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Groupthinking:
The kind of thinking,
feeling, valueing
and desiring that keeps human social
groups together. Much of
the thinking that goes into groupthinking is
totalitarian in principle, and is made up
of principles based on
wishful thinking of the following
kind:
Usually the members of groups are hardly aware that their membership is to
a large extent emotionally and intellectually based on principles such as the
above, even though it is very easy to see these principles at work in the mental make-up
or the behavior of members of other groups -
political parties, religious
organizations, soccer supporters, but also firms, schools, universities etc.,
for one way the human animal is social is by actively belonging to groups and
by supporting the ideas, ideals, morals and practices that constitute,
regulate or support these groups.
Also, it is noteworthy that the above
principles involved in most group-thinking are relatively innocuous, and
that most groups also practice such principles as
- Whoever does not belong to
Our Group is less good (perfect, humane,
religiously or racially proper) than whoever
does
- Whoever opposes Our Group, Our
Leaders, Our
Ideologyor Our Faith is, therefore and
thereby, morally or humanly or intellectually
inferior
- Whoever does not
conform to the practices and principles
current in Our Group is immoral or insane
Most groupthinking involves prejudice of
all kinds, and the best excuse for this seems to be that, since human beings
are social animals, there is an instinctual motivation to wish to belong to
and to support a human group.
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