Reaching out across the great divide
It happens all the time in small, closely-knit groups – cabinets, party executives, boards of directors, church congregations or club committees. It is called groupthink. It is when such groups become more and more certain that their collective judgment is infallible. Groupthink signals big trouble. The scholar Irving Janis blames it for most American foreign-policy fiascos in his book on that sad and currently very relevant subject.
The individuals within such groups, who may or may not be very bright, find themselves listening only to themselves. They find themselves stressing the absolute need for loyalty to their own consensus. Increasingly they begin to equate dissent with a kind of treason. They live in an echo chamber of their own views. They do not think of the hard questions to ask and even if they do they soon get to the point when they would never think of actually asking them. They pay attention only to information that fits their own conclusions and block out information that does not. So the more they discuss the more they are convinced they are right. Reality is overwhelmed in the comfort zone of groupthink conformity.
To an ordinarily intelligent, reasonably independent, person all this seems absurd. But it happens again and again and again in history, and around the corner not far from you and me. Any group of people in charge of anything for a long time – committee, board, party executive or government –becomes more and more liable to the groupthink risk the longer it stays in charge.
For instance, who can doubt that groupthink was responsible for the gigantic mess which America got itself and the world into in Iraq? Do you remember that greatest of disasters in recent times? A small group of neoconservatives surrounding President Bush, led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld and Assistant Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, taking advantage of an America stunned by the terrorist attack of 9/11, was determined to take out Saddam Hussein and establish American power in an important, oil-rich Middle East state. They then blocked out all information and views contrary to what they wanted, selectively presented to the President and themselves information and views favourable to their position, and proceeded to impose their groupthink on the administration, the Congress and, sadly, the American people. And even, astonishingly Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain. All became trapped in that awful echo chamber of single-minded decision-makers hermetically sealed off from all opposing views, ordinary common sense and even from what should have been the irrefutable daily flow of facts on the ground. So much evil and horror have followed thereafter.
Alfred Sloan, probably the greatest and certainly one of the most successful business executives who ever lived, ran General Motors from 1923 to 1956. He loathed the debates of yes-men and feared the threat posed by unanimity. “Gentlemen,” he would sum up when necessary, “I take it that we are all in complete agreement on the decision here. Then, I propose that we postpone further discussion to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps get some real understanding of what our decision should be all about.”
At home in Guyana groupthink has prevailed for decades. Ethnic division was group thinking on each side of a cleavage that prevented solutions and remedies that challenge how each side thinks. Opposed group thinking gives completely conflicting versions of the same events, the same facts, the same dangers and threats, the same potential for progress. Dialogue breaks down because of groupthink on all sides. What has our politics been but echo chambers sealed off from each other? When some few tried to raise their voices above the snarling echoes they were soon silenced, well before they could make a real difference. Groupthinkers by definition only wish to listen to their own thoughts. They have no use for fresh voices and ideas to contend in chambers where only outworn and dutiful echoes are allowed to sound.
Anew government gave hope for change. But already such hope is rapidly subsiding. The group in power since May, 2015, seem more and more secure in their certainties. The Constitution doesn’t really need changing. There is no real need to pay attention to the opposition. The economy is sailing sunnily along under our super-astute handling. Crime is under control – what is everybody talking about so misguidedly? We, representing 50% of the people, are 100% sure of what we are doing.
How has this new group come so soon to this stale place? Why on earth don’t they try something different: uncircle the wagons, genuinely admit the ideas of others for discussion and extend a hand for help in implementing them? And then let us hope for something equally shocking – a really positive, unsuspicious and patriotic response.