Write a short paragraph essay based on the outline by expandingon the points fromeach section according to your reading of the article.Make sure youcover all the information from the provided outline in your essay.Proper grammar is expected in the paragraph.(500 words)
ARTICAL OUTLINE :
I. Introductiona) State the thesis (see paragraph 4)II. Individualism (para. 1 – 3)a. How do citizens of the West see themselves?b. What is the effect of the “set of assumptions” shementions?c. What is the result of not analyzing these assumptions?III. Groups (para. 4 – 5)a. Why does she refer to humans as “group animals”?b. Understanding the rules that govern groups and theirmembersc. Why is it difficult to maintain a differing opinion?IV. Experiments (para. 6 -7)a. Most people are unaware that social scientists have studiedgroup behaviour.b. Explain why that lack of awareness is important.c. Very brief description of experimentV. Group Behaviour (para. 8 – 10)a. Explain the difficulty of going against the groupb. Easy to observe conformity in our societyc. Important to see our own conformity. Why?VI. Large group behaviour (para. 11)a. Ideas about group behaviour apply to small, clearly definedgroupsb. How do these ideas apply to large groups that appear to allow“differences ofopinion”?c. Assumptions that govern large groups are not questioned
VII. Education (para. 12 – 14)Complete this section yourself.
ARTICAL :
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People living in the West, in societies that we describe as Western, or as the free world, may be educated in many different ways, but they will all emerge with an idea about themselves that goes something like this: I am a citizen of a free society, and that means 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. 2 This set of ideas may sound something like a caricature, but it is not so far off how we see ourselves. It is a portrait that may not have been acquired con- sciously, but is part of a general atmosphere or set of assumptions that influence our ideas about ourselves. 1 3 People in the West therefore may go through their entire lives never thinking to analyze this very flattering picture, and as a result are helpless against all kinds of pressures on them to conform in many kinds of ways. 4 The fact is that we all live our lives in groups-the family, work groups, social, religious and political groups. Very few people indeed are happy as solitaries, and they tend to be seen by their neighbours as peculiar or selfish or worse. Most people cannot stand being alone for long. They are always seeking groups to belong to, and if one group dissolves, they look for another. We are group animals still, and there is nothing wrong with that. But what is dangerous is not the belonging to a group, or groups, but not understanding the social laws that govern groups and govern us. When we're in a group, we tend to think as that group does: we may even have joined the group to find "like-minded" people. But we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group. It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group. It seems to me that this is something we have all experienced-something we take for granted, may never have thought about it. But a great deal of experi- ment has gone on among psychologists and sociologists on this very theme. If I describe an experiment or two, then anyone listening who may be a sociologist or psychologist will groan, oh God not again-for they will have heard of these classic experiments far too often. My guess is that the rest of the people will never have heard of these experiments, never have had these ideas presented to them. If my guess is true, then it aptly illustrates my general thesis, and the general idea behind these talks, that we (the human race) are now in possession of a great deal of hard information about ourselves, but we do not use it to improve our institutions and therefore our lives. 5 6 7 A typical test, or experiment, on this theme goes like this. A group of people are taken into the researcher's confidence. A minority of one or two are left in the dark. Some situation demanding measurement or assessment is chosen. For instance, comparing lengths of wood that differ only a little from each other, but enough to be perceptible, or shapes that are almost the same size. The majority in the group-according to instruction-will assert stubbornly that these two shapes or lengths are the same length, or size, while the solitary individual, or the couple, who have not been so instructed will assert that the pieces of wood or whatever are different. But the majority will continue to insist-speaking metaphorically-that black is white, and after a period of exasperation, irritation, even anger, certainly incomprehension, the minority will fall into line. Not always, but nearly always.
