I've just come across a reference to this book, Victims of Groupthink, A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Written in 1972, it investigates the decision-making involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, as well as the policy debacles of the Korean War, Pearl Harbour, and the escalation of the VietNam War.
The book sums up Groupthink as a process of three main parts:
First, a group of people come to share a common view, often proposed by a few individuals deemed to be credentialised have authority in the subject. It is a view however, not based in reality. These adherents may be convinced intellectually that their view is right, but their belief cannot be tested in a way which could confirm it – beyond doubt. It is simply based on a picture of the world as they imagine it to be, or more to the point, would like it to be.
The second rule is that precisely because their shared view is essentially subjective and not provable, Groupthinkers go out of their way to insist that it is so self-evidently correct that a ‘consensus’ of all right-minded people must agree with it. Any contradictory evidence, and the views of anyone who does not agree with them, can be disregarded entirely.
Third, and highly significant, is the rule which states that in order to reinforce the conviction of the ‘in-group’ that their viewpoint is right, they need to treat the opinions of anyone who questions it as wholly unacceptable. These latter people are considered to be obtuse, and who should not be engaged with in any serious dialogue, but rather should be shut down. Those outside the bubble must be marginalised and if necessary, their views mercilessly caricatured to make them seem ridiculous.
If this is not enough, they must be attacked in the most violently contemptuous terms, usually with the aid of some scornfully dismissive label – such as ‘bigot’, ‘prude’, ‘xenophobe’ or ‘denier’. Dissent in any form cannot be tolerated. Some members of the group take it upon themselves to become ‘mind guards’ and correct dissenting beliefs.
Remind anyone of anything?
Thursday, 25 August 2022
Groupthink
My latest blogpost: GroupthinkTweet this! Posted by Bayard at 20:27
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16 comments:
Anything?
A list of things.
A very long list.
Starting with every cunning plan politicians have ever had.
There is no greater example of Groupthink than the "Climate change/crisis" nonsense.
COVID Lockdown may well have been a bigger fuckup than Climate Change.
Re Pearl Harbour. Yamamoto was not wholly convinced it would have the effect his fellow 'group thinkers' thought it would - that is destroy the Americans will to fight. Let alone destroy their fleet. Mind you he'd lived and studies in America.
As soon as someone uses a word such as "credentialised", I switch off.
D, fixed it for you.
L, the present day gives lots of examples of decisions being made based on a total ignorance or misunderstanding of how people in other countries think.
As Doonhamer says, it would be a long list. How about "People who believe every word that Putin says"?
https://www.reddit.com/user/aldursys
Neil's comments here
"Land is valued based upon what somebody else will pay for it. As with all things that are exchanged.
Once you have more houses than people so that houses depreciate the amount people will pay changes. It's like a phase shift in the market.
We saw the opposite phase shift during the pandemic when there weren't enough cars being made. Suddenly used cars started to behave like houses as hoarding kicked in."
"Does it have more cars than people who need them?
Having more than people need, excess supply capacity, is how prices remain stable across all goods and services. Otherwise competition stops working to keep prices in check.
The same would happen with houses. Houses that became degraded would become less valuable, and would be demolished, renovated or repurposed. Eventually you'd get a circulation in a local area where there is a surplus of older properties that are in the process of renewal. Which is what happens in Japan. There are very few older buildings there."
"Once you have more houses than people so that houses depreciate the amount people will pay changes."
Nope, in Ireland during the "Celtic Tiger" supply vastly exceeded demand. Also Spain at the same time. Houses did not go down in price until the banks collapsed, which was a totally separate mechanism. Houses are not cars, they don't have wheels for starters.
There is a new substep since the authors penned this in 1972. The tactic is now is to ask a question like, "Are you against racism?" or "Do you want to look after the planet for your children?" or "Do you want to protect the lives of the vulnerable and elderly?", And then insist that you kneel in football, switch off your heating, and obey lockdown, otherwise you are a racist, denier, murderer.
OTOH, the process beautifully illustrated here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
Mi, it is not clear what your point is
Neill is famously an idiot, who doesn't distinguish between "buildings" and "land". Buildings depreciate (if not repaired), land does not.
A building is worth its replacement cost, plus/minus hassle.
Land is worth the goods and services that you can access from where the land is.
OTOH, re "Are you against racism?". Famously summed up as "Have you stopped beating your wife?".
Mark, or "Is she the only woman you slept with?"
Isn't the shortage of old houses in Japan also perhaps due to Japan being an earthquake hotspot, and perhaps also to a strong cultural preference in Japan for new-build homes?
(China has a similar cultural preference, which is why the properties that wealthy Chinese have bought up in the Western world's global cities are generally left empty rather than let out: their owners see them as a bolthole in case they have to flee China due to the CCP turning on them.)
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