Group Minds Lessing Analysis

The Ego Inside
In today’s society, it can be a challenge to blend in. In Doris Lessing's article, “Group Minds”, she tries to emphasize that people need to be cautious about group compulsion. The article was to demonstrate how human beings will go against their own belief in order to please the group. The aspiration to fit into a group is something humans tend to need moreover want. Many feel the need to belong to a group in order to avoid the emptiness they feel. When people are in a group, they have the tendency to have the same thought process and think the same as the majority. Individuals’ begin to slowly change over time in order to remain with the rest. Lessing tries to indicate the variety of ways a person is influenced by group pressure.
The idea that people are free and do as they will, is an important aspect to look at. They all appear to have the conception that, “I am a citizen of a free society, and that means that 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 612). Lessing has backed up her information by stating that humans may not acknowledge that about themselves, which leaves them as an open target to peer pressure in more than one way. Human beings have control over the details about themselves, but do not see that to enhance their personal lives in society. Lessing argues that humans are customary to be born into groups as people are dependent on others to give more power to the title of a group. Groups are beginning to gain authority of individuals’ daily lives without them even
Some may even change their beliefs to blend in with the crowd to avoid different opinions. Individuals will go along with what the group tends to believe even if they don’t personally agree. Everyone has been in situations where they feel victimized by group pressure through social pressure, behavior, thoughts, and feelings. People will be in denial thinking their group could change them as a person and their mindset. What they don’t realize is becoming a member of a group, their thought process is set to match with the crowd. “There are indeed glorious individuals who stubbornly insist on telling the truth as they see it, but most give into the majority opinion, obey the atmosphere” (Lessing 613). Lessing stated that there is nothing more difficult than trying to keep one’s own judgment and stand out against the group while being a group member. She also pointed out that people can be out of their comfort zone in situations that make them feel the urge to belong to a group. One may even question what they believe in because of how attached they are to the group’s minds. If one was to try and change that opinion that is made already, an individual may fear that the group will