Antidotes to Groupthink: Travelin' Light - And What To Do When You Can't.

I'm travelin' light
Because my man has gone
And from now on
I'm travellin' light
He said goodbye
And took my heart away
So from today
I'm travellin' light

No one to see
I'm free as the breeze
No one but me
And my memories
Some lucky night
He may come back again
But until then
I'm travelin' light

Billie Holiday

Ms. Holiday might, these days, be less inclined to hope for that man's return, and more inclined to hope that a good life, with or without a good man, might be waiting for her just a little ways down the road. Cycles of abuse were not recognized as such - all too often, they were regarded as the stuff of intense romance - when she was writing and performing. For many people even today, that's still all too true.

But it is also true that "giving hostages to fortune" is one aspect of life that makes it difficult, if not impossible at times, to break away from abusive or otherwise toxic environments and relationships. I've discussed this in an earlier post at some length; I want to return to it here because it is an important factor in the ability to break away from groupthink.

Kipling wrote that "he travels the fastest who travels alone." And it's true. But it's also cruelly hard. We are social animals, and we are family animals. Beyond that hard-wired fact of life, our social, occupational, political and spiritual groupings also tend to be openly suspicious of, if not frankly hostile towards, those who travel alone [with one exception: 'eligible' bachelors or spinsters arriving in venues where they're scarce]. "Loner" is a pejorative, although, as Anneli Rufus eloquently proves, it is often undeservedly so.

This bit of social truth - that humans tend not to travel alone, and that those who don't often ostracise or otherwise penalize those who do - means that there is almost always an added layer of complication for anyone trying to escape a groupthink situation.

Obviously, if the situation in question is peripheral - such as a support group that is visited only by one member of a family, and not heavily invested in by that person - having emotional commitments to others won't be as much of an issue as it is when the situation is much more central - such as an entire family being deeply committed to a cultic church. The person who leaves the house every Wednesday to visit a healing circle probably won't be too torn or confused if she finds that venue to be toxic and groupthink-driven after a few weeks or months; with luck, she'll be exploring her concerns with a supportive family member or with friends, and won't hesitate to break away once she's sure she's seeing clearly.

On the other hand, the person whose entire family is massively involved in a Church That Eats Their Lives, with no day in the week free of some church commitment for one or more family members, is going to have a nightmarishly difficult time breaking away unless other members of her family see, believe, and understand what she is seeing, in parallel with her.

Meg, at Brisbane Christian Fellowship, has mentioned some of the tragedies that can happen when only one member of a family finds himself or herself 'outside the groupthink'. The destructive potential is profound and should be taken very seriously.

I mention this here because it is often one of the deciding factors in whether a person is able to escape. As I said in the earlier post, "When a remorseless abuser holds your loved ones hostage, your freedom is dearly purchased if it comes at the price of their welfare, or even their lives. Few people of conscience will make such a choice. To condemn these people for choosing self-sacrifice over self-preservation at the cost of others' wellbeing is, in many ways, a greater betrayal than their primary abusers have committed." This is true whether the primary abuser is a person or an organization, an abusive cult or an exploitive workplace.

There are, however, still ways to travel light even with family or other attachments to consider.

Insofar as is possible, look for signs of groupthink / toxicity before you commit to any group or organization; avoid or delay committing, if possible, when you have doubts about its integrity or 'health'. If you must commit despite having doubts, try to remain peripheral; even if a large enmeshed, dysfunctional family is involved, it can be possible to 'move to the outskirts' in some cases. You will pay some penalty for being on the periphery, if the group is overtly enmeshing and toxic, but it will usually be less than the penalty you would pay for becoming deeply enmeshed - and then seeking to escape. [Churches That Eat Your Life, however, and Workplaces That Eat Your Life, will start testing you almost immediately to see how much of 'your' time/effort/energy they can commandeer. Any sign of healthy boundaries will be met with pressure. Be prepared to push back, and, eventually, to leave; don't be surprised if they hold the door open for you sooner than you might have expected.]

And if you've previously committed, you've recognized that the environment is toxic, and it's simply not possible to disengage [for example because the toxic organization is your employer, you're over 50, there's a recession, and you have a child in college], then it may be possible to 'move to the outskirts' by investing your greatest emotional commitment outside the organzation or group, as a conscious choice. You can then endure, for a span, while you work to move your 'hostages' to safety [get the child through school and into the workforce, build up your emergency funds, find a shelter for abused women and children that will also take your pets].

