Groupthink & Social Masking

by Chautauqua
The patterns were formed and the programming became ‘hardwired’- Safety in numbers, and we have pretty much been communal creatures ever since.  Back in the 60?s, some communes of free thinkers began sprouting up as those tired of the hive mind left the cities to create hives of their own, allowing in only like minded thinkers.  Kinda like trading one hive mind for another one…think upgrades.  The hippies were the first in modern times to recognize the true potential of the hive mind, if focused on spirit rather than greed.  You see, we really arehardwired to work as a collective, it’s known as the collective consciousness, and the collective unconscious.  These are the avenues of unity consciousness, which is what we are striving for in this consciousness driven revolution.

Unfortunately for us today; this capacity for unity consciousness has been long ago hijacked, and deformed into something more conducive to breeding compliant slaves to serve the hijackers.   By deliberately exploiting a natural human tendency toward collective thinking, the ‘elitists’ down thru history have always sought to manipulate and even program our thinking to their liking.  Maybe that’s why today all of the worlds newspapers, radio & TV stations are owned by just three corporations; and why “clear channel” and Homeland Insecurity are seeking to control all of it.

I well remember the swarm of psychological self-analysis books that appeared around 1970, such as Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, and The Primal Scream, by Arthur Janov. Self-help was all the rage that year as so many folks tried to find some middle ground between the communes and the corporations, some fertile mental realm where sanity still prevailed.  It was 18 months later when another groundbreaking writer, & social psychologist Irving Janis appeared on the scene, with his early research on the hive mind, “Victims of Groupthink.” Ten years later came his seminal work on the subject: “Groupthink; Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascos,” wherein he pioneered research into the existence and dynamics of the hive mentality in modern culture.  Janis described groupthink as a kind of rationalized conformity wherein individuals waived critical thinking in favor of majority rule, often with undesired results.  Janis described groupthink this way;  “The more amiability & esprit de corps there is among a policy making ingroup, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink which is likely to result in irrational & dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups.”

The terms groupthink, ingroup & outgroup stem from and are derivative of George Orwell’s classic “1984″ which gave us such terms as doublethink, and newspeak used as to identify with authority.  Certainly Janis is not the only one to have drawn inspiration from Orwell’s work, but was the first one to see and understand the phenomenon of groupthink well established in society.    Janis’ book remains the quintessential research on the hive mind, and has established the eight symptoms of groupthink, as follows:
1.~ Illusion of invulnerability; where excessive optimism encourages extreme risk.
2.~ Collective Rationalization, the ignoring of warnings & failure to consider alternatives.
3.~ Belief in inherent morality; where the members of the group believe that being right    exempts them from ethical and moral consequences of their decision.
4.~ Stereotyped views of outgroups; creates & sustains a negative view of the “enemy”.
5. ~ Direct pressure on Dissenters; constant peer pressure not to argue with or question the groups or leaders views.
6.~ Self-Censorship; members decline to express their own doubts or misgivings.
7.~ Illusion of Unanimity; where the majority view is assumed to be unanimous.
8. ~ Self-appointed ‘Mindguards’ –  where the members protect the leader & group from problematic information, new views etc. etc.

If you are looking for examples of the groupthink fiasco dynamic you have but to review some American political/military history.  Pearl Harbor, Bay of Pigs, escalation of Vietnam war, Iran hostage rescue, ramp-up to wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, weapons of mass destruction debacle, U.S. involvement in the Islamic revolution in Egypt, Libya and Syria…and that’s just the short list.  On the civilian side there is the IRS, CPS, DMV, & PTA, JDL, ADA and many other groups who want to tell us how to think, and just who the “real enemy” really is…and we march to the beat of their drums at the expense of all our futures, and the futures of our grandchildren.  We are currently marching lockstep into the oblivion of the trans-human agenda being perpetrated by global elitist groupthink which never deviates from its goal of control.

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