Groupthink?
"One thousand coalition soldiers have died because the C.I.A. was so eager to go
along with the emperor's delusion that he was actually wearing clothes."
All Together Now
Or...
July 15, 2004
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Their faces long with disapproval, the anchors announced
that the reason for the war had finally been uncovered by
the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it was "groupthink,"
not to mention "collective groupthink." It sounds so kinky
and un-American, like something that might go on in a North
Korean stadium or in one of those sex clubs that Jack Ryan,
the former Illinois Senate candidate, is accused of
dragging his wife to. But supposedly intelligent, morally
upstanding people had been indulging in it right in
Langley, Va.
This is a surprise? Groupthink has become as American as
apple pie and prisoner abuse; in fact, it's hard to find
any thinking these days that doesn't qualify for the prefix
"group." Our standardized-test-driven schools reward the
right answer, not the unsettling question. Our corporate
culture prides itself on individualism, but it's the "team
player" with the fixed smile who gets to be employee of the
month. In our political culture, the most crushing rebuke
is to call someone "out of step with the American people."
Zip your lips, is the universal message, and get with the
program.
This summer's remake of the "Stepford Wives" doesn't have
anything coherent to say about gender politics: Men are the
oppressors? Women are the oppressors? Or maybe just Glenn
Close? But it does play to the fantasy, more widespread
than I'd realized, that if you were to rip off the face of
the person sitting in the next cubicle, you'd find nothing
but circuit boards underneath.
I trace the current outbreak of droidlike conformity to the
immediate aftermath of 9/11, when groupthink became the
official substitute for patriotism, and we began to run out
of surfaces for affixing American flags. Bill Maher lost
his job for pointing out that, whatever else they were, the
9/11 terrorists weren't cowards, prompting Ari Fleischer to
warn (though he has since backed down) that Americans "need
to watch what they say." Never mind that Sun Tzu says,
somewhere in his oeuvre, that while it's soothing to
underestimate the enemy, it's often fatal, too.
And what was that group thinking in Abu Ghraib? Yes, the
accused guards seem to have been encouraged to soften up
their charges for interrogation, just as the operatives at
Langley were pelted with White House demands for some
plausible casus belli. But the alarming thing is how few
soldiers demurred, and how many got caught up in the fun of
it.
Societies throughout history have recognized the hazards of
groupthink and made arrangements to guard against it. The
shaman, the wise woman and similar figures all represent
institutionalized outlets for alternative points of view.
In the European carnival tradition, a "king of fools" was
permitted to mock the authorities, at least for a day or
two. In some cultures, people resorted to vision quests or
hallucinogens - anything to get out of the box. Because,
while the capacity for groupthink is an endearing part of
our legacy as social animals, it's also a common
precondition for self-destruction. One thousand coalition
soldiers have died because the C.I.A. was so eager to go
along with the emperor's delusion that he was actually
wearing clothes.
Instead of honoring groupthink resisters, we subject them
to insult and abuse. Sgt. Samuel Provance III has been
shunned by fellow soldiers since speaking out against the
torture at Abu Ghraib, in addition to losing his security
clearance and being faced with a possible court-martial. A
fellow Abu Ghraib whistle-blower, Specialist Joseph Darby,
was praised by the brass, but has had to move to an
undisclosed location to avoid grass-roots retaliation.
The list goes on. Sibel Edmonds lost her job at the F.B.I.
for complaining about mistranslations of terror-related
documents from the Arabic. Jesselyn Radack was driven out
of her post at the Justice Department for objecting to the
treatment of John Walker Lindh, then harassed by John
Ashcroft's enforcers at her next job. As Fred Alford, a
political scientist who studies the fate of
whistle-blowers, puts it: "We need to understand in this
`land of the free and home of the brave' that most people
are scared to death. About 50 percent of all
whistle-blowers lose their jobs, about half of those lose
their homes, and half of those people lose their families."
This nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But
it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.
along with the emperor's delusion that he was actually wearing clothes."
All Together Now
Or...
July 15, 2004
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
Their faces long with disapproval, the anchors announced
that the reason for the war had finally been uncovered by
the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it was "groupthink,"
not to mention "collective groupthink." It sounds so kinky
and un-American, like something that might go on in a North
Korean stadium or in one of those sex clubs that Jack Ryan,
the former Illinois Senate candidate, is accused of
dragging his wife to. But supposedly intelligent, morally
upstanding people had been indulging in it right in
Langley, Va.
This is a surprise? Groupthink has become as American as
apple pie and prisoner abuse; in fact, it's hard to find
any thinking these days that doesn't qualify for the prefix
"group." Our standardized-test-driven schools reward the
right answer, not the unsettling question. Our corporate
culture prides itself on individualism, but it's the "team
player" with the fixed smile who gets to be employee of the
month. In our political culture, the most crushing rebuke
is to call someone "out of step with the American people."
Zip your lips, is the universal message, and get with the
program.
This summer's remake of the "Stepford Wives" doesn't have
anything coherent to say about gender politics: Men are the
oppressors? Women are the oppressors? Or maybe just Glenn
Close? But it does play to the fantasy, more widespread
than I'd realized, that if you were to rip off the face of
the person sitting in the next cubicle, you'd find nothing
but circuit boards underneath.
I trace the current outbreak of droidlike conformity to the
immediate aftermath of 9/11, when groupthink became the
official substitute for patriotism, and we began to run out
of surfaces for affixing American flags. Bill Maher lost
his job for pointing out that, whatever else they were, the
9/11 terrorists weren't cowards, prompting Ari Fleischer to
warn (though he has since backed down) that Americans "need
to watch what they say." Never mind that Sun Tzu says,
somewhere in his oeuvre, that while it's soothing to
underestimate the enemy, it's often fatal, too.
And what was that group thinking in Abu Ghraib? Yes, the
accused guards seem to have been encouraged to soften up
their charges for interrogation, just as the operatives at
Langley were pelted with White House demands for some
plausible casus belli. But the alarming thing is how few
soldiers demurred, and how many got caught up in the fun of
it.
Societies throughout history have recognized the hazards of
groupthink and made arrangements to guard against it. The
shaman, the wise woman and similar figures all represent
institutionalized outlets for alternative points of view.
In the European carnival tradition, a "king of fools" was
permitted to mock the authorities, at least for a day or
two. In some cultures, people resorted to vision quests or
hallucinogens - anything to get out of the box. Because,
while the capacity for groupthink is an endearing part of
our legacy as social animals, it's also a common
precondition for self-destruction. One thousand coalition
soldiers have died because the C.I.A. was so eager to go
along with the emperor's delusion that he was actually
wearing clothes.
Instead of honoring groupthink resisters, we subject them
to insult and abuse. Sgt. Samuel Provance III has been
shunned by fellow soldiers since speaking out against the
torture at Abu Ghraib, in addition to losing his security
clearance and being faced with a possible court-martial. A
fellow Abu Ghraib whistle-blower, Specialist Joseph Darby,
was praised by the brass, but has had to move to an
undisclosed location to avoid grass-roots retaliation.
The list goes on. Sibel Edmonds lost her job at the F.B.I.
for complaining about mistranslations of terror-related
documents from the Arabic. Jesselyn Radack was driven out
of her post at the Justice Department for objecting to the
treatment of John Walker Lindh, then harassed by John
Ashcroft's enforcers at her next job. As Fred Alford, a
political scientist who studies the fate of
whistle-blowers, puts it: "We need to understand in this
`land of the free and home of the brave' that most people
are scared to death. About 50 percent of all
whistle-blowers lose their jobs, about half of those lose
their homes, and half of those people lose their families."
This nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But
it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.