Everyone has a conscience and is responsible for abiding by it. The fact that people around are doing wrong does not justify one’s doing the same thing or make one less responsible.

Throughout the history of the world, group psychology has led to destruction, pain and slaughter. The collectivist policies of the USSR led to millions of people starving to death in the 1930s and to hundreds of thousands being exiled and crippled. One interesting aspect of this is that when millions of people died, almost none of those who survived were able to ask this simple question:

WHY?

Because, what binds societies that have not learned to act in the light of conscience together is a bond of self-interest. That bond is so loose and thin that it can break at the slightest provocation. Therefore, that mental structure can regard good as bad and bad as good, as self-interest demands. It can ruthlessly crush the good in order to conceal the bad majority…

It is easy, however, for someone who heeds his conscience and does not go along with mass psychology to see what is right. The Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) came to believe in the existence of God as he looked at the sky alone. The Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) received revelation in reflective seclusion on Mount Hira. The Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) spoke with our Lord when he was alone on the Mount…

It is a fact, revealed in verse 120 of Surat an-Nahl, that Abraham “was a community in himself.” One secret imparted with the verse is that a person who uses his conscience free of any obstacles is far more effective and powerful than a whole community.

However, ideologies and systems remote from religious moral values encourage people to follow the herd instead of heeding their consciences. This smothers people’s consciences.

Let us look around us; how many people can openly state something they know to be true without worrying about what other people will say? How many people can tell the majority they are in the wrong?

Acting in the light of mass psychology has pervaded every aspect of the great majority of people’s lives. They shape their private, work and family lives on the basis of what other people will say. Group psychology does not allow people whose faith is weak to heed their consciences.

Yet God commands the exact opposite in the Koran, saying that we must avoid groups that lead us to the wrong path or that will probably do so:

“If you obeyed most of those on earth, they would misguide you from God’s Way. They follow nothing but conjecture. They are only guessing.” (Surat al-An’am, 116)

Acting in the light of group psychology makes it impossible for people to think rationally. Instead of evaluating events one by one, they regard it as easier to follow a common opinion, to go along with what they hear, rather than their consciences. Sincerity vanishes, understanding withers and feelings of justice and good conscience disappear… 

Groups think superficially, and do not act in the light of deep understanding. The views and beliefs inculcated in them are either generally accepted or rejected. The situation is always the same in world view resulting from indoctrination rather than from rational judgment and good conscience. They insensibly detest every novelty that might change and improve their lives. 

The most dangerous thing to which group psychology leads is lovelessness… If a community is fed with hatred and extremism, rather than love and affection, how can one expect that society to be of any use to mankind? If people can feel anger when told “Right, we are angry now,” without asking “What are we angry about?” then how can they build a just order that leads to peace and tranquility?

Human being, “the most superior of all created things,” must not become machines of hatred under pressure from the majority. They must instead be capable of bringing beauty to the world by abiding by their rational, moderate, mature, loving, affectionate and patient natures.

One can gain the good pleasure of God by acting in the light of verses, not going along with the herd, heeding the voice of one’s conscience, and seeing the invalidity of ideologies that encourage hatred, violence and conflict… Ideologies such as communism, fascism and social Darwinism, which have left such a bloody imprint on the last 200 years, say the exact opposite. That is why the scientific invalidity of these ideologies needs to be exposed if people are to live in a climate of freedom and peace. That is because in the Koran, God commands us to stand up for peace, to love another and to be forgiving.