Does your brain really belong to you? (My greatest fear should be yours, too)
Groupthink is not "thinking."
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” — George Orwell, 1984
Dear Thinker,
There’s a dreadful sickness that affects millions of people every day. It poisons you. It poisons me. It’s a virus that seeps into your brain like oil spilling into the innocent ocean. It’s robbing you of your independence, regardless of
This Sickness involves a deep, psychological link between the eye, the mind, the heart, the soul, and the endless Abyss of the Digital Universe.
This Sickness is the relationship between thoughts that have not yet formed, opinions that will never be realized, concepts that will never be explored—not out of a lack of desire, but out of misplaced anxiety and fear—and watching your intelligence disintegrate through the Lenses of Misdirection.
This Sickness is the fear that only develops in the guts of people who give two fucks about their intellectual independence—the ability to share their thoughts without limits, accept the potential judgment, and assume the responsibility as Thought Makers, Creators, and Distributors.
This Sickness is groupthink.
And it is, quite possibly, one of the Sicknesses I’ve ruminated on the most. Perhaps you have, too. Maybe you’ve wondered if it lingers under your skin like a second stream of ever-flowing blood. It’s a Sickness that, when you bring it into the light, raises hackles and bares teeth. It’s a Sickness that makes its believers uncomfortable, and its critics amplified with gusto.
This is one of those Sicknesses that I can never defend. I believe many things can be discussed and heralded from two sides of a coin. But, this is not one of them.
Groupthink is a Sickness so vile, so disgusting, so destructive, so vitriolic, so seductive, so idolized, and so accepted among many, many groups of people, that I can’t help but spit on the idea that it could ever be “good.”
Let me tell you, Dear Thinker, there is nothing good about groupthink.
There never was, and there never will be.
Countless forms of art have challenged the idealisms behind groupthink—a term we owe to psychologist Irving Janis, who first coined the term in 1972—and most humans today seem to have forgotten those lessons.
From classical creations, from George Orwell’s 1984 to Apple’s recent television program, Pluribus, we’re constantly facing and forming an unconscious need to understand, challenge, and pick apart what it means to be trapped in groupthink.
“Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible. The problematic or premature consensus that is characteristic of groupthink may be fueled by a particular agenda—or it may be due to group members valuing harmony and coherence above critical thought.” — Psychology Today
Because of these interpretations, it seems most people are unaware that they have become slaves to this idealism without realizing. This isn’t because we’re not hardwired to create on our own terms, distribute our originality, and build based on our own unique backgrounds—we absolutely are—but because most humans are more interested in self-victimization, instead of achieving individuality.
There’s safety in collectivism. While most won’t like to admit this, the reason idealisms like groupthink might be tempting to the average person is because the average person has no idea what they actually stand for.
People who have no identity are easy to sway, easy to manipulate, and are not very intelligent. This isn’t to be cruel. Think about it objectively—we don’t follow, admire, or respect anyone in a position of influence if they have no ideas, creations, or opinions of their own.
Groupthink constantly promotes the death of the individual. Groupthinkers don’t want to succeed outside of themselves. They hate themselves with voracious passion that those deeply in love might find envious. It takes immense devotion to hate yourself to such a degree that you would rather adopt the canvassed mindscape of the million, rather than build a foundation of intelligence, creativity, and uniqueness that belongs to you.
Communists champion the concept of groupthink.
They despise the idea of people who achieve greater things than their neighbor, who are more intelligent, and driven, and perhaps, even gifted. They are so threatened by the concept of alternative opinions, that government institutions who align with these principles are quick to silence those who oppose them—usually, with violence. Communist leaders are oversensitive and childish in their reception of feedback, are constantly rebuking objective information in favor of collective control, and do not value the concept of the individual.
Socialists are of a similar breed.
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The predominant thread through socialist beliefs tie back to this collectivist ideology—that the Goal of the Many is far more important than the Goal of the One. If you’re not supporting your community—and thus, you’re not aligned to reach a group’s desired consensus—you’re an instant threat to the “tribe.” The consequences range from social isolation, to abandonment, to encouraging self-censorship to save the feelings of others, and the pressure to align with points of views that are not yours.
Organized belief systems are not exactly the same, but do demonstrate pillars of groupthink that deserve recognition.
Most organized religions, for example—intentionally or no—propose the idea of conformity in order to reach a universal favorable outcome.
I grew up in a Christian family. In that tiny private school, I found myself quite angry with the Bible, its stories, and the difficult-to-accept violence of the God within those pages. His teachings made little sense to me, and I felt like I was the only person in church who didn’t feel the same energy that my fellow classmates were experiencing. It felt like a rejection, to watch other teenagers collapse in tears, weeping for this entity, while I struggled to connect with anything.
Even then, I refused to be complacent.
