I’ve recently taken to reading into well-known, overused adages, which is quite insightful to ponder on as part of human experience. One phrase I’ve been looking at is “Great minds think alike.” I would take it as a compliment if this phrase were trotted out when my smarter friends and I suddenly chorus on an idea, because if they’re smarter than me, then maybe I got an upgrade for my brain in the middle of the night.
It’s not as dramatic a compliment, however, when used as a justification for the automatic validity of survey data. That is: the majority has the say because the more minds think alike, the greater the truth of the matter. The saying has been confused, as it were, with “the voice of the people is the voice of God”—which I tore apart in the early days of “Question the Box.
” The confusion is actually a convenient rephrasing of the original adage: Great minds think alike. Small minds rarely differ. Or if you like: Both geniuses and fools attract their own crowds.
It’s a warning for anyone who thinks that ideas that have a large following must be good, and that, by transference, the crowd that follows the idea must also be righteous. The entire quote is revelatory of the danger of simply following the crowd—because to do so, we might lose sight of the idea that we originally espoused, and focus on the feeling of camaraderie, regardless of the principles being followed. A prime example: I’ve even heard the phrase used as proof that the for.
