Doris Lessing Group Minds Essay

People are distinct individuals, but individuals do not live in isolation. Doris Lessing’s essay “Group Minds,” talks about the human nature of belonging to groups. Humans, especially those in Western societies do not like to be loners, but rather enjoy being part of a like-minded group. Most people cannot stand being alone, so therefore they are always looking for groups to belong to (Lessing 307). No man is an island and individuals live in groups and teams and classes that come together with a purpose. Yet, we are still individuals with our own contributions to give to group and to society.

Americans have an idea that to quote Lessing, “I am a citizen of a free society, and that means I am an individual, making individual choices. My mind is my own, my opinions are chosen by me, I am free to do as I will, and at the worst the pressures on me are economic, that is, I may be too poor to do as I want” (Lessing 307). There has always been a dichotomy between the free spirit of the individual and the collective nature of the nation and it has been a struggle that our society has been fighting against since the very founding of the country. It is a fundamental right that is guaranteed us in the Constitution: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, the
We will frequently do ridiculous things to fit in. In Lessing’s essay, she stresses that when people are in a group, they tend to give in to the group by changing their thinking and opinions to agree with the group (Lessing 307). People know that there is safety in numbers and in prehistoric times, loners were the ones who were more likely to be eaten by bears. This carries over into modern life where “everybody lives their lives in groups-whether it be family, work groups, social, or political groups because very few people are happy being isolated from others because they are seen as peculiar selfish, or worse.” (Lessing