Consensus is for those who can’t think for themselves

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“Consensus rarely creates truth or progress; it mostly creates more consensus.”, Michael Herman, December 2025

“While consensus has its place in stabilizing groups, it is structurally inclined to reproduce its own comfort rather than generate new understanding. At its best it harmonizes; at its worst it becomes self-referential, producing only more consensus and very little meaningful discovery.”, Michael Herman, December 2025

“Consensus is for those who can’t think for themselves.”, Michael Herman, December 2025.

Related Wisdom

Margaret Thatcher: “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes and to which no-one objects.”

Michael Crichton: (speaking of scientific and intellectual contexts): “Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet … In science … consensus is irrelevant.”

Bertrand Russell: “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.” — On the authority of group agreement being meaningless

Friedrich Nietzsche: “Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.” — When the group agrees, it often amplifies unexamined errors.

Abba Eban: “Consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.”

Margaret Thatcher: “Consensus is the absence of leadership.”

Christopher Hitchens: “The herd instinct is strong in human beings… and it leads to consensus based on the path of least resistance.”

Søren Kierkegaard: “The crowd is untruth.” — Collective agreement rarely produces truth; it produces comfort.

Mark Twain: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Arthur Schopenhauer: “The majority of men have no opinions of their own; they simply echo what they have heard.”

Albert Einstein: “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.”

George Bernard Shaw: “Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.” — A critique of insider consensus reinforcing itself.

Michael Crichton: “In science, consensus is irrelevant. What counts are reproducible results.”

Thomas Paine: “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Consensus defends the status quo; innovation bypasses it.

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