the finest structure can house the worst evil. that's what my fortune cookie said. are fortune cookies not the greatest? enough with the cookies, it's time to apply sociological terms to my life, here we go. "the central tenet of groupthink is, as groups seek conformity and unity they sacrifice everything in order to maintain peace within the group, causing poor decision-making."



symptoms of groupthink are divided into three types which can manifest themselves as (1) overestimation of the group's power and morality, (2) closed-mindedness and (3) pressure toward uniformity. applying this to my people and my group, i'd say that we fulfill...all three of the rules. we are groupthink! to clarify.



don't all groups of friends think that they're the best? that they represent the cream of the human crop? anything we can do other people can't. or something like that. it's another sociological phenomenon i'm sure. even the most genetically deficient field mouse must feel invulnerable when grouped with like minded field mice. then they start all pumping each other up and telling each other that they are the best. around and around we go until there is an "unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality". it sounds more impressive than it really is. i take the phrase to mean something like "we think jewel is god, everyone who doesn't should be shot." thus when people who dislike jewel are shot, it's okay by group standards. this is obviously an extreme, since nobody would actually shoot jewel haters, just maim them.



groupthinkers are also characterized by self-censorship, shared illusion of unianimity and stereotyped views of the opposition. this means that there are rules among groupsthinkers. rules about what can be said/done and what cannot. there is also this idea that everything is "all for one and one for all". which is clearly not the case since anybody who is all for one and one for all is either a martyr, a tool, or an idiot (i have no evidence to back up this last statement, but i'm working on the proof of it). so groupthinkers suffer from thinking that they are the best and they that are loyal to each other, when in truth they are no better than a group of selfish individuals who use it each other to further their own ends. how came i to this conclusion? i don't know, i'm a plagiarist, not a mathematician.



nobody likes to be the victim of groupthink. nobody likes to hang out with people who groupthink. how best to prevent your group from groupthinking? some solutions. "the leader of a policy-forming group should assign the role of critical evaluator to each member, encouraging the group to give high priority to airing objections and doubts. this practice needs to be reinforced by the leader's acceptance of criticism of his or her own judgment in order to discourage the members from soft-pedaling their disagreements." clearly this means that there should be (at least) one appointed critic per group. one whose job it is to evaluate and criticize. not even constructively, just the act of criticism is enough, hold nothing back. the person best suited to this role might be somebody who tends to not smile much and can come off as capricious and mean with a simple "hello". the leader then has to be open to receiving this criticism in a positive manner. ignoring the critic, calling them "stupid", and looking past them is, to me, useful but not necessarily positive. try other methods first.



"leaders should be impartial." your designated team leader should not be too charismatic or too selfish. it is best if they are well liked by everyone but not too well liked, since you don't need to have sheep following the shepard. it gets messy, trust me. one sign that the group is headed toward a cliff, when the leader says "trust me" and everybody does. nobody should trust nobody, did you not watch the x-files? it is best to have many designated devils' advocates, oh wait, we covered this. anyway, the key to preventing groupthink is to suspect everyone else of stupidity, selfishness and stupidity. only then can we be a healthy social clump.



so really, amid all this rambling, what is groupthink you ask? groupthink is assholes hanging out with other assholes, who dislike any other type of asshole. there you have it, my sociology for the common man -- look for the introductory pamphlet in grocery stores near you.