The Happy Herd

"The Happy Herd" by Bryce Walton is a science fiction story, probably from the 1950s, that looks at what happens when everyone has to be happy together, all the time. It's about a professor named Larry Kane who comes back from the Moon and finds Earth very strange. Everyone belongs to a "Gang" where they all have to like the same things, decided by a machine. Kane really misses being alone and thinking for himself. The story is about him going against everyone else so he can decide who he is and what he likes, instead of letting a machine tell him. In the end, Kane has to choose between being alone in space or giving in to what everyone else wants him to be.