mike arthur dot co dot you kay

Groupthink and justification

Tuesday 5th June, 2007 @ 3:20 am

“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.”(Wikipedia)

Groupthink is something you encounter a lot on the Internet in forums, newsgroups, IRC channels and amongst bloggers. It’s also something we see a lot in any clique or group established around certain opinions or beliefs such as in a church, university course or friendship group.

Groupthink is, in my humble opinion, one of the most dangerous threats to our world and way of life. Moreso than terrorism, moreso than pedophilia, moreso than murderers. The main problem with groupthink is that people become afraid or unwilling to speak out against the majority’s viewpoint. With modern media this is especially twisted as if all the news channels or newspapers are saying something you tend to assume that is what the British people believe and therefore it is all-too-easy to simply believe what you are told rather than engaging in issues.

The classic way for people to abuse a groupthink is finding a polarising event or decision and then trying to use that to irradicate rational discussion. A classic amusing example of this found on the internet is “Godwin’s Law”

“As a [online newsgroup] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

Hitler is a classic example of the type of polarising topic I mentioned. Too often in the media or discussion we hear “Hitler did X therefore X is BAD!”. This tends to try and produce a base emotional reaction in order to override an intellectual discussion.

The current big example being used in modern culture seems to be terrorism.

Statistically you are incredibly unlikely to be affected by terrorism but that doesn’t stop idiots like Brown from trying to turn the UK into a police state. The problem with these new laws is that you are infringing on EVERYONE’S civil rights in order to attempt to reduce deaths by terrorism which are astronomically small anyway!

This brings me on to the justification part. The evil bogeyman of terrorism is being used to justify all sorts of laws and government action, from wars in the middle-east to clamping down on free speech to allowing our legal system to be subverted.

People will die from terrorism. This is inevitable. The question you should ask yourself is how many of your freedoms, rights and ways of life are you willing to sacrifice to reduce this number. Personally I’ve reached the limit.

Free speech and many of our other rights are prone to abuse. People say disgustingly horrible things and this is a shame. The problem is if you start saying what people can and can’t say where do you draw the line? Who draws the lines?

If it becomes illegal for people to say “terrorist action is the UK is justified” then what next?

The government is making serious steps toward an Orwellian police state with CCTV, detainment and extradition to the US without charge or trial. The question simply is how much you are willing to sacrifice to maintain your illusion of safety against the terrorists when you are probably more likely to be killed crossing the road.

Posted in My Life, Politics