When You Find Yourself On The Side Of The Majority

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“When you find yourself on the side of the majority. it’s time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

Although being in a group may alleviate stress—that is if the stress is not caused by the group—being in a group does not always produce positive results. For one thing, it can kill creativity. Since the majority adapts a unified thinking, going against the norm may run the risk of being called unreasonable.

In the topic of “Minority vs. Majority Influence”, mankind’s progress is due to the creativity and persistence of the “unreasonable man” who took the risk of being rejected by the majority. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Moscovici argues that the majority is not always right and that the pressure on minorities drowns out the ideas that could’ve changed the world. Hence, like Shaw, he believes that change only happens when the minority provides the majority with new ideas which might lead them to re-evaluate their views or the norm.

In the words of Margaret Mead: “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Although being in the majority is not always wrong, hopping into the bandwagon for the sake of blending is the death of logic. To paraphrase Mark Twain, you should re-examine your values and beliefs because you might just be following a crowd heading in the wrong direction.