Groupthink

It used to be that Ivy League schools hired only its graduates to join its faculty.

Their reason: It was easier to row in the same direction, implement plans, and uphold standards if people saw the world the same way.

Later case studies and analyses of institutional bankruptcies, however, pointed to the pitfalls of groupthink.

When a group refuses objectively evaluating situations, alternatives and options, and instead focuses only on maintaining unity, they can overestimate their moral rightness. Groupthink can destroy effective critical thinking.

Groupthink destroys a company when its employees are unwilling to consider alternatives to advance in their industry. Such was the documented case of the Swissair collapse.

Swissair was once called the “Flying Bank” because it was financially solvent. But its management believed it was invulnerable and thus did not act on poor decisions and gross mismanagement. Soon enough, Swissair went bankrupt.

Over here, some people are already in groupthink mode. Take the recent presidential pronouncements….er, threats…on declaring martial law (again?!!!!)

And it all started with President Rodrigo Duterte, who else? If the problem of illegal drugs could not be curtailed, martial rule could be the alternative.

Of course, the Constitutional experts howled; illegal drugs proliferation is nowhere stated…not even in any fine print….in the Constitution.

Then the presidential mouth advances: The Constitution is flawed and should thus be revised. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the Marcosian abuses and excesses, and thus became too stringent, leaving the nation’s president to seek the concurrence of Congress and the Supreme Court.

Precisely, and that was the point, right? Never again should the specter of a dictator wielding absolute power revisit this nation. So, why don’t the president’s men get that?

Instead, the Office of the Solicitor General justifies that the president is very much in his right mind to declare martial law as he saw fit, regardless of what’s allowed in the Constitution.

Then his Communications Secretary blames the media for misquoting PDut, that he didn’t really say that when he wanted to, he would and that’s that.

And all that the media outlets did was to replay on tv and their websites the actual footage of PDut’s pronouncements. Perhaps the president’s apologists will try saying the man in the footage is not PDut but a copycat.

And in classic groupthink, some senators have even dared their peers to reveal themselves as PDut’s oppositionists. Is it totally lost on them that colleagues can agree to go to war but disagree on the weapons to use?

On this side of democracy, martial law is a weapon of mass destruction.

Seventy-four percent of Pulse Asia’s recent survey respondents said no to martial law imposition. So, Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked, “Why does the President seem so obsessed with dictatorial rule when the majority of the people want democratic governance?” Tumpak!