“Groupthink” is a term that came into use in the early 1970s to describe phenomena of group behavior noticed by psychologist Irving Janis and others. This discussion of the subject uses data obtained from Wikipedia.
The term was coined 20 years earlier by sociologist William H. Whyte who had some success writing popular books about the effects of urban environments on human behaviors. He modeled the term after George Orwell’s newspeak, introduced in his now-famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is sometimes referred to as “group think.”
Janis described this behavior pattern in a rather satirical way, in the manner of C. Northcote Parkinson in his writings about bureaucracies (both business and government, but especially government) that were popular in the late 1950s and onward.
Janis attempted to apply the principle to executive groups thus: “…among the members of a policy-making ingroup” certain conditions will result in “…the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink…” resulting in “irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups.” (I have rephrased his original wording a bit to clarify my own argument.)
Too narrow a view?
In the fashion of the times, Janis wanted his work to be relevant to corporate and government decision makers. This did not, however, include the general public, although – in a democracy at least – the public must make decisions all the time; political, economic, and philosophical (or moral).
As it turned out, the phenomenon was more likely to show up in public opinion, entertainment and other consumer choices, and voting. This is because, I would suggest, in groups where good decisions are critical, trained and experienced decision makers are more likely to be used. And they tend to make better decisions than the general public, being less swayed by obvious irrationality or deception.
The general public, however, pressed as they are with the challenges of daily life, and not necessarily trained in decision-making, are seen to be swayed by persuasive lying, the omission of facts, and irrational or provocative statements. Psychology and sociology, prone as they are to ignore the role of sociopaths in public life, often attribute these public failings to the public’s lack of education, or prejudices. I find this a bit patronizing.
Three areas of public behavior mentioned in the Wikipedia article are:
- Behavior of users of social media, as well as behavior of the platform administrators.
- The tendency of “leaders” to tell the public, or their fans or followers, what they want to hear rather than what is true, and of fans or followers to only look at data that supports their beliefs or preferred narrative.
- The tendency in certain groups to coerce members into obedience or agreement. In particular, we have as examples various recent dictatorships such as Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. But more recently this type of behavior has shown up in universities (academia), and on social media platforms.
Shallow concepts of causation
Typical of “modern” psychology and sociology, attempts to identify and measure causative factors tend to be superficial.
The first and most obvious problem arises from their poor confront of evil.
We are for the most part looking at situations where a single criminal or a small criminal group is attempting to persuade a decision-making body to make choices that will benefit the criminals (and presumably not the larger group).
The tools available to criminals to accomplish this relate to the various reactive behaviors that are common in human groups. At the base of these behaviors is a “mental machine” that reacts based on stored experiences rather than on present-time actuality. It is a form of mental laziness that most people are prone to, particularly if they are tired or under unusual stress.
The criminals, then, only have to identify the most common “buttons” for the group they are targeting, and push them to get the desired (irrational) reaction. This response manifests as “group think” because everyone reacted the same way. The probable truth is that very little real thought was involved. The behaviors noted were due to “reactive thought.”
Ingroups and Outgroups
One great and favored way to generate irrational reactions is to create the appearance of conflict, even when the target groups might prefer peace. Thus, the psychologists talk about “ingroups” and “outgroups.”
Criminals have gone so far as to arrange for and fund violent events to make it appear that one group is an enemy of another. The only real enemies, quite often, are the criminals themselves.
Once violent conflict, or the threat of it, has been established, all groups that have been persuaded that they are part of the conflict can be incited to do things that they would only do to enemies or criminals and not to friends or potential friends.
The modes of persuasion include various forms of character assassination or black (false) propaganda leveled at leaders or members of rival groups. The exact accusations depend on the “buttons.” Thus, Trump is accused of being a “fascist” because the Left hates Fascism. And the Left are accused of being “communists” because the Right hates Communism.
The real criminals will identify with whatever ideology suits their purposes. They really don’t care about ideology. They only care about tricking others to give them what they think they require to remain operational.
Once group members are convinced that their rivals are all “nazis” or whatever, they can be persuaded to take actions against their rivals that would, under normal circumstances, be considered unlawful. This is the way criminals turn target audiences into accomplices in crime. Let’s be clear: To riot, spray paint public buildings, and destroy other people’s property is CRIMINAL. I hope that is clear enough.
Earlier examples
- Race. This is a perfect way to pit people against each other, as the identification process usually involves only hair and skin color. Very close to nothing told to one race about another race has ever been true or will ever be true. Yet these lies have resulted in more “groupthink” violence than just about any other strategy that has been employed.
- Religion. I am sure that 99.999% of what is said to Christians about Muslims (or to Muslims about Christians?) is false and designed only to incite fear or violence. Great conflicts such as The Crusades have been based on such lies. The damage from those conflicts persists to this day. I am particularly impacted by this ancient strategy, since the false rumor that my church is a “cult” continues to this day, and is only forwarded in the hope that my church will disappear, which I assure readers it has no intention of doing.
- Sex. Here is another way to cause conflict based on characteristics that are very easy to see. This gets very emotionally charged, as we all had mothers, didn’t we? Only a criminal could show true hatred for his own mother, and only true criminals forward the lie that the woman is in some way inferior or has secret powers that must be feared and suppressed. This is a very sad way of dividing us that I have seen many examples of.
More modern examples
- Mental illness. In most places, if you can successfully label someone “psychotic” you can have police sent to their home to pick them up and take them to a psychiatric hospital where they will be drugged or killed. I hope none of my readers think I’m kidding about this. It happens all the time. I DON NOT propose that we handle sociopaths (criminals) this way. They should be carefully tested for this trait, and if found to have it, labeled and disallowed from holding high positions in government or industry. They should have a right to appeal such a decision as many times as they see fit – without doing it in a way that is disruptive.
- Political correctness. This has now morphed into many variations. This seems to be the idea that any public speaker should be required to self-police his verbiage to such a degree that it will not offend anyone. Anyone known to constantly violate this mandate should not be given the right to speak in public. The fact that this dictum violates basic human rights is countered by the assertion that such speech incites violence, like Hitler did against the Jews. However, I have never seen it used that way in recent times. This is a prime example of modern groupthink.
- Emotionally challenging situations. By leaving almost an entire generation out to twist slowly in the wind of human life, with no practice or instruction in the fine art of sticking up for oneself or keeping calm while someone tries to push all your buttons, we have before us a group of young people who have become convinced that to say something to them that makes them blush or become slightly uneasy constitutes a form of violence. As such comments are the stock in trade of sociopaths, we have in this strategy the ultimate ironic turn being played against us by the criminals. Pretending to be psychiatrists or psychologists, they have somehow convinced us that we are destined to be eternal children, never sufficiently resilient to stand on our own two feet without the help of our parents, the state, or some therapist. It makes good money for bureaucrats and therapists, I guess. It has been a disaster for this planet.
Thinking versus reacting
Psychology, in striving to be right without looking at any facts that would help it to do so, has ignored the actual mechanisms of reactive behavior and grouped much of it with analytical behavior which of course it isn’t.
The fact that a person can come up with “analytical” reasons why he reacted a certain way does not change the fact that he reacted.
The skill of retaining rationality in the face of extreme pressures to react is a fine art. It is not easily learned on this planet at this time. And only a few so far have mastered it. Some day, I truly hope, there will be enough such people to stand up once and for all against the criminals of the world, and with great love, end their reign of terror here.
I certainly look forward to that day.