Simply finding a counselor who is familiar enough with abuse situations to be able to provide support and validation, while you endure, can be a tremendous source of strength. Judith Wyatt and Chauncey Hare, in their book "Workplace Abuse: How to Recognize and Survive It", provide other helpful suggestions that can be generalized to abusive situations other than work. There will again be a penalty to be paid for 'disinvesting' in an abusive environment - anything from never being allowed a solo with the choir to never being promoted [and having others promoted on the basis of your work] - and you will almost certainly find yourself 'labeled' by the group in some manner. But with external validation and internal clarity, you can recognize abusive ploys and, often, take at least some evasive action.

If this is your situation, keep your eyes on the prize; you've made a decision to endure, and endurance is not for the weak. But also keep your eyes on the goal, and work diligently to move your hostages, whoever they may be, to safety; because endurance is only 'for a span'; no human being can endure for ever. Once your hostages are safely out of reach, you should follow them to safety, as quickly as you can.

Antidotes to Groupthink: Individuation

I've spent the better part of a week searching for the best one-word term for this next antidote, and it's fitting, I think, that it turns out to be a term created by C. G. Jung.

I was searching for a term that would capture, in a positive light, qualities that are all too often dismissed as negative: a certain type of self-reliance, a degree of faith in one's own judgement and perspective, and a combination of strength and resilience that enables its possessor to reject toxic / unhealthy / severely negative-normed groups, even when the price of such rejection is isolation or other forms of group retaliation.

I was searching for a term that would include these things, yet also leave room for compassion, a desire for healthy connection with others, an ability to see one's own flaws and negative / toxic aspects, an ability to see reality without despair.

Jung's term encompasses all of this, and more. I'm going to bypass his terminology and simplify the concept as follows: individuation is self-awareness without denial or excuse; awareness of all that we do that is false, to 'get by'; all that we desire that is socially repudiated [revenge, etc.]; those qualities we possess that we would normally assign to a person of opposite sex from ourselves [strength and aggression in women, tenderness and emotiveness in men]; the qualities that we possess most strongly that we typically assign to our own sex; our desire to save, nurture, and lead, and the damage this can do to us if allowed to run unchecked. It is also an awareness of our place in the universe, an understanding that we do, indeed, have such a place, an acceptance that we, as living beings, are part of a living universe.

Full individuation in this sense is the work of a lifetime. But simply to 'set one's face' towards this goal is to turn away from the values that allow groupthink to flourish unrecognized and unchallenged.

I am not holding up a form of self-worship, here, as an antidote to group-worship. I do, definitely, regard groupthink - especially when it is deliberately instigated by a 'groupthink guru' - as a form of idolatry, an inappropriate centering of the mind / heart / soul on the group, or the guru, or both. Survivors of abusive, cultic churches will know exactly what I mean by this; it applies equally well to workplace 'gangs', criminal gangs, and middle school 'mean cliques'.

To worship a group, or its human leadership, is to imperil one's soul. But to turn from group-worship or leader-worship to self-veneration is merely to substitute one peril for another. Jung's concept of self-knowledge leads, instead, to a calm humility, with considerable humor in it. You know who you are, warts and all. You know what you value, and you know why. You also know that there are many, many things in life that are worse than being alone, either short-term or long-term. Assimilation by a toxic group will be near the top of that list; willingly doing harm to others at the behest of such a group or its guru will be anathema to you.

And, paradoxically, you will know - from the tips of your fingers to the depth of your soul - that, in fact, you are never less alone, spiritually, than when you make the choice to be alone, corporeally, rather than to buy into groupthink as the price of membership in a group.

This antidote to groupthink, in other words, is: to know your own heart, respect your own mind, and value your soul.

Antidotes to Groupthink: Honesty

First, a comment about the order in which these antidotes are being discussed. I'm coming late to this particular antidote, honesty, but that should not be taken as a measure of its importance.

It's difficult to arrange these groupthink antidotes in an 'order of importance' ranking. This is because groupthink is a 'systems' problem, and the antidotes are a 'countersystem'. All of them are necessary. The whole will not work without all of its parts... even though one may not be consciously aware of all parts at the time one is deploying them.

It is usually pretty obvious whether honesty is present or absent in a given system. The values of that system will either welcome it or stifle it; in my experience this really is one of the few things in human interactions that is on/off, black or white.

I've seen systems that tried to be partially honest [Meta-Discussion vs. Groupthink illustrates a system that I believe was trying this gambit: honest about the fact that individuals outside the system had certain problems, and in denial about any possibility that similar problems could exist among those within]. Partial, selective honesty never really works; it's an illusion at best. Such a system may limp along for a surprisingly long time, but when it falls, it falls hard, and it exacts a horrific price from those who are expected to sacrifice their own integrity and wellbeing to preserve whatever illusion the group is bent on preserving. The families of high-functioning alcoholics are illustrative of this pattern; all problems but the alcoholism may be addressed, but because the alcoholism is the central problem, nothing can ever be resolved.

Selective honesty isn't honesty.

