Speaker 1: Arthur Schopenhauer lived in the nineteenth century, but his words
Speaker 1: echo louder today than ever before. He believed that the
Speaker 1: majority of people do not engage in true reasoning. Instead,
Speaker 1: they are carried by what he saw as instinctive drives, desires,
Speaker 1: and the fear of exclusion. To him, the herd mind
Speaker 1: was not just a weakness. It was a destructive force,
Speaker 1: crushing individuality, silencing truth, and eroding human freedom. Think about
Speaker 1: how easily a crowd can be swayed by slogans, by fear,
Speaker 1: or by promises. A group of individuals, each capable of reflection,
Speaker 1: when brought together, often loses the very capacity to reason.
Speaker 1: Psychologist Gustave Lebon in his classic work The Crowd, later
Speaker 1: expanded on this, showing how crowds think in images, emotions,
Speaker 1: and impulses rather than in logic. And long before Lebon,
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer already understood that the pressure to belong to the
Speaker 1: herd makes people surrender their reason for the comfort of acceptance.
Speaker 1: Here is a question for you to reflect on. Have
Speaker 1: you ever gone along with something you disagreed with simply
Speaker 1: because everyone else seemed convinced. If yes, then you have
Speaker 1: already experienced the power of the herd mind. And if no,
Speaker 1: are you sure that some of your deepest convictions are
Speaker 1: truly yours? Or could they be hidden imitations of the majority.
Speaker 1: Write your reflections in the comments, because your honesty here
Speaker 1: might spark a dialogue that goes beyond the superficial and
Speaker 1: enters the very heart of philosophy. Schopenhauer argued that truth
Speaker 1: is not determined by how many people believe in it.
Speaker 1: In fact, he often suggested the opposite, that if something
Speaker 1: is universally accepted, it is likely an illusion. This claim
Speaker 1: is as radical as it is uncomfortable, because it forces
Speaker 1: us to doubt the very foundations of our social lives,
Speaker 1: from religion to politics, from morality to culture. He warned
Speaker 1: that the collective often mistakes convenience for truth and habit
Speaker 1: for reason. But why does this happen? The answer lies
Speaker 1: in both philosophy and psychology. Humans are social beings, and
Speaker 1: belonging to a group provides safety. Our ancestors knew that
Speaker 1: isolation meant vulnerability, while conformity meant survival. That instinct still
Speaker 1: lives in us, but today it manifests not in physical survival,
Speaker 1: but in psychological comfort. To disagree with the herd is
Speaker 1: to risk ridicule, rejection, and loneliness. And yet, as Friedrich Nietzsche,
Speaker 1: a philosopher inspired by Schopenhauer, once declared, the individual has
Speaker 1: always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: the tribe. This is why the herd mind is so powerful.
Speaker 1: It appeals to our fears and our desires. It whispers
Speaker 1: to us that it is better to be accepted than
Speaker 1: to be right, better to be applauded than to be
Speaker 1: true to reason, and in that whisper reason is drowned.
Speaker 1: Imagine a student in a class room. The teacher asks
Speaker 1: a difficult question, and the majority of students confidently give
Speaker 1: the wrong answer. The few who know the truth hesitate,
Speaker 1: they look around, they feel the pressure, and many will
Speaker 1: stay silent or even conform to the wrong answer. This
Speaker 1: simple experiment, repeated countless times by psychologists like Solomon ash
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, shows how fragile independent thought is
Speaker 1: when confronted by the collective. Schopenhauer did not have these experiments,
Speaker 1: but his intuition told him that the herd mind corrupts
Speaker 1: reason at its very core. Now pause for a moment
Speaker 1: and ask yourself how many of your beliefs are built
Speaker 1: on evidence, and how many are inherited from the crowd
Speaker 1: you belong to. Is your political stance truly based on
Speaker 1: reflection or is it borrowed from the group you identify with.
Speaker 1: Do you believe what you believe because it is true
Speaker 1: or because it is safe? These are not easy questions.