8 9 10 In other words, we know that this is true of human behaviour, but how do we know it? It is one thing to admit it, in a vague uncomfortable sort of way (which probably includes the hope that one will never again be in such a testing situa- tion) but quite another to make that cool step into a kind of objectivity, where one may say, "Right, if that's what human beings are like, myself included, then let's admit it, examine and organize our attitudes accordingly." 11 This mechanism, of obedience to the group, does not only mean obedience or submission to a small group, or one that is sharply determined, like a religion or political party. It means, too, conforming to those large, vague, ill-defined collections of people who may never think of themselves as having a collective mind because they are aware of differences of opinion-but which, to people from outside, from another culture, seem very minor. The underlying assump- tions and assertions that govern the group are never discussed, never challenged, probably never noticed, the main one being precisely this: that it is a group mind, intensely resistant to change, equipped with sacred assumptions about which there can be no discussion. There are indeed glorious individuals who stubbornly insist on telling the truth as they see it, but most give in to the majority opinion, obey the atmosphere. When put as badly, as unflatteringly, as this, reactions tend to be incredulous: "I certainly wouldn't give in, I speak my mind...." But would you? 12 13 People who have experienced a lot of groups, who perhaps have observed their own behaviour, may agree that the hardest thing in the world is to stand out against one's group, a group of one's peers. Many agree that among our most shameful memories is this, how often we said black was white because other people were saying it. But suppose this kind of thing were taught in schools? Let us just suppose it, for a moment.... But at once the nub of the problem is laid bare. 14 15 Imagine us saying to children. "In the last fifty or so years, the human race has become aware of a great deal of information about its mechanisms; how it behaves, how it must behave under certain circumstances. If this is to be useful, you must learn to contemplate these rules calmly, dispassionately, disinterestedly, without emotion. It is information that will set people free from blind loyalties, obedience to slogans, rhetoric, leaders, group emotions." Well, there it is. What government, anywhere in the world, will happily envisage its subjects learning to free themselves from governmental and state rhetoric and pressures? Passionate loyalty and subjection to group pressures is what every state relies on. Some, of course, more than others. Khomeini's Iran, and the extreme Islamic sects, the Communist countries, are at one end of the scale. Countries like Norway, whose national day is celebrated by groups of children in fancy dress carrying flowers, singing and dancing, with not a tank or gun in sight, are at the other. It is interesting to speculate: what country, what nation, when, and where, would have undertaken a programme to teach its children to be people to resist rhetoric, to examine the mechanisms that govern them? I can think of only one-America at its birth, in that heady period of the Gettysburg address. And that time could not have survived the Civil War, for when war starts, countries. cannot afford disinterested examination of their behaviour. When a war starts,
16 17 18 19 20 nations go mad-and have to go mad, in order to survive. When I look back at the Second World War, I see something I didn't more than dimly suspect at the time. It was that everyone was crazy. Even people not in the immediate arena of war. I am not talking of the aptitudes for killing, for destruction, which soldiers are taught as part of their training, but a kind of atmosphere, the invisible poison, which spreads everywhere. And then people everywhere begin behaving as they never could in peacetime. Afterwards we look back, amazed. Did I really do that? Believe that? Fall for that bit of propaganda? Think that all our enemies were evil? That all our own nation's acts were good? How could I have tolerated that state of mind, day after day, month after month-perpetually stimulated, perpetually whipped up into emotions that my mind was meanwhile quietly and desperately protesting against? No, I cannot imagine any nation-or not for long-teaching its citizens to become individuals able to resist group pressures. And no political party, either. I know a lot of people who are socialists of various kinds, and I try this subject out on them, saying: all governments these days use social psychologists, experts on crowd behaviour, and mob behaviour, to advise them. Elections are stage managed, public issues presented according to the rules of mass psychology. The military uses this information. Interrogators, secret services and the police use it. Yet these issues are never even discussed, as far as I am aware, by those parties and groups who claim to represent the people. On one hand there are governments who manipulate, using expert knowl- edge and skills, on the other hand people who talk about democracy, freedom, liberty and all the rest of it, as if these values are created and maintained by simply talking about them, by repeating them often enough. How is it that so-called democratic movements don't make a point of instructing their mem- bers in the laws of crowd psychology, of group psychology? When I ask this, the response is always an uncomfortable, squeamish reluc- tance, as if the whole subject is really in very bad taste, unpleasant, irrelevant. As if it will all just go away if it is ignored. So at the moment, if we look around the world, the paradox is that we may see this new information being eagerly studied by governments, the possessors and users of power-studied and put into effect. But the people who say they oppose tyranny literally don't want to know.