From childhood we are trained to take comfort in the crowd. If everyone is doing something, it must be acceptable. If a belief is widely held, it must be true. If a behaviour is normal, it must be fine. This instinct runs deep, because for most of human history, going along with the group was the safest survival strategy. But it has always been a poor guide to what is actually right or true.

History is, in large part, the story of crowds being confidently wrong, and of the rare individuals who saw it and refused to go along.

Every September I watched it happen in miniature. One class clown breaks a rule, five copy him by Friday, and by half term it is simply what that class does. Not one of the five could ever tell me why. The herd does not give reasons. It just moves, and most of us move with it.

The Comfort and the Trap

There is genuine comfort in the herd. When you do what everyone does, you cannot be singled out, criticised, or blamed. The responsibility is diffused; if it turns out badly, well, everyone was doing it. This is why people will participate in things they privately find wrong, as long as the group is participating too. The crowd offers a kind of moral cover.

But the comfort is a trap. The fact that many people believe or do something tells you almost nothing about whether it is true or good. Crowds have endorsed cruelties, embraced falsehoods, and persecuted the innocent throughout history, each time utterly certain they were right.

The number of people who believe a thing is not evidence of its truth. Reality is not decided by a vote.

The Quiet Courage of Stepping Out

It takes a particular kind of courage to look at what everyone around you is doing and say, quietly, "I do not think this is right," and then to act on it. Not the loud courage of the rebel who opposes things for the thrill of it, but the quiet courage of the person who has actually thought it through and is willing to stand somewhat alone.

This person is often uncomfortable to be around, because their independence implicitly questions everyone else's conformity. They are frequently criticised, not because they are wrong, but because their standing apart makes the crowd uneasy.

How to Think for Yourself

Independence of thought is a skill, and it can be developed:

  • Notice when "everyone does it" is your only reason. If the sole justification for a belief or action is that it is common, you have not actually examined it.
  • Ask what you would think if you were the first to consider it. Strip away the social proof and judge the thing on its own merits.
  • Be willing to be the odd one out. The discomfort of standing apart is the price of integrity, and it is usually survivable.
  • Distinguish independent thought from mere contrarianism. The goal is not to oppose the crowd reflexively, which is just conformity in reverse, but to think clearly regardless of what the crowd believes.

The Worth of It

A life governed entirely by what others are doing is not really your life; it is the crowd's life, lived through you. To think for yourself, to judge things on their merits rather than their popularity, and to act on your own conscience even when it means standing apart, is to actually own your existence.

You will be wrong sometimes; independent thinkers are not immune to error. But you will be wrong honestly, by your own reasoning, rather than swept along in errors you never examined. And on the occasions when the crowd is badly mistaken, as it periodically is, you will be among the few who saw it, and who did not go along.