Speaker 1: They demand courage, because to confront the herd mind is
Speaker 1: to confront our deepest fears, the fear of being excluded,
Speaker 1: the fear of standing alone. But Schopenhauer argued that the
Speaker 1: path to wisdom, to real freedom begins precisely here, where
Speaker 1: we stop repeating and start questioning. In this journey, we
Speaker 1: will see not only how the herd mind destroys reason,
Speaker 1: but also how we can resist it. In the next part,
Speaker 1: I will reveal how Schopenhauer connects this idea to the
Speaker 1: illusions of happiness and the constant chase for approval, and
Speaker 1: why breaking free from the herd requires both intellectual honesty
Speaker 1: and inner strength. But before we get there, I leave
Speaker 1: you with this challenge. Think of one belief you hold
Speaker 1: strongly to day. Now imagine that everyone around you suddenly
Speaker 1: abandoned it. Would you still hold on to it, or
Speaker 1: would you quietly let it go. To understand why Schopenhauer
Speaker 1: saw the herd mind as such a destructive force, we
Speaker 1: must look at his larger philosophy of human existence. For him,
Speaker 1: life is driven not by pure reason, but by what
Speaker 1: he called the will. This will is a blind, irrational
Speaker 1: force that compels us to act, to desire, to survive,
Speaker 1: and to compete. It is deeper than thought, deeper than logic.
Speaker 1: It is the very core of our being. But when
Speaker 1: when this will expresses itself through the collective, through the masses,
Speaker 1: it becomes even more dangerous. Why because instead of individuals
Speaker 1: confronting their desires and illusions honestly, they merge into a
Speaker 1: chorus where nobody questions and everybody follows. This is where
Speaker 1: the herd mind destroys reason most subtly, not by argument,
Speaker 1: not by logic, but by drowning out the voice of
Speaker 1: the individual with the noise of the majority. Think of
Speaker 1: it as a kind of hypnosis. When you are surrounded
Speaker 1: by people who all think the same way, your mind
Speaker 1: begins to bend unconsciously in their direction, And once you
Speaker 1: are absorbed into that current, you may not even realize
Speaker 1: that your own independent reasoning has disappeared. Psychologists in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century provided strong evidence for this. The famous Milgram
Speaker 1: experiments revealed how ordinary people, when guided by authority and
Speaker 1: supported by the silent approval of the group, were willing
Speaker 1: to commit acts they would have considered unthinkable alone. While
Speaker 1: Milgram's focus was a edience, the mechanism is the same.
Speaker 1: People surrender their inner judgment to what appears to be
Speaker 1: the collective consensus. Schopenhauer would have seen this as further
Speaker 1: proof of how reason collapses under the weight of conformity.
Speaker 1: But let us pause for a moment. Have you noticed
Speaker 1: how society rewards conformity. From childhood, we are trained to
Speaker 1: fit in in school, the child who questions too much
Speaker 1: is often labeled difficult. In workplaces, the employee who challenges
Speaker 1: the group consensus risks being seen as disruptive. Even in
Speaker 1: friendships and families, silence and agreement often feel safer than honesty.
Speaker 1: So ask yourself, how many times in your life have
Speaker 1: you remained silent to avoid discomfort and what did that
Speaker 1: silence cost you. Schopenhauer was radical because he called this
Speaker 1: out with brutal honesty. He said that most people would
Speaker 1: rather die than think, and many do. He accused the
Speaker 1: masses of living in illusions, illusions of progress, illusions of morality,
Speaker 1: illusions of truth because they were unwilling to confront the
Speaker 1: deeper reality that independent reasoning often isolates you from the
Speaker 1: comfort of the herd. And yet here is where the
Speaker 1: paradox begins. The very thing that isolates you, the courage
Speaker 1: to stand apart, is also what frees you. This is
Speaker 1: why thinkers like sir and Kirkgard, who came after Schopenhauer,
Speaker 1: emphasized the individual as the most important category of existence.
Speaker 1: To be an authentic individual is to resist the suffocating
Speaker 1: embrace of the herd, to risk loneliness for the sake
Speaker 1: of truth. Now consider this, how much of what is
Speaker 1: praised in society today is nothing more than heard behavior
Speaker 1: dressed up as wisdom, trends, movements, mass opinions. They all
Speaker 1: feel powerful, But are they rational or are they simply
Speaker 1: expressions of the same blind will Schopenhauer warned about masquerading
Speaker 1: as enlightenment. Let us go deeper. Schopenhauer believed that the
Speaker 1: herd not only destroys reason, but also distorts our pursuit
Speaker 1: of happiness. Most people, he argued, chase after the same
Speaker 1: goals wealth, status, recognition. But why is it because these
Speaker 1: things truly bring fulfillment or because the herd tells us
Speaker 1: they should look around you? How often do people measure
Speaker 1: their worth by how others see them instead of by
Speaker 1: the depth of their own reflection. This is the psychological trap.
Speaker 1: When we allow the herd mind to guide us, we
Speaker 1: are not really living our lives. We are living borrowed lives,
Speaker 1: following scripts handed to us by culture, society, or fashion.
Speaker 1: And the tragedy, according to Schopenhauer, is that this kind
Speaker 1: of existence prevents us from ever discovering genuine truth or
Speaker 1: authentic happiness. But here is the twist. Schopenhauer did not
Speaker 1: believe that we could completely escape the will or the herd.