I asked questions that made pastors bristle. I pointed out potential contradictions that made my teachers turn up their nose. I asked my kind, devoted grandparents=—my grandfather a dedicated pastor, and both acting as lifelong missionaries—deep and hard questions about people I loved in my life who are gay, and they returned my questioning with sympathetic nods, and the cliched glazed mask that reads: “We’re so sorry to hear that.”
To be fair to you, Dear Thinker—and, strictly through my personal experience—modern Christianity is quite tame compared to many other religions.
I had the freedom to walk away without being excommunicated, or stoned, or thrown out of my house. I had the freedom to ask questions and receive unsatisfying answers, but I was not vilified for asking those questions. I had productive conversations and a lack of direction.
To this day, I still wrestle with the idea of God, the pieces of me that are agnostic, and my individual challenges facing those obstacles.
But, my point isn’t to wax poetic about my daily internal arguments around the soul, the concept of a higher being, and my bone to pick with religious sectors.
My point is that I was very lucky to be raised in a family that supported individuality. My parents never pressured me to believe in one thing out of desperation, or fear. My atheist father wanted me to be open-minded. My Christian mother supported my desire to ask questions. My little sister got baptized before she was a teenager, and I found that incredibly brave, but something I could never commit to in fear of being dishonest.
Most people are not so lucky.
Whether it’s because of political, social, or religious motivation, many families desperately program their children into following their exact belief systems. Created within a Venn diagram of fear, misguided love, and control, these children are raised with hard-coded ideologies that may not represent who they want to be.
These children have been taught to accept the direction of those who raise them. They are so preoccupied being raised under an umbrella of others’ perspectives, that they usually don’t feel the impact of true freedom until they leave their nests.
The results are catastrophic.
You know these people when you meet them. (Or, maybe you are them) You can see the scars in their eyes. The eggshells cracking in their voice. The way they try to reel back their slumped shoulders. Try to wire shut their spluttering mouths. The automatic bristling when you question them, or dare to ask them to open up another idea, another concept, or another point of view that contradicts with the programming they’ve been encouraged to worship.
Have you noticed how it feels when you completely detach? From belief systems? From others? When you’re able to step outside of yourself, and look at the world and its people with a bare, objective view? When you can practice the art of observation without feeling the shard of insecurity tear you apart? When you let go of the opinions of others, and learn to grow within yourself? When you drop what you think matters, only to realize that what you thought mattered was only an illusion, and you’ve yet to learn what truly matters to you at all? When you free yourself of the chains of others’ thoughts, and you’re finally able to create a path laid with stones you’ve forged by your own hands?
Let me tell you, Dear Thinker, there is no greater liberation than realizing you, as a human being—with a soul of your own, a mind of your own, and a tongue you can flap around whichever way you want—are completely able to take control of your thoughts. And thus, your life.
When you realize the world has no hold on you, the black and white chromosphere of your universe transforms into one of color. All at once, perspectives begin to make sense.
How you view family, art, relationships, love, history, science, literature, and thousands of other human-to-human interactions, creations, and forms start to take on another identity. They start to shift from the identity of others’ opinions, and begin to take on a form of objectivity.
You instantly become smarter.
Real intelligence is not borne from the bedrock of others’ opinions. It’s through learning how to view the world through concepts, frameworks, systems, and abstracts that you can label yourself. To gain real conviction and shed the effects of the collective groupthink you’ve been trained to absorb, you have to abandon the principles that put you there in the first place.
This is a very difficult and confronting shift for many people. Most people, including my own friends, have struggled to understand why this is helpful. I can’t force anyone to do anything, and I’m grateful for that.
The whole point of rejecting groupthink is to share freely and openly, and not expect anything in return. It’s the point of celebrating individuality, to mature yourself enough to stop being offended, and to shed the scales of dogma.
Once you recognize you’ve victimized yourself in this way, something changes within you. It’s more than the pull of a lever; it’s a complete clinking of hidden gears, turning and turning, on rusted iron and forgotten potential.
You start to change.
You start to become addicted to the feeling of shaping and molding your own thoughts and worldviews.
You start to hate who you were before, because that person was only a shell, and the person you want to become needs to start from somewhere completely new. Fresh. Different.
The more you explore this side of yourself—the side that has rejected the groupthink Sickness—people will start taking you more seriously.
You feel more confident on an unconscious level. Those shoulders you had to consciously think about pulling back, are now rolling up to match the height of your chin. Your eyes are piercing and searching. Your brain is rewiring itself to find new discoveries, to question what’s been thrown into your orbit, because it’s always starved for topics and answers and explorations that it was never allowed to feast on before.
Once you expel this Sickness from your mental and physical systems, you will, quite literally, never want to return to where you were before.
Regaining the ability to think for yourself makes you the most lethal weapon of all.
And this, Dear Thinker, is the truth groupthink worshipers never want you to know.