Group Minds

The article "Group Mind" by Doris Lessing was about people wanting to be in groups. A group is several people with a common interest. Being in a group gives us a sense of belonging; people out there being just like us. Lessing says; "We tend to think the way the group does: may even joined the group to find "like minded" people" (Lessing 357). This is because if we see other people in the world that are like us, then we will feel more wanted.

Lessing sets up an experiment to prove her point. Most people said that they are their own person and wouldn't give into the group. But as Lessing saw, people did exactly what every one else in the group did. Why? Because we want people in the group to like us, so we tend to think like they do.

An example of this from my own life would be from my high school days. My friends and I always got made fun of because of our looks. We weren't in the popular crowd by any means but we were the "geek squad" either. We were the people in the middle that whatever side needed us; we would join that side and help them out. But because we did this, our classmates would call us names and tell us we were "two faced" just because we weren't part of their group. One this I noticed though about the name calling, is that once one of the students would call us a name, then all the other group members would start. This really made me mad: I always told myself "Why don't they get there own minds?"

According to Lessing this is how group minds work. When someone does something, the others want to fit in so they do it to. She says; "But suppose this kind of thing were taught in schools?" (Lessing 358).I really don't think it is taught in schools, I think is rather something that kids learn from themselves, generation passes it on to generation. In my opinion, one of the generations needs to stop it and start thinking for themselves.