Speaker 1: He was not naive. He knew that social pressures are
Speaker 1: powerful and often unavoidable. Yet he argued that true wisdom
Speaker 1: comes when we become aware of this mechanism, when we
Speaker 1: recognize the illusions of the herd and consciously step back.
Speaker 1: Even impartial freedom from the herd is already a profound victory.
Speaker 1: For reason, imagine walking in a crowded city where everyone
Speaker 1: is moving in the same direction, it feels natural to
Speaker 1: follow the flow, But if you suddenly stop and look around,
Speaker 1: you realize the current is not leading where you want
Speaker 1: to go. That pause, that act of awareness, is the
Speaker 1: beginning of freedom. This is exactly what Schopenhauer wanted us
Speaker 1: to practice, the art of stepping back, of questioning, of
Speaker 1: daring to think even when the crowd moves elsewhere. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you directly, when was the last time
Speaker 1: you truly questioned one of your deepest beliefs, Not small
Speaker 1: matters of taste, but fundamental convictions. Do you believe in
Speaker 1: them because you tested them against reason, or because the
Speaker 1: herd told you they were unquestionable. This is a challenge
Speaker 1: I invite you to explore in the comments, because sharing
Speaker 1: your honest reflection might not only free you, but also
Speaker 1: inspire others who are struggling in silence. As we continue,
Speaker 1: we will uncover how Schopenhauer connected the herd mind to
Speaker 1: to illusions of morality and the problem of imitation in
Speaker 1: human culture. More importantly, we will see how resisting the
Speaker 1: herd is not simply a matter of thinking differently, but
Speaker 1: of cultivating strength, solitude, and inner clarity. In the next part,
Speaker 1: I will show you how Schopenhauer's insights can be combined
Speaker 1: with modern psychology to expose the invisible chains that bind
Speaker 1: us to the crowd, and more importantly, how to break
Speaker 1: those chains without losing our humanity. But before we move on,
Speaker 1: consider this reflection. If every voice around you suddenly told
Speaker 1: you that your convictions were wrong, would you have the
Speaker 1: courage to stand alone with reason or would you seek
Speaker 1: the comfort of the herd. Schopenhauer's reflections on the herd
Speaker 1: mind were not just a critique of mass opinion. They
Speaker 1: were also an attack on the illusions of morality that
Speaker 1: dominate human societies. He argued that what most people call
Speaker 1: morality is nothing more than conformity to custom. We tend
Speaker 1: to believe that if something is accepted by the majority,
Speaker 1: then it must be good. But for Schopenhauer, this was
Speaker 1: the most dangerous deception of all. True morality, he insisted,
Speaker 1: cannot be dictated by the herd. It must arise from
Speaker 1: a deeper source, an honest recognition of human suffering and
Speaker 1: a genuine compassion that does not depend on social approval.
Speaker 1: Think for a moment about how many moral codes have
Speaker 1: shifted over time. Practices once considered natural and unquestionable, such
Speaker 1: as slavery, rigid class hierarchies, or brutal punishments were upheld
Speaker 1: by entire societies. The herd proclaimed them moral, yet history
Speaker 1: later revealed them as cruel and destructive. This demonstrates Schopenhauer's insight.
Speaker 1: The crowd does not seek truth, It seeks comfort. What
Speaker 1: is comfortable for the majority at a given time is
Speaker 1: dressed up as morality, while those who dissent are cast out.
Speaker 1: Now ask yourself, are there practices in our own age
Speaker 1: that we accept blindly simply because they are endorsed by
Speaker 1: the majority. Could it be that a century from now
Speaker 1: people will look back at us with the same horror
Speaker 1: with which we now view the blind morality of past centuries.
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer's challenge was that morality grounded in conformity is no
Speaker 1: morality at all. It is merely obedience, and obedience when
Speaker 1: its silence is reason, is dangerous. This is why he
Speaker 1: placed such value on independent thought and individual courage. Without them,
Speaker 1: morality becomes little more than a reflection of the herd's desires.
Speaker 1: Psychology once again confirms this. Experiments in social conformity show
Speaker 1: that people are willing to adjust not only their opinions,
Speaker 1: but even their perception of reality in order to match
Speaker 1: the group. The ash experiments which we touched on earlier,
Speaker 1: revealed that individuals will claim to see something that is
Speaker 1: not there simply because everyone else in the room agrees
Speaker 1: on the false answer. In other words, the herd can
Speaker 1: override not only reason, but even perception. This is where
Speaker 1: imitation enters the picture. Human beings are by nature imitators.
