The Reign of Group Think: Be Nice and Compromise
March 29, 2011 at 7:00 pm | Posted in NewsRealBlog | 2 CommentsTags: Antonio Gramsci, Cable News, Hegelian Dialectic, John Avalon, minnesota, mngop, News, NewsReal Blog, Republicans, Saul Alinski, Socialism, The Daily Beast
by Walter Hudson, contributed to David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog
I remember being grouped together with other students as early as the first grade. Rather than being arranged in rows of individual desks, we were clustered in groups of four, facing each other. We were given work to do as a group, rather than as individuals.
I despised the practice then, and I continued to all the way through college. It didn’t seem right to have to compensate for others and share a grade. The result was always the same. I did less and worse than I would have individually. It was far more work to pull others along than it would have been to work alone, and there were diminishing returns. Since I did not benefit from that extra work, I found a slower pace which resulted in the best work-to-result ratio.
It wasn’t until I viewed Curtis Bower’s fantastic documentary film Agenda: Grinding America Down, and subsequently interviewed him for NewsReal Blog, that I fully understood just how insidious such group work is. It’s objective is to produce the results I saw growing up, retarding the individual and promoting group think.
Consider how effective this and similar strategies have been. We now operate within a political culture which regards compromise as a virtue.
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Honestly, I have always hated group work with a passion. There were times in which some of the group members had to do all of the work for the rest. In school, if I was allowed a choice I worked alone. In fact, I do best when work alone. I feel like the team gets in my way when I work.
Mr. Hudson, I believe I owe you some apologies. One of the characteristics about myself is I take things and read things in a literal manner. A lot of the stuff I wrote in the past was based upon certain literal interpretations of certain phrases and words. I missed the cultural context of these things. Over the past few months I have been researching. All of my arguments were erroneous and wrong. I was completely wrong and I apologize for attacking you a while back. I do understand logically where you’re coming from once I put things into their proper cultural context.
Comment by cubeangel2— March 31, 2011 #
There’s never a need to apologize for disagreeing. However, I am glad your views have developed.
Comment by Walter Scott Hudson— March 31, 2011 #