Group Think

Every tax is a pay cut. Every tax cut is a pay raise.
Citizens for Limited Taxation

Victims of Group Think - Irving Janis

Illusions of invulnerability leading to excessive optimism and the taking of extreme risks.
Collective efforts to rationalize leading decisions makers to discount warnings that might otherwise force them to reconsider.
Stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil as to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate and too weak or stupid to counter an attack against them leading to miscalculations.
An unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality inclining group members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.
Advocates of the consensus view putting direct pressure on those who express against any of the groups stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members.
Self-appointed mind guards emerging to protect the group from advice, information and views that might shatter complacency about the effectiveness or the morality of their decisions.
Self censorship by people with views deviating from the apparent group consensus creating an illusion of unanimity within the group.

Victims of Group Think - Irving Janis
Illusions of invulnerability leading to excessive optimism and the taking of extreme risks. Collective efforts to rationalize leading decisions makers to discount warnings that might otherwise force them to reconsider. Stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil as to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate and too weak or stupid to counter an attack against them leading to miscalculations. An unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality inclining group members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions. Advocates of the consensus view putting direct pressure on those who express against any of the groups stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members. Self-appointed mind guards emerging to protect the group from advice, information and views that might shatter complacency about the effectiveness or the morality of their decisions. Self censorship by people with views deviating from the apparent group consensus creating an illusion of unanimity within the group.

Lowering of Moral Standards

When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ... Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things together which nobody in his right mind would do alone.
-- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"

Lowering of Moral Standards
When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ... Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things together which nobody in his right mind would do alone. -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"

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