Groupthink Quotes

“The psychological components of war have not gone away—dominance, vengeance, callousness, tribalism, groupthink, self-deception”

“Fame or perceived success - it all comes from groupthink.”

“New Atheism simplicity is the byproduct of collective groupthink, and the internalization of self-congratulatory jingoistic clichés and generalizations. They know because they know, and there's no reasoning with someone who knows."- The New Atheist Threat: The Dangerous Rise of Secular Extremists”

“Girls, here's the truth about the Ban Bossy campaign: It's being spearheaded by a privileged group of elite feminists who have a very vested interest in stoking victim politics and exacerbating the gender divide. They actually encourage dependency and groupthink while paying lip service to empowerment and self-determination. They traffic in bogus wage disparity statistics, whitewashing the fact that what's actually left of that dwindling pay gap is due to the deliberate, voluntary choices women in the workforce make.”

“The way my mind flows is conducive to self-learning. I do better obsessively studying various writers and writing techniques and writing theories on my own than I would do if I were in a classroom and the professor was telling me (and 20 other students at the same time) to study these same things. Even if the professor told us to study the exact things I would otherwise be studying on my own, I would have a much harder time applying myself and focusing and taking anything the professor assigned seriously. That’s just the way my mind works–my fear of groupthink, my desire toward (passion for, obsession with) uniqueness and originality and the creation of new things. By studying things on my own, I might arrive at the exact same place others arrive at as they study amongst their peers–but to my mind, this would be okay. I at least would have arrived there (at those thoughts, at those techniques, at those ideas and approaches and whatever-else-have-you) on my own. And that’s just me.”

“To understand why I jumped from the Mormon wagon train requires an understanding of what Mormons are and how they think. While Mormons have some quaint, quirky and fanatical ideas, they really aren't much different from millions of poor, guilt-ridden souls who, throughout the march of human history, have hitched their hopes to mass movements of one sort or another. Eric Hoffer, in his brilliant treatise, "The True Believer," explains the attraction of joining a cause: "A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following 'by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated by freeing them from their ineffectual selves--and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole'. "Of all the cults and philosophies that competed in the Graeco-Roman world, Christianity alone developed from its inception a compact organization."Once I realized this, it wasn't much of a leap out of religion altogether once I flew the Mormon coop. I simply wanted to be free from organizational groupthink. I escaped from the stuffy attic of religion's "pray, pay and obey" mentality into journalism's open laboratory of "who, what, where, when and why.”

“What kind of men, then, does our society need? What is the "social character" suited to twentieth century Capitalism? It needs men who co-operate smoothly in large groups; who want to consume more and more, and whose tasks are standardized and can easily be influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority, or principle, or conscience - yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected, to fit into the social machine without friction.”

“Socialism is "group-think." How uninformed in history do you have to be to advocate for "group-think"??”

“Without their uniforms, they were probably nobodies, rejects. Give a man a uniform. Give him a few sparkly badges, a purpose, a gun ... and suddenly, he was no longer just another kid trying to make it through life without being ridiculed. Suddenly, he was a part of something. Something important. Something powerful. Something greater than he could ever be on his own. It was amazing how empowering the group could be.”

“Universal opinions are often mistaken for universal principles”