Speaker 1: We learn languelanguage, culture, and behavior through copying Renee Gerard,
Speaker 1: a modern thinker, develop the idea of mimetic desire, the
Speaker 1: notion that we desire things not because of their inherent value,
Speaker 1: but because others desire them. Here we see Schopenhauer's warnings
Speaker 1: in action. The herd not only shapes our beliefs, it
Speaker 1: shapes our very desires. We want what others want, We
Speaker 1: pursue what others pursue, and we call it our own.
Speaker 1: But is it truly ours? Imagine scrolling through social media,
Speaker 1: how many trends, opinions, and even moral stances are adopted
Speaker 1: not through reflection but through repetition. People post, share and
Speaker 1: echo ideas, often without questioning them. The result is a
Speaker 1: digital amplification of the herd mind. Schopenhauer could not have
Speaker 1: imagined Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, but he understood the mechanism perfectly.
Speaker 1: The individual dissolves into imitation, and reason is replaced by
Speaker 1: the need to belong. This raises a powerful question, what
Speaker 1: in your life is genuinely your own and what is
Speaker 1: an imitation? Your beliefs, your ambitions, even your dreams. Do
Speaker 1: they come from your inner reasoning or are they borrowed
Speaker 1: from the desires of the crowd. Reflecting honestly on this
Speaker 1: can be unsettling, but it is also liberating. Schopenhauer believed
Speaker 1: that the path to liberation from the herd mind begins
Speaker 1: with solitude. He himself lived much of his life in isolation,
Speaker 1: writing with an almost obsessive dedication, while being largely ignored
Speaker 1: by his contemporaries. He knew the price of standing apart,
Speaker 1: but he also knew its value. Solitude allows us to
Speaker 1: hear the voice of reason that is otherwise drowned out
Speaker 1: by the noise of the majority. It gives us space
Speaker 1: to think, to question, and to rediscover truths that the
Speaker 1: herd may ridicule or reject. Yet solitude alone is not
Speaker 1: enough courage is also required, the courage to endure misunderstanding, rejection,
Speaker 1: and even ridicule. Nietzsche, building on Schopenhauer, described this as
Speaker 1: the part of the higher individual, one who dares to
Speaker 1: create their own values rather than inherit them from the herd.
Speaker 1: Such a path is not easy, but it is the
Speaker 1: only path to authentic freedom. Let me ask you directly,
Speaker 1: how comfortable are you with solitude. Do you embrace it
Speaker 1: as a chance to think deeply or do you avoid
Speaker 1: it because silence feels unbearable. Your answer may reveal how
Speaker 1: strong the influence of the herd is in your life.
Speaker 1: But here lies the paradox once more. While solitude frees us,
Speaker 1: we cannot completely abandon society. We live with others, we
Speaker 1: depend on others, and we are shaped by culture. Schopenhauer
Speaker 1: knew this, and he did not suggest that we should
Speaker 1: escape humanity altogether. Rather, he urged us to become aware
Speaker 1: of the illusions of the herd, so that when we
Speaker 1: engage with it, we do so consciously with reason, intact
Speaker 1: to live in society but not be consumed by it.
Speaker 1: That is the challenge. As we move into the final
Speaker 1: stage of this journey, we will confront the most powerful
Speaker 1: insight of all that resisting the herd mind is not
Speaker 1: simply an intellectual exercise, but a moral and existential duty.
Speaker 1: It is about reclaiming our humanity, our freedom, and our
Speaker 1: dignity in a world that constantly tries to reduce us
Speaker 1: to echoes of the majority. Schopenhauer's ultimate warning was that
Speaker 1: if reason is destroyed by the herd, then the individual
Speaker 1: loses not only truth but also the very possibility of
Speaker 1: authentic life. Before we uncover that final and transformative insight,
Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a question. If truth
Speaker 1: and morality are not guaranteed by the majority, then where
Speaker 1: should we look for them? And are you prepared to
Speaker 1: accept the answer, even if it sets you apart from
Speaker 1: those around you. Throughout our journey, we have seen how
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer exposed the herd mind as a destructive force that
Speaker 1: silences reason, distorts morality, and traps us in imitation. We
Speaker 1: have asked difficult questions about our beliefs, our desires, and
Speaker 1: our willingness to stand apart. But now we come to
Speaker 1: the most profound insight of all, the one that ties
Speaker 1: everything together and reveals why resisting the herd is not
Speaker 1: just a philosophical choice, but a moral and existential necessity.
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer believe that at the heart of life lies suffering.
