GROUP THINK - THE SECRET TO HOW INSANE AND STUPID IDEOLOGIES SUCCEED AND ALWAYS HAVE SUPPORTERS
People think that some things are so absurd that though they may be supported now it cannot last. It may lessen but it may last. It may rebound in force again.
Our DNA forces us to live and work in groups and hurts us if that does not happen. In this universe, if it neither hurts or helps that is hurting for you need help. DNA gives us the frightening tendency to agree with the rules and philosophy of the group. The tendency to try to agree or (wrongly) think we agree is even stronger. We don't even need evidence that it is but there is evidence if you want to look it up. Nodding to the rules and customs and language that this gives rise to becomes intrinsic to being in the group at that particular time. A scheme or construct appears. The group can change and something other scheme becomes intrinsic then. A group can change into one group from another and pretend it always was a continuous thing. This is taking advantage of people's unwarranted assumption that what is relatively old is well established and tried and tested. Anyway we comply. There is subtle and more blatant pressure to comply. We will let the subtle brainwash us so that we don't have to be confronted if we won't be agreeable and compliant.
Even without all that anything that helps us fit in or seem to makes us feel safer. We feel safer for I am not just me, I am a group body. The group is my extension of me. Even without DNA we are still forced by reality and the dangers out there to be in a group and be a group as in part of one.
Naturally I will easily end up with the impression that my group’s identity and information are reliable or at least as plausible as what another group might say that differs from us. I stand by my group's plausibility and so it does not matter about another group's. This gives us some stability for changing your mind all the time can be harmful and painful.
We think we are great as individuals in the group and the group is great and we feel superior to other groups. We think we know what is right.
It is assumed groups that are sure they are right turn toxic for they are so sure of themselves. But the reality is that a group based on opinion will be just as bad. It suffers from the fear of being wrong just like the arrogant group does. If you are sure you must just have opinions that is just another way of claiming to know something. Claiming to know God is claiming to know just as much as claiming to know all you can manage is to have opinions about God.
Whatever our fixed idea is, there are consequences.
We as a group end up thinking we are better morally than other groups.
We think we are smarter.
To confirm that we only read or source things that we think will confirm what we want to think.
Truth does not matter to us as much as fear of embarrassment.
We don't want the demands that finding out we are wrong imposes on us. The demands may be that we leave the group and get another one. Or change our behaviour.
We don't want seeing to be believing. We want believing to be seeing.
Every individual does these self-deceiving things in the group. The group does it for each cell in it is doing it. It leads to using the group network for mutual affirmation in lies and possible lies. The group is a social construct that rewards you for demeaning your own mind and has everybody else affirming your lies to yourself and you affirming theirs. Even your presence in the group is doing that.
