Group Character

Humans live in groups.
We are not one of the self sufficient species like the tigers or the polar bears who meet only when it comes time to mate. We group instinctively, and we share. Natural groups form to benefit the members. A group of individuals can protect themselves and learn skills much more effectively than single individuals can. They can share skills and knowledge and resources.

The most fundamental natural group is the family - a genetically related group of several generations. The family grouping is truly ancient, and it evolved for safety and sharing. But we also fight with each other. Families can have widely different effects on the members. Some families are well bonded, while others seem to be self-destructive. How do these dramatic differences come about? Can understanding the issues of group membership help us to resolve differences? How can we understand our own group character well enough to master it?

Cultures are groups that develop a distinct identity and persist over time.
Many cultures have risen and faded over the course of history. Some cultures have evolved and grown, while others have faded and been replaced or absorbed into newer ones. We have many cultures in our modern world. Cultures have great variation. Some are fun, pleasant, healthy environments for their members' individuality, while others are harsh & difficult.

Culture functions in many ways like an extra layer of brain.
We learn so much from our group affiliations. We start to access this cultural knowledge as soon as we acquire it. The years pass, and we absorb and utilize most of this knowledge without question. Young adults often ask questions, but most people simply pass through those years and decide to adapt to their culture to gain the benefits of membership and avoid the separations created by rebellion. People who do keep questioning often feel adrift, without strong guidelines. They may look for other cultural traditions that speak to them.

How do families and other groups go wrong and hurt their own members?
What happens to poison a group?

Groups are often described as "having a life of their own." The truth is that we give our groups a life. We contribute our energy to the group. All of us collectively contribute to the life of the group. However, the group does indeed have a definite character of its own. This character has structures that mimic the personality of an individual.

We may find a certain group to be appealing to us or not, restricting or liberating, enabling or not, and we choose to join or not. But certain individuals seem to represent the group more clearly than the others. These individuals seem to set the tone. They seem to fit the context of the group more than the average member. Their personality structures are well aligned with those of the group. Consequently, if they wish, they can 'call the shots' and lead the group with ease. Often the other members make them the icons, the figureheads, the stars and leaders.

Quotes

“When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because 'a cappella' singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.”
Brian Eno

“People who volunteer at the recycling center or soup kitchen through a church or neighborhood group can come to feel part of something 'larger.' Such a sense of belonging calls on a different part of a self than the market calls on. The market calls on our sense of self-interest. It focuses us on what we 'get.' ”
Arlie Russell Hochschild

“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

“Ordinary people are products of their environment and fit in. Artists transcend their environment and stand out.”
Oliver Gaspirtz

“Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it?”
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“I stayed on my own path and did not follow the herd. I made a way for myself.”
Eartha Kitt

“The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.”
Napoleon Bonaparte

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
Bertrand Russell

“I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.”
Will Self

“It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.”
Henry Miller

“Like the herd animals we are, we sniff warily at the strange one among us.”
Loren Eiseley

“Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow creatures than from the convulsions of the elements.”
Edward Gibbon