Herd mentality

July 5th, 2023

It is not news and it is not a breakthrough that we as people are extremely susceptible and suffering from widespread herd mentality. It seems very easy for people to abandon their ego or a part of an ego that pertains to will and power and to follow the group and function as disciples of a particular point of view or an idea or ethnicity or nationality or religion.

But I think there is more than just that — we are a horde of animals that is led by a chief. Or we are in search of a chief or a leader, someone who will take away the need for thinking and analyzing and coming to proper terms and resolutions with the world or other groups. And mostly — to save us from the terrible and terrifying freedom to make decisions.

Making decisions can lead to making wrong or bad decisions and then — what an absolute horror — living with the consequences of the said decisions.

That needs to be avoided at all costs, and that leads to unusual (to me) and coercive behavior that is characteristic of every group formation. Will and power have to be surrendered to the leader in a perverse and passive and masochistic attitude. And the leader is someone with a dangerous personality, someone who the rest of the herd is not able to look in the face because of strange paralysis that marks the relationship between a person with inferior power and standing with the one who has superior power and charisma.

Where exactly does the need for submission and passion for surrender to authority come from? Is it a desire to be under some kind of magical protection that comes from being a part of the group or maybe a longing to be hypnotized by slivers of omnipotence that comes from a person who leads? If so, then being in the group then doesn't bring anything new to the personality of a member of the herd, it only satisfies a deep-seated need to be loved and not to feel fear.