Analysis Of Group Minds By Doris Lessing

We, as humans, like to believe that we always stand out in a crowd and never conform to please society. This freedom to be an individual is held to a higher degree than most of our other freedoms. Humans believe that we always use this freedom to speak our opinions and rarely admit to changing our views to comply with a group. As much as we deny that we don’t, it seems that more often than not, we follow the crowd. In her article “Group Minds”, Doris Lessing was on the right track when she described how humans stand for choice and individualism, but when faced with the situation, most tend to fall in line with the majority.
The title of Lessing’s article speaks for itself, as it is no longer just our own mind that is making a decision, but …show more content…
While we as individuals aspire to defend ourselves at the same time, we are cowards. Overcome with the fear of rejection from the group, we choose to bury our true selves and opinions. With this phobia comes our lack of confidence. Struggling to have faith in ourselves has been yet another limit preventing us from speaking against the majority. By not having confidence, we believe that our opinions will be overlooked and we will be taunted. This belief hinders us from stating our opinions. In addition, another aspect is simply that it is challenging to speak our mind. Most of the population lacks the guts to do so, finding it easier to keep their thoughts to themselves. We allow these groups to start persuading our opinions. Lessing explains how once we belong in a group, we find our thought process changing and how hard it is to preserve your individual opinion. (Lessing 612). Influenced by the thought of being criticized is what stops us from speaking out against the majority. We are satisfied with complying to our group as long as it means we get to stay a part of the group. Humans are aware that they are influenced by their group’s opinions, but continue to belong to groups