Groupthink

Post Reply New Topic

I think a lot of this is group hierarchy as well - some in the group have been deemed better at thinking of these things, or better at kicking the next person's arse, but usually in the case of school projects its the former unless they're glorious enough to do both well. For that canal company it sounds like they were all just enamored by the fact that they were able to at least make some play on words out of 'aqueduct' and didn't think they'd be able to come up with anything less clunky - and I have noticed that over here as well, when I was in school or even in college, there's a specific kind of humor or trajectory that your allowed to use and everyone's trying to play off of whatever facet of it they can for the best answer - why I'm not entirely sure unless its another construct our societies created for cohesiveness.

I'm starting to understand at least what conformity and those dogmas are worth. On subconscious levels, and likely out of empathy, most NT's at least realize that they're moody and have excessive adrenaline (not unlike many of us either), they guess it of the next person, and establishing points of reference like that is something their minds adapt to and it seems like it may well be done for the very reason that people are afraid of what would happen if everyone just let it all hang out. While its a good idea to build a large buffer zone against our own inherent barbarism the troubling part is when it lacks self awareness - social religion and organized religion seem to both have major issues when the practitioners lack clarity or perspective.

I have to agree with you that trials of life and not being able to fit in, or at least for a long enough stretch of life, can lead to someone having a lot more perspective and clarity. I heard an argument the other day that the baby-boomer generation are among the most idiotic America has ever had largely because the given world of ease that they grew up in skewed their sense of reality - this lead to some very naive and idealistic assertions about life, fostering a culture that put feelings over truth, and their ideas have been reinforced upon generation X, Y, and it looks like Y may in fact make a pull-back from their dogmas but still; people who grow up with too much given to them can quite easily never grow up at all.

Well, groupthink doesnt usually work very well on me - I always had a tendency to oppose it even if I did think they were right (just on principle), although now I try to assess its merits properly before opposing it or not and I try to be aware that any idea I might have could easily be wrong.

However, it wouldn't be hard for me to start thinking that my independence of thought, ability to change my mind when confronted with obvious rebuttals to my opinion and knowledge of my own human weakness actually makes me superior to other groups - anyone want to join?

(I am being slightly tongue in cheek here - only slightly though because of course I think this way of thinking is superior, if not I wouldn't do it).

Has this been your experience?

Huh?

Groupthink definitely has its uses. WrongPlanet is a good example.

^Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing. I don't think any of us are too above it given the debates of wrong and right that happen here.

I think the best anyone can do is try and look at views from an open perspective or a perspectiveo outside yours. Even that can be hard to grasp....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_wave


we call it the mexican wave here.