Speaker 1: The blind will that drives us, the herd that shapes us,
Speaker 1: and the illusions that comfort us. All of these are
Speaker 1: bound up in the reality that existence is full of struggle, loss,
Speaker 1: and pain. Most people, he argued, refuse to face this
Speaker 1: truth directly. Instead, they escape into distractions, into the safety
Speaker 1: of the herd, where collective illusions shield them from uncomfortable realities.
Speaker 1: But here is the danger. By fleeing into the herd,
Speaker 1: we do not escape suffering. We only exchange the chance
Speaker 1: for authentic understanding for the comfort of illusion. This is
Speaker 1: why the herd mind destroys reason, not only because its
Speaker 1: silence is independent thought, but because it blocks the path
Speaker 1: to wisdom. To reason authentically is to confront reality as
Speaker 1: it is, not as the herd wishes it to be.
Speaker 1: And if reality is filled with suffering, than only by
Speaker 1: confronting that suffering can we find a deeper form of freedom.
Speaker 1: Consider this. Every society builds stories to cover its wounds.
Speaker 1: Nations glorify their past, religion's promise rewards, and cultures create
Speaker 1: rituals of distraction. These narratives may bring comfort, but they
Speaker 1: are also illusions, sustained by the majority. The herd clings
Speaker 1: to them because they are easier than truth. Schopenhower challenges
Speaker 1: us to ask what happens when we strip away these illusions,
Speaker 1: what remains when we face life as it is? The answer,
Speaker 1: according to him, is both sobering and liberating. When we
Speaker 1: see through the illusions of the herd, we begin to
Speaker 1: recognize the universality of suffering, and in that recognition a
Speaker 1: new kind of morality emerges, not the morality of conformity,
Speaker 1: but the morality of compassion. Schopenhauer believed that compassion is
Speaker 1: the only true moral foundation because it arises not from
Speaker 1: rules or customs, but from the direct awareness that others
Speaker 1: suffer just as we do. This compassion cannot be dictated
Speaker 1: by the herd. It is borne in the solitude of
Speaker 1: honest reflection, where reason is free. This is the final revelation.
Speaker 1: Resisting the herd is not simply about thinking differently. It
Speaker 1: is about becoming capable of genuine compassion. The herd mind
Speaker 1: destroys reason, but it also destroys empathy because it reduces
Speaker 1: individuals to rolls, labels, or categories. Only the individual who
Speaker 1: dares to step away from the herd can truly see
Speaker 1: another person as they are, not as the crowd defines them,
Speaker 1: but as a fellow being sharing the same struggle of existence.
Speaker 1: Think about how often mass opinion dehumanizes others. Groups demonize outsiders,
Speaker 1: cultures divide humanity into us and them, and the herd
Speaker 1: justifies cruelty in the name of conformity. But the individual
Speaker 1: who breaks free from the herd sees beyond these illusions.
Speaker 1: They recognize themselves in the suffering of others, and from
Speaker 1: this recognition grows a more that cannot be shaken by
Speaker 1: majority opinion. This is why Schopenhauer's thought is so radical.
Speaker 1: He does not simply ask us to resist the herd
Speaker 1: for the sake of intellectual pride. He asks us to
Speaker 1: resist it so that we may live truthfully, think independently,
Speaker 1: and act compassionately. To him, the free individual is not
Speaker 1: the one who follows no rules, but the one who
Speaker 1: lives by reason and compassion, even when the herd mocks
Speaker 1: or rejects them. Now pause for a moment and reflect.
Speaker 1: Imagine a society where more individuals resisted the illusions of
Speaker 1: the herd. Imagine if, instead of echoing mass opinion, people
Speaker 1: thought deeply, questioned sincerely, and acted with compassion. How different
Speaker 1: would our politics be, our cultures, our relationships. This vision
Speaker 1: may seem distant, but it begins with each of us,
Speaker 1: with the choice to step back from the noise of
Speaker 1: the herd and to reclaim the voice of reason within.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you one final and personal question.
Speaker 1: Are you willing to live with the discomfort of independence
Speaker 1: if it means discovering truth? Or will you remain in
Speaker 1: the safety of the herd, surrounded by illusions but shielded
Speaker 1: from the challenge of authentic existence. Only you can answer this,
Speaker 1: and your answer will shape not only your own life,
Speaker 1: but the kind of world we all share. As we close,
Speaker 1: remember Schopenhauer's warning the herd mind destroys reason, but also
Speaker 1: remember his promise hidden in his philosophy, that the individual
Speaker 1: who dares to resist, who dares to confront suffering and
Speaker 1: embrace compassion, can rise above the illusions of the crowd
Speaker 1: and touch something deeper, something more real.