I thought that these two chapters were very interesting. I am intrigued by the "group think" mentality, especially because the population can be so easily swayed. I particularly found the jury example attention-grabbing because the motivation to agree with your fellow man can often be overwhelming. It made me wonder how many trials go awry because of one strong personality among the jury that believes one thing when in reality he or she may be wrong. This led me to think about the entire basis of the U.S. government in its sway toward the majority. Democracy is set up to make the most people happy as much as possible. Often, as history has shown, the democracy chooses against what is "right" (especially morally) in favor of what they selfishly believe is right. Slavery is one of these things that at one moment in history the government was for it because of its own selfish interests. Finally, this decision was reversed in light of the minority speaking out vehemently against it and finally persuading a majority into thinking as they did. But this is just an example of how sometimes the majority is wrong.
This might be a hotspot for people, but also take Bush's election... coughregimecough. While at first, the majority (although not by popular vote) decided that President Bush and his policies were acceptable, his approval rating by his second term was the lowest of any president.
Groupthink and mass mentality are a powerful tool and are interesting to explore in terms of majority rule. It is also a point of current political discussion.
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