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Groupthink: The Scourge of Civilization

Psychologists are good at giving us labels so we can hang them onto people with mental problems. Such labels provide a quick and easy way to instantly identify who has the afflictions, why they behave as they do, and what we can expect from them if we do not stop them in their tracks. At least that is my thesis in this narrative.

Groupthink is a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis back in the 1970s. It refers to a state of mind reached by members of a group who rely on the leaders within their group to make most of the decisions for them. Typically, they are closed to the rest of the world, their agenda is set, and they do not welcome other points of view. They soon develop a “mindset” that is marked by these characteristics:

1. Illusions of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.
2. Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.
3. Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.
4. Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.
5. Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.
6. Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.
7. Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.
8. Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

Having spent large chunks of my life in the military, also in large corporations, and in the academic community I can state with some authority that groupthink is symptomatic of…each one of them! But it has found a permanent home in religions of all kinds.

One characteristic that Janis did not point to specifically is this: Groups so afflicted by groupthink do not want to hear from you about their shortcomings or your ideas that show they are locked in a permanent state of Stupid Thinking. That’s right. Even otherwise bright people soon lose their grip on reality and they reject other points of view when they get locked into their own version of groupthink.

If you are thinking of G.W. Bush and his advisors in conducting the Iraq War, you are right on target. Tens of thousands of lives lost, more than a trillion dollars spent, in search of WMD that did not exist, could only have come out of a mindset steeped in groupthink with overlapping tentacles into the Stockholm Syndrome while flirting with megalomania if the recent TV appearances by Dick Cheney are any indication.

But there are other examples. I recently sent a letter to the chairperson of the Federal Reserve and suggested a solution to fix our weak economy while creating $6.5 trillion in GDP, adding 12.5 million new jobs, while generating $2.6 trillion in new tax revenues to significantly lower the national debt. One of her associates sent me a reply unworthy of a 3rd grader.

A year ago I sent a letter to the head of the Mensa Society (that’s the so-called high IQ group) and asked her a question about problem solving, Specifically, I asked her to name one problem her group had solved lately, or, lacking that, to name one problem of note that they were working on. My query apparently stumped her. She did not answer.

So now I have saved the worst offenders for last. That would be the religionists. When they close their doors and begin to pontificate, they come up with some doozies—fantastic schemes that would wilt the paint off the Sistine Chapel walls. With the Catholic Church it began when they decided they could do no wrong in matters of faith and morals. This doctrine holds that the pope cannot err when speaking ex cathedra for the church. It is based on the following circular logic: The Catholic Church is the one true church established by God, and it cannot make errors in moral judgments because God cannot err, therefore it cannot err. Logicians not only call that circular reasoning, but really stupid reasoning. It has shown up in many circumstances, and it has been reinforced tragically by a mindset locked into a deep state of groupthink.

The doctrine of infallibility dates to at least 1302 and the Bull Unam Sanctum signed by Boniface VIII. By most accounts that Bull (pun intended) was issued approximately one hundred years after the start of the Inquisitions that lasted for 684 years. They were carried out by 70 different popes.

In their abbreviated format the Inquisitions started when the church was in need of money, so the inner circle of clerics came up with this scheme to refill their coffers. We can raise the needed money from those who are our worst sinners, the clerics reasoned. And the worst sinners are the heretics, those who do not, or will not, accept every bit of our doctrine as the word of God. Moreover, we can find out who they are by beating the crap out of them, by bringing them before tribunals, trying them, imprisoning them, torturing them, taking all their belongings, and then by burning them at the stake.

Fast forward some 600 years, and the record of their reign of terror stands as the worst example of man’s inhumanity to man in our history. They turned husbands against wives, children against parents, and even slaughtered Jews in waves and waves of tortures and murders, while stealing their victims’ belongings. Moderate estimates put the number of persecutions at 5 million; others raise that total to 50 million.

Today, groupthinkers abound everywhere. Most notable among them are the terrorists wherever they reside. Others reign over their vassals in dictatorships. Still others occupy the end seats in corporate boardrooms. Academia is not exempt from them as university presidents act as if they are actually intelligent beings when making arbitrary and unwise decisions that affect the lives of millions.

About the only person who is free from these megalomaniacs is the free thinker. And that would be you and me. So there you have it: The fate of the world rests on the clear thinking of writers who are free to write what they think as long as their stories can be defended in a forum where clear and honest reviews are permitted and delivered.