, it’s daft.

But sometimes people are wrong. That’s how new discoveries happen. We wouldn’t have progressed at all if people just took ‘facts’ as definite rather than use their brain to ascertain if they’re true or if they could be wrong. Think about all the scientific advances, eg Galileo, realising sperm didnt contain a little curled up baby, the Earth not being flat, etc etc.

“Because everyone says so” is the reasoning of a child.

You're comparing apples and oranges though. "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater" isn't the same at all, it doesn't have the same inherent inconsistency baked into it.

Either:

• 100 people are telling you you're dead, but you know you're not - in which case why would you "lie down"?
• Or, you accept that they are right and ignore your own experience of not being dead

It makes no sense at all, and definitely doesn't mean what the OP seems to think - that you should over-rule the evidence of your own senses if you are told something that contradicts that evidence.

It's not literal. It's figurative. Like many of these sayings.

Both, depending on context.

If all your loving friends and family are telling you your house stinks and you're just noseblind to it, it's probably worth believing them.

If a gangster of school bullies are telling you to jump off a bridge because you're worthless, then no.

I think it's possible for 100 people to tell you a lie and make it extremely difficult not to start believing it. My ex and his abusive mother told me a lot of lies about myself and it took years to truly shake them off.

If you meet one arsehole in a day, you’ve met one arsehole.

If you keep meeting arseholes, you either need better friends or you need to do some serious self-reflection

It's drawing on the idea of spirits/ghosts, believing they're alive when they're dead. Think Bruce Willis in Sixth Sense.

It's figurative language, not a literal idea.

It does mean exactly what the OP thinks it means i.e. your perception of the world can be incorrect. You can believe yourself to be alive when you're not. Or you can believe yourself to still be in the game/have a shot when you clearly don't. It means give-up essentially!

Whether you agree with it or not is a different question, but it's a standard figurative bit of speech not meant to be taken literally that does indeed mean exactly what the OP thinks.

Depends on the context. It's really really hard to hold out against social and group pressure. But if you're a German in 1940s Germany holding out against 100 Nazis telling you Jews are subhuman that's rather different from 100 people telling you your husband is a creepy pervert.