All life on earth or anywhere in the whole creation can be defined and characterized by their resilience and will to survive. It is an obvious condition for anything that is perceived to be a living entity. Life would always find ways to sustain itself, to not be obliterated under any circumstances. This resilience and urge to survive no matter what is ingrained in all life forms. All course of evolution is a testament to this one survival instinct. Life, just so to keep going, kept on evolving and adapting. Once having secured their position at the top of the food chain, human beings developed finer capabilities to engineer themselves into increasingly complex beings. The biological functions amalgamated with psycho-social dimensions of human behaviour fashioned modern human beings and their societies the way they are today. They learnt to have hopes, dreams, goals and achievements for themselves as individuals and as clusters. All things, that gave them purpose beyond just existing. Thus, the most crucial thing humans learnt early on during their course of evolution was to maintain close contact with each other and live in groups. That is how they were able to abandon cave life to proceed in groups and form tribes, communities and early civilizations. Moving in groups ensured their safety and subsistence. Hence the most inescapable aspect of this state of affairs was a definitive evolution of hive mentality or groupthink.
Once having secured their position at the top of the food chain, human beings developed finer capabilities to engineer themselves into increasingly complex beings.
The world has witnessed and experienced the consequences of this hive mentality throughout time. All systems of governance, power and authority owe their existence to this phenomenon of groupthink. Cults originated as a result of groupthink. Theological philosophies established and were proliferated far and wide due to hive mentality. Ideologies came into being and sustained the test of time for the same reasons. “Isms” found their much intriguing and resilient existence being penetrated all kinds of governing systems that have been in effect in the world thanks to groupthink. This proposition may sound counter-intuitive; as any novel idea, a new dream or an innovative theory comes from one mind, one dream-seller who could think anew, to offer something different, something extraordinary. But here’s the catch. Just like every herd would need a shepherd to find new grasslands for them to graze. Similarly, every group of people, big or small, would need a leader or to be precise the proverbial Pied Piper to constantly keep providing some fresh goal, keep playing some melody, and keep offering some pipe dream that would continue to appease their hive mind to keep them walking in a stupor without using their individual and independent, mental faculties. Why is it so? Very simple answer; this is what millennia of evolution taught mankind. To act like a herd served the very basic need of human beings; to stay out of harm’s way, be secure and survive. As a group, they flourished biologically as well as cerebrally and also sociologically by staying connected and the best way to do that was to follow the shepherd in letter and spirit for, he would bear the onus to do all the thinking on their part and lead them towards some presumed collective goal. It is pertinent to mention here that groupthink is not to be mistaken for collective wisdom; as the former is devoid of any rational, critical thinking on the part of group members.
The problem with humankind though, is that each one of us is inherently endowed with a mind. Mind can be curious or incurious; it can be rebellious or docile; it can be noisy or mute, it can be remarkable or unremarkable and so on. Hence even though the world is primarily and largely composed of herds, there will always be the ones who would like to go astray; The ones who are averse to following the beaten track, who loathe to go by the flock dynamics and walk bedazed to the tunes of the pied piper till they jump over the edge. These people are voices of dissent; the nonconformists, the dissenters. Interestingly enough just like not all sheep are made equal neither are all shepherds. Not each one of the shepherds is sympathetic and considerate towards the miscreant sheep. They feel their authority is challenged. They also feel that the nonconformist has the potential to disrupt the quiescence and docility of the herd hence a threat to the system. Which in turn can make the shepherd look meek or deficient, a predicament no leader would like to be in. So how do they counter the problem? Very simple. They establish and then cement their position as a formidable, uncontested, absolute leader who cannot and should not be defied for which they gather around them the most zealous of sheep who can be used without getting their own hands dirty.
Such a principle works very well in a society full of intellectual pygmies and troglodytes whose intransigence and inertia serve them well for they do not know any better than to toe the line. Such members of any group become the proverbial “Blind force” in the hands of the leader ready to be weaponized at any moment. Needless to say, the dissenters are the sufferers in this game of power. Although not aspiring for any position, their mere dissent renders them challengers and contenders, a predicament that narrows the world for them, severs their umbilical cord of free choice, sucks their oxygen supply dry and threatens their existence. The dissenters have always been a marginalized minority. To escape probable persecution at the hands of the herd, many times the best they can do is to sit aside and wait for the pied piper to take everyone to the edge.
The writer is an educationist and a PhD in art and design.