It is usually most obvious to us that a system is partially honest or frankly dishonest when we stand outside it, or are detached from it, but it is possible to detect this from within. A dishonest system will employ defense mechanisms very similar to those used by individuals to avoid facing things that are painful [for abuse and trauma survivors] or things that [for abusers] expose their underlying objectives and manipulations. Sometimes the deployment of these defenses can be quite jarring.

Examples include:

Denial ["I didn't see anything like that! You're imagining things." "Well, I think she's a wonderful person - she's always been nice to me."]

Evasion ["Let's talk about that later." "This isn't the proper forum to discuss that issue." and my personal favorite, the dodger, who agrees that this is really important and you must discuss it, but... something else, or someone else, always has to come first; and something else, or someone else, always will.]

Distraction [A form of evasion, but with attention directed to another object; changing the subject: "Well, I don't know about that, but I think we have a serious problem with the international space station."]

Displacement [Also a form of evasion in this case, but with attention directed to an activity rather than a subject: "That's very interesting, but let's golf / eat / watch TV right now."]

Attack [This can be either direct, as in "What? How dare you say such things!" or indirect, as when you are suddenly taken to task about your cooking / cleaning / failure to complete something that you completed days ago / hair / etc., in which case it serves as a more aggressive form of distraction and displacement.]

When you see a system deal with problems - and those who identify them - by turning to these forms of avoidance, you are seeing a dishonest system.

It's not always so obvious to us when we are being less than honest with ourselves, but this is the essential work of recovery. I find that a very useful flag to watch for is rapid, intense anger that flares quickly and disproportionately. [I must immediately add that this is also a key warning sign of abuse in progress; once we realize we are being abused, there's a tendency to become mightily pissed when we realize it's going on right here and now, again. However, as we learn to recognize abuse and accept our right to be angry about it, and as strategies for avoiding, preventing, and stopping it become part of our repertoire, it becomes easier to tell when our anger is justified vs unjustified self-protection; the anger also diminishes, becoming a quiet, finely tuned signal that something is amiss.]

Another useful sign is when we instantly leap to justifying whatever it is that we have done, said, etc. that is under challenge; again, however, this is also a symptom of abuse, when our abusers put us down and keep us constantly on the defensive.

A third, very insidious sign, is the inability to remain focused on the particular issue that we are trying to confront about our own behavior or beliefs. If we find our mind flying off onto anything and everything rather than the matter at hand, that's a pretty clear indication that on some level we don't want to discuss it... even with ourselves. In this case, sometimes the only thing to do is to treat one's mind like a balky horse, and try the subject daily [or weekly, in the presence of a therapist] until we're able to stay with it.

And I would be remiss if I did not include a very important alert.

There are times when the things we are not facing are things that are so profoundly sad, so destructive to us, so horrific, that we cannot possibly face them alone and survive intact. Honesty is not enough in such situations; one needs support, wise counsel, and the availability of therapeutic aids [i.e., it may be essential to face some things in the office of a caring therapist, with an antidepressant on board.] Never, ever force yourself to stay with any issue that feels this threatening - on your own. Seek support and assistance, and set a cautious pace. This is not weakness, it is wisdom and healthy self-care.

It can be difficult at times to separate healthy self-protection from unhealthy self-deception; but it is important. Here, things are not black or white; here, we may need denial to protect us from things that would half kill us, if we tried to face them alone; but with support and care, we may reach a point where we can and must face those selfsame things if we are ever to be well and whole.

As we progress in our healing, as we face and surmount each issue, we progress in honesty. It becomes easier to know when we are deceiving ourselves - and easier to give up self-deception as a strategem. As we become less inclined to deceive ourselves, we also become more difficult to deceive.

And thus is groupthink's power broken.

A Brief Sarcastic Comment

I've been reading various comments on "L'Affaire Edwards" - by which I mean readers' comments to blogs and news articles.

The usual two camps are talking past one another pretty much throughout the blogosphere:

Camp One: It's their own business! Respect their privacy! It's a non-issue! It has nothing to do with anything else!

Camp Two: It's NOT their own business, nor is it private; THEY made it public. It is NOT a non-issue; it shows, at minimum, a serious lapse in judgment, compounded by dishonesty.

I fall into Camp Two, pretty obviously. But since both camps really are talking at one another rather than with one another, a bit of meta-analysis would come in handy for spectators lacking a program.

This, I hasten to add, is purely my opinion. However, I put a fair amount of credence in it.

Camp One, if you inspect them closely, will almost certainly turn out to be made up of people who are doing exactly the same thing themselves; or have done it; or are planning to do it; or would do it in a heartbeat if given half a chance.

Camp Two, likewise scrutinized, will turn out with almost equal certitude to be made up of people who have had exactly the same thing done to them, or to a parent, sibling, friend or other loved one, and have no illusions about the pain it causes and the damage it does.

