Following the Crowd – Sunday, April 20, 1941
An appeal from the other of a young and impressionable son suggests comment on an old and well-worn subject. Briefly and tritely stated, we have reference to what is commonly known as “following the crowd.” The old and unimpressive excuse that we must do certain things because “everybody is doing them” is quite threadbare.
In the first place, everybody isn’t doing them. Thinking people, whether they are in the minority or the majority, are still shaping their own thoughts, making their own decisions, and regulating their own conduct, and the philosophy, among our young people especially, of doing things “to be a good sport” is an insidious doctrine greatly to be feared and constantly to be resisted. One thing that youth should remember is that the crowd is not always right.
On the contrary all history proves that the crowd is so very often wrong. It is the crowd who have burned the prophets and ridiculed the pioneers of every generation. It is usually the crowd who start a boy doing, as they say, “just this once,” things which lead to bad habits and more serious consequences. Often it is “the crowd” who lead you into trouble and desert you when you are in trouble. Following the crowd unthinkingly is an indication of lack of character, lack of mind, lack of moral courage, or lack of understanding.
The great deceiver of all men, who was a liar from the beginning, has no more useful method of leading his subjects astray, than suggesting that they do things because the crowd does them, and those who persuade others to do what they know they shouldn’t do, because they desire to have company in their foolishness, should read again those words of the Savior to certain Scribes and Pharisees, wherein He said: “Woe unto you * * * for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15) The crowd usually hasn’t any very good idea about where it is going.
The crowd can’t think. It is only individuals who can think. And so, lest we blindly follow the blind, it would be well to make our own decisions in accordance with our own convictions, because the crowd may be going in the wrong direction.
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April 20, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,609