Group-think is a state of coexistence where individuals within a community try to reach a state of harmony and the avoidance of conflict. Although it sounds like a good idea, this can have positive and negative outcomes; it can bring people together and minimize conflict or it can severely diminish an individual's opportunity in life through the suppression of their being. The outcome depends on the situation, but I think it always ends up taking something valuable of the self from those involved.

We live in a society where most teenagers try to fit in, go with the trends and the flow, which ends up taking away their sense of self; their individual thoughts as human beings disappear. Whether they want to fit in their friend-group or just in genera, oftentimes people like me find ourselves not speaking up and rather just doing what everyone else does. This tends to be more prevalent in small communities because they want to live in harmony, have no conflicts, avoid controversial issues and isolate themselves. Also because there are less individuals to suppress, it makes that process easier to keep track of the community and the topics that are discussed.

Personally, I think that group-think it’s a futile way of living because the only thing that it does is get you to think like everyone else and seek for their acceptance, which for me is not something I agree with. I should be able to make my own decisions, talk about whatever I want without having a filter in my life that is trying to control and dictate my moves. Group think should be dropped as soon as it starts to have an impact on the way one thinks, acts and lives. It is dangerous for people to live like this because then no inventions would be made, the controversial topics would not be exposed to everyone letting them know of the dangers that they may contain, ideas to arise and individuals to take action against wrongdoing because they want to avoid conflict within their community and live in their own bubble of harmony. A perfect example of this is to look at the Reformation of the 1500’s where Martin Luther spoke openly against the church and their wrongdoings. Many people who lived in a group thinking community spoke against Luther because they wanted to avoid speaking about controversial topics like the indulgences and other things that were corrupt within the empire. If Luther had not gone against his community, this issue would probably have never been resolved or it would have been too late. I think that he felt restrained of his thoughts because of the way his community thought around him, what he was taught and if he had not broken those chains then he would have not made an effort to battle this.

I think that the best time to descent upon group thinking is when it starts to take over our thoughts and our lives, where we can no longer express ourselves freely and speak of anything we want. We should able to command and dictate our own moves and not be filtered and forced to act and speak about certain topics. We would not do what we truly want to but rather we will go with what everyone deems correct, even if it goes against what we think. We would be like a herd of sheep that will be afraid of the wolf, which in this case is going against what everyone thinks is okay. That is why group-think is dangerous.