groupthink

something i've been thinking about for a while now...

Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.

Symptoms of groupthink

In order to make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms that are indicative of groupthink (1977).

1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty".
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

... why have i been thinking about this? i dunno. i guess i think there is some of this in my life - in my head - in my upbringing.

more garbage in my head i need to deal with.

but as always, it needs to be dealt with *not* through some kind of sword wielding 'power encounter' - i cast out this demon and that lie and rebuke rebuke rebuke - repeat ad nauseum -- but with God's gentle revelation via a 'truth encounter'.

God is not a big meanie. He's not holding a stick over my head in case i mess up. He allows me to bring to Him doubts and questions and areas i may even be in rebellion to Him - and ask Him "why?"... i am allowed - by Him - to not understand, to disagree with the status quo, to have a brain. after all, He made it! and brains are by their very structural nature convoluted, lol.

God doesn't tell me to get my act together, to grow up, to 'get it' and darn it, 'get it' NOW!.... He sets the speed of my growth, my understanding, and my abilities to walk in the Spirit or do what needs to be done in my life in this worldly world.... i live by Him, i stand by Him, and i fall by Him..... and i get up again by Him.

i am so sick of all this 'pray it away' nonsense that floats around Christendom.... that puts our destiny squarely in our lap ("if you just search yourself hard enough you'll figure out that thing of which you need to repent that is the root cause of....") and therefore laying a very real yoke on *our* shoulders....

...instead placing our destiny where it belongs, in God's lap/mind/Word, where He had it even before the very foundations of this world - and the cross on which He bore the effects - the yoke, the wages - of our sin!

i no longer believe that the stuff that happens in our minds/hearts/lives are directly a cause and effect equation resulting from our every action and thought. i was stuck in that rut for far too long.... and damn it, it was for FREEDOM He set me free!!!!!! not to go around in endless circles trying to figure out just what the heck i need to do to 'fix' things...!

if we have to live a futile life of trying to balance cause and effect in every thought, action and deed, knowing that if we fail in purity (duh) then the consequences are ours to live with, too bad, so sad.... then why did Jesus go to the cross? why did He bear our infirmities and stripes? it makes what He did mean *nothing*.

and i don't know about everybody else, but i don't have enough self control to control every thought and action down some channel of perfection.... i think self-control is a fruit of the Spirit because it is not, will not, and never can be a fruit of the human psyche.

paul said it best -

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
THERE is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Rom 7:24 - 8:4

i think satan gets a case of the happys when we give our flesh nature more credit for cause and effect than the One who's really in control - the Sovereign King... Christ in us, the hope of glory.

so, going back to groupthink, here is my revised list of things that are allowed:

1. to be vulnerable, discouraged, and wary (gasp!);
   
2. to challenge mine and others' assumptions, and accept - and not look down on - challenges brought bythose from outside of my 'circle' so to speak;
   
3. to question mine and others' morality, and if it so arises, say, "that was/is wrong";
4. to *not* stereotype 'outsiders' as being necessarily evil or bad because they come from the 'outside';
5. to not feel pressure to conform, and if i don't conform, to realize it sure as heck doesn't automatically mean that i am being rebellious or disloyal!;
6. to accept as valid - and explore - other ideas that are not part of the current consensus - right or wrong. again, a brain is for thinking, not stuffing in a box;
   
7. to have a differing opinion, and exercise the freedom to not stay silent because of some fear of being rejected;
   
8. to play "devil's advocate" (bad name!), that is, to discourse from the other perspective - whether i agree with it or not - and challenge the status quo. it just may shake out some silt that is not from God, and strengthen the foundation of what is of God.

......ok, enough thinking for tonight.