The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they sh... — Erich Fromm

The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.

Author: Erich Fromm

Insight: There's something quietly radical about this idea: popularity doesn't equal rightness. We feel this tension constantly without always naming it. When everyone around you is doom-scrolling at dinner, sleeping poorly from screen anxiety, or grinding through a job that makes them miserable, it's easy to think "well, this must just be how life is." But Fromm's point cuts through that fog. The fact that insomnia is common doesn't make it healthy. The fact that most people feel perpetually behind doesn't mean that feeling is accurate or inevitable. What makes this especially useful is that it gives us permission to question the water we're swimming in. We're often told to trust the crowd—"everyone's doing it" becomes justification for everything from financial decisions to relationship choices to how we spend our attention. But crowds can be systematically wrong. They can normalize anxiety, normalize overwork, normalize a particular kind of loneliness that feels like the human condition when it's actually just the current moment's condition. The tricky part is that being aware of this doesn't automatically free you. You still live in that crowd, still feel its pressures. But naming the difference between "common" and "true" is the first step toward choosing which inherited patterns actually serve you and which ones you're just carrying along because everyone else is.

Source: The Sane Society, p. 207, 1955