“It is often difficult to think outside the group we belong to.”
In today’s society there is an overwhelming desire to fit in and belong, we often go to extremes in order to not stand out and to conform to certain standards. The sense of belonging to a group can give people a sense of security and can positively influence our lives. However it can often be hard to think outside the group we belong to and have a different opinion to what everyone else has. We can often see the positives and negatives to thinking as a collective, it is especially shown in times of political upheaval, social conflict and personal experience.
In the classic allegory “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, the animal’s band together in order to bring a rebellion about, the animals all share a mindset and all want the same outcome, which is equality to all animals. The actual outcome ends up nothing like what they hoped for as Napoleon makes Animal Farm a total dictatorship, although the animals are unable to realise this as they still believe that Napoleon has the same intentions as they do. The animals could not identify that Napoleon had started to think for himself and no longer shared their ideology of a free world to all animals and that what Napoleon was doing was having a negative impact on the other animals. There were many consequences that came with Napoleons independent thought such as the public executions, longer working hours, lower food rations and the overall fact that the animals were worse off with him in charge as opposed to Mr. Jones. Overall the book showed that a collective mindset can have issues as even though the animals may have all wanted freedom they were unable to think for themselves and form a separate opinion so as soon as they had someone in power they followed blindly.
From 1991-2001 Yugoslavia experienced a civil war due to the rising idea of nationalism from the various ethnic groups, mainly Croatia and Serbia. In the beginning of the documentary Vlade Divac (Serbia) and Drazen Petrovic (Croatia) are good friends that both play on the Yugoslavian National Basketball team together but eventually both get drafted into the NBA, Divac for the Los Angeles Lakers and Petrovic to the Portland Trailblazers. Although Divac and Petrovic were both in America whilst the conflict was occurring in their home country they still formed their opinions on the matter, both taking different sides which in end was what ruined their friendship. Divac still wanted Yugoslavia to stay Yugoslavia and had the belief that he was first and foremost a Yugoslavian and second a Serbian whereas Petrovic believed that he was Croatian and only Croatian and wanted Yugoslavia to split into the separate states. Both Divac and Petrovic found it difficult to express their opinions as they were in the media so often and weren’t at home where they felt they should have been. In the end Divac wanted to reconcile with Petrovic after their friendship was tainted but was unable to as Petrovic passed away in a car accident. Overall they often found it difficult to express their opinions without making too much of an impact and thinking for themselves and were often influenced by others and their loved ones. In Cronulla in 2005 thousands of Australians flocked down to Cronulla beach to protest but it quickly turned violent when they spotted a man of Arab appearance and whilst under the influence of alcohol they attacked him. These riots were between the “Aussies” and the “Lebs” and the Australians decided that the “Lebs” were unwanted in the Sydney suburb Cronulla as they deemed them to be violent. The majority of the