Ghost of a flea

It seems intuitively very unlikely; their fear of abandonment would have riven them with disputes, jealousies, passions and paranoia. Only the most remarkable among them would have retained their equilibrium, for when a group of people is enclosed together for a long time, without purpose and without possibility of escape, isolated from the rest of the world (as, for example, in a prison), the smallest thing is indistinguishable from the fate of the world and often gives rise to literally murderous resentment.

Here, then, is an illustration of the evident but often forgotten fact that social pressure is conducive to virtue as well as to vice. We generally imagine that so-called peer pressure leads only to such activities as taking drugs and vandalism; but it also leads, or rather can lead, to emulation of virtue, self-respect and decent pride. No man but an out-and-out psychopath wants to appear worse than his fellows in the eyes of the world; and the miners' (justified) pride in appearing brave and self-composed helped them to survive their ordeal.

Thus stoicism saves where incontinent self-expression destroys: an interesting thought, perhaps, for a psychotherapeutic age.