Groupthink
I started this blog a couple of months ago, and decided that one of my areas of interest would be groupthink. Groupthink is one of those behaviors that occurs so often that it becomes invisible, and so it seemed an interesting subject.
Then the Senate Intelligence Committee on Why the Hell Our "President" Invaded Iraq to Find Osama Bin Laden released their report, and blamed intelligence "groupthink" for our fascination with Iraq, regardless of the facts. Suddenly, groupthink was a buzzword. Newspaper articles waxed philosophical about groupthink. NPR had an expert come in to discuss the concept of "groupthink."
Suddenly, groupthink had lapped itself: the group was groupthinking itself about "groupthink."
Where did this groupthink shit come from? And can we get rid of it? Is there a pill?
Well, contrary to the experts, groupthink is not a concept that came around in the 1970's with pop psychology. Most people recognize the very structure of the word as Orwellian: part of that remarkable lexicon that permeated "1984." There have been very few books that transformed the language, but this book not only changed the way we speak, but the way we see the world and each other. Remember crimethink - thought crime, the idea that just thinking evil (or incorrect, as in politically) thoughts was a crime in itself? Sexcrime - criminal sexual behavior, which covered everything from sodomy to Carterlike lusting in the heart? (And its antonym, goodsex, which of course referred to abstinence.)
So groupthink was another Orwellian shorthand expression. Groupthink - the behavior of a large group of people who all repeat and confirm each other's thoughts and opinions in echo-chamber style.
The word never appears in 1984. So technically, Orwell did not coin the word. But the concept infuses the book. War equals peace. Freedom equals slavery. We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
And similarly, groupthink is as much an American pastime as eating Costco hot dogs. I mean, the whole buildup to the Iraq war was an experiment in groupthink manipulation. The polls that reported that most people thought the 9-11 hijackers came from Iraq (most were from Saudi Arabia.) The endless warnings about the WMD that weren't there, the uranium that Saddam didn't try to acquire, the weapons that would launch in 45 minutes - except they wouldn't.
I don't want to limit this to the war. The war is only the most prescient example. Other examples of groupthink:
80-90% of Americans placing themselves in the "middle class;"
the Oprah book club;
the madhouse popularity of Krispy Kreme and similar crazes;
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (its very statement makes it so).
Here's my favorite. "Everyone supports the troops."
See how you reacted to that? Imagine someone saying they didn't support our troops. Someone who protested the troops and their very act of being soldiers. A traitor. An unAmerican. 'What the hell's wrong with you?' you would shout. 'Why don't you support the troops like everyone else?'
A statement with universal agreement is a statement that is meaningless. When everyone agrees with a statement, it ceases to matter. It becomes smoke, ether, disposable like the sound of a cough.
We are all participants in groupthink 500 times a day. It happens so often that we don't even notice it. Every time we rave about how Starbucks coffee is just better (or just not as good) as Tully's. Every time we hear someone talk about a tv show, a muffin, a new magazine, and we say "oh yeah, I love that, too," just to be part of a group in agreement. Groupthink is quintessentially part of American culture. It is also everything wrong with America, and something that we should all rebel and protest against.
Unless, of course, everyone else is already doing it.
9:54:50 PM 
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