In other words: any debate about behavior that can be considered abusive, will often reveal who sympathizes with the abuser. Pay very close attention: it's important.

Antidotes to Groupthink: Considered Values and Moral Courage

I am working my way through a list of antidotes to groupthink that I compiled in early July. It's pure coincidence that the next two items on the list happen to be

considered values
and
moral courage

and that John Edwards has become a handy current example of someone who possesses neither of these.

Contemporary politics and groupthink go together like contemporary politicians and betrayal; it doesn't greatly matter which side of the aisle one prefers; the disease is the same, only the symptoms differ. Having said that, I want to reiterate that this post does not have its origin in L'Affaire Edwards; these items were simply next on the list, and their time is now.

Considered values - as distinct from unconsidered values - are another key component in groupthink-resistance. It is very important to emphasize the term 'considered' here; the more commonly used psychological term is 'internalized', but I find it too passive and mechanistic a word for the process.

The term is self-explanatory. These are values that you have actively considered, seriously pondered, debated, and chosen to hold. You have invested time and thought in them. They are your values, in that sense, in a way that values imposed from without - by your family, or church, or workplace, or soccer league - are not. You have genuinely chosen them, and you will make some effort to hold on to them.

One example of such a considered value would be, of course, marital fidelity. A large number of us pay lip service to this particular value, and there are many knees jerking today with regard to it - both for and against, interestingly enough. But what does it mean to make it a considered choice?

Among the things it means is that you, when you choose it, realize then and there that it is not an abstract choice, an appealing theory. It is a practical, effortful commitment. It will require a conscious daily, sometimes hourly, choice to dedicate yourself - over and over - to the person you have chosen as your spouse [and who has chosen you, equally, as theirs]. This person will need to be in your thoughts, in your awareness, in your heart, even when they are not in the room - or the building - or the state - or the country - with you. You will, at times, need to expend emotional and mental energy to keep them there. This may not always be easy, it may not always seem rewarding, it will, at times, be something you may very much want NOT to do. But this considered value, this moral choice, is not something that you can stroll around a corner and remove, like a pullover sweater or a wedding band, then reassume before you stroll back out into the main concourse of humanity again.

What I am describing is work, sometimes very hard work indeed. And in that sense, 'marital fidelity' is an excellent example of a considered value. No considered values are effortlessly maintained. That, in fact, is why it is so vitally important to consider them.

Other considered values might be:

~Opposition to bullying. At any age, in any setting.
~Opposition to bigotry. Of any kind. Beginning with race, faith, and gender, but continuing from there into more 'covert' territory. [Some of the most pernicious bigotry is occupational: 'closed shops' that only hire, or only keep, members of a particular group (e.g., Harvard graduates / Pharm. D.s / ex-Navy men / tennis players). Make no mistake: this is bigotry, and it can be extremely damaging and prejudicial to those targeted by it.]
~Opposition to falsehood - whether covert or overt.

and their positive counterparts:

~Dedication to fairness, insofar as each of us can advocate and model it.
~Dedication to equality, likewise.
~Dedication to truth - wisely and appropriately seasoned with mercy.

You can see that these are not 'floor models' - in ordinary daily life, if these are among your values, you'll be challenged to uphold them. Early and often. Beginning, of course, with yourself, your own attitudes and practices.

The process of applying and upholding your values is where moral courage comes in. This is also known as the virtue of fortitude - guts; backbone. And it is key to resisting groupthink, especially that form of groupthink that presents itself as peer pressure. A desire to 'fit in'. A longing to be approved of by the group, to have things easy, to avoid friction.

Let me be both clear and careful here. I'm not advocating contentiousness, nor arguing for the sake of argument; nor am I endorsing the kind of tiresome obstructionism that masquerades as righteousness but is in fact nothing more than drama [the sort of last-minute quibbling that occurs, for example, when the townhouse condominium board is about to adjourn and its resident busybody makes a motion that the prohibition on satellite dishes as eyesores should include those installed in people's attics, out of sight.]

Nor am I advocating a grim and humorless life as the self-appointed guardian of all virtue for miles around.

What I am advocating is that you know what you believe; know why you believe it; be able to advocate for it because you really do understand what it means and implies; and be prepared to do so when challenged, because you will almost certainly be challenged.

If you reach this point, you will discover that you are often led to examine and challenge yourself; your own unthinking reactions and responses may surprise you, and you may find your moral courage getting an intense regular workout in the realm of self-control. This is a wonderful formula for finding humility, and in true humility there is much humor and very little room for grimness to take hold.

And groupthink? Amazingly enough, it will become very obvious, and much of its power to attract - and intimidate - will be lost.