The Unconscious Crowd and the Illusion of Conviction

I have been spending my breaks lately reading Psychology and Religion, a series of lectures by Carl Jung. I am only at the beginning, still working through the first essay on the unconscious mind, but even this early section has stayed with me longer than most things I read.

Dr. Carl Jung | Source: Britannica

Jung approaches the subject phenomenologically. He observes behavior, patterns, and experiences rather than trying to reduce them to something purely measurable. It is qualitative in nature, and while I have not yet reached the point where he introduces empirical data, his observations are rooted in decades of clinical experience. That perspective matters, especially when discussing things that resist clean measurement.

One of the ideas Jung introduces early on is the existence of a darker side of consciousness. An underlying, animalistic part of the human psyche that most of us would rather pretend does not exist. We are uncomfortable acknowledging it, so we suppress it. But according to Jung, that suppression does not make it disappear. It merely waits for the right conditions to surface.

Those conditions often appear in crowds.

Beasts or demons which lie dormant in every person till he is part of a mob.

What we now call mob mentality or groupthink feels like a modern label for something Jung was already describing decades ago. When individuals become part of a group, something changes. Intellectual rigor declines. Moral restraint weakens. People say and do things they would never do alone. Jung describes the individual in a crowd who suddenly lashes out, damages property, or harms another person. The behavior appears irrational, even unrecognizable, yet it emerges precisely because the individual is no longer acting as an individual.

The Human Psyche

This darkness is not limited to a few people. Jung is clear that it exists in everyone. The difference lies in how much resistance we have to it and how easily it takes hold when we surrender our individuality to the group. Some people resist. Others dissolve into it almost immediately.

What struck me most is where Jung places this discussion. He introduces it immediately after talking about the soul.

The soul, as Jung frames it, is not something science has historically been comfortable with. It cannot be seen, touched, or directly measured. Because of that, it has often been dismissed as metaphysical or irrelevant. And yet, Jung makes a compelling case that elements associated with the mind and soul produce very real, physical effects.

He describes patients who believed they were ill and began exhibiting all the symptoms of serious disease despite having no medical diagnosis. In one case, an intelligent man became convinced he had cancer and developed symptoms consistent with it, only for those symptoms to resolve once the belief itself was addressed through therapy. In another case, a patient whose intestines had been partially resected defied medical expectations and regained full function [despite needed a follow up surgery] through sheer mental resilience.

The implication is difficult to ignore. If thoughts can make us sick or well, then ideas are not imaginary. They are real in the sense that they shape behavior, physiology, and decision making. If consciousness and the soul are real because of the effects they produce, then there is an entire dimension of human existence tied to the mind that cannot be dismissed simply because it is intangible.

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable, because the same mechanism that allows the mind to heal also allows it to distort.

The darker side of consciousness does not only manifest internally. It emerges collectively. It emerges when individuals stop thinking for themselves and begin thinking as a group. And this is where Jung’s work feels especially relevant today.

We are living in a moment defined by extremes. Political identity has hardened into something tribal. On one side, the MAGA movement has become a shorthand not just for a political faction, but for an entire moral category. On the other side, Democratic identity stretches from moderate liberalism to its own form of ideological extremism. Both sides are entrenched. Both feel as though they are holding the line against an existential threat that rarely exists outside rhetoric.

What is striking is that this conflict persists even as more people quietly drift away from the extremes. Research suggests that online discourse is slowly developing a more neutral center. Some people on the left are stepping back and questioning how rigid their party has become. Some on the right are doing the same. The result is not consensus, but a growing refusal to accept prepackaged positions (albeit, becoming a crowd of its own).

And yet, the loudest voices still belong to the crowd.

Many people feel compelled to have opinions on everything, even when they lack the information or context to form one responsibly. Others rely almost entirely on personal experience or the experiences of those close to them. That reliance creates confirmation bias. An isolated incident becomes evidence of a national trend. A single story becomes proof of systemic failure.

Social media accelerates this process. Echo chambers form organically through social circles, then solidify through algorithms. Over time, the individual no longer encounters ideas as ideas. They encounter them as group positions. Agreement becomes loyalty. Disagreement becomes betrayal.

This is precisely the condition Jung warned about.

When people feel protected by the group, they defend ideas they would never defend alone. They justify behavior they would otherwise reject. The question that rarely gets asked is the most important one. Would I still believe this if these people were not around me?

That question is uncomfortable because it threatens identity. Many of us were taught that we are not defined by our friends, yet over time we begin to resemble the beliefs of those we surround ourselves with. Not through malice or manipulation, but through proximity and repetition. When dissent disappears from our environment, so does critical thought.

The signs are familiar. Inability to acknowledge any merit in opposing views. Reflexive rejection of ideas based solely on their source. Moral certainty without reflection. These are not political traits. They are cult behaviors. We recognize them instantly in documentaries, yet struggle to see them in ourselves.

None of this means every issue requires neutrality or indecision. Some things deserve conviction. But conviction without independent thought is not conviction at all. It is imitation.

It is also worth saying that not every issue requires an opinion. There are many topics I do not have strong views on, not because they are unimportant, but because I do not know enough to speak responsibly about them. That is not apathy. It is intellectual restraint. And it is increasingly rare.

Jung’s observation matters because it reminds us that the greatest threat to thinking is not ignorance. It is the comfort of belonging. When we trade reflection for identity, we allow the unconscious to take the wheel.

The harder path is quieter. It involves pausing. Questioning. Sitting with uncertainty. Asking whether our beliefs are truly ours or simply borrowed from the crowd.

The real divide is not red or blue. It is between those who think for themselves and those who let the group decide for them.

And none of us are immune.