Saturday, November 17, 2012

Group think

Via NotDeadYet:

Janis identified eight symptoms that put a group of individuals at risk for falling into groupthink:
  1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
  2. Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
  3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
  4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
  5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
  6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
  7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
  8. Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
NDY is talking about bioethics manipulation by those who think cripples are useless eaters (to put it bluntly) but it also seems to apply to any group.

One of the problems with groupthink is that when it is pushed by the MSM, the public ends up losing it's moral vocabulary to be able to discuss things, to recognize nuance, or even to recognize reality if it disagrees with the meme.

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