The Group

"..Irvin Janis, following George Orwell, has called the tendency for the attitudes of a tightly knit group to become extreme 'Groupthink'. According to him, the members may develop an illusion of invulnerability coupled with extreme optimism; they ignore inconvenient facts; their belief in their own morality may lead them to commit immoral actions as a means to an end; they hold stereotyped views of rival or enemy groups whom they regard as evil or weak; individual members attempt to silence dissent from others in the group; each member suppresses his own doubts in order to conform; there is an illusion of unanimity resulting from this supression; and finally, they protect other members by concealing information not in line with the group's views. Two further points are worth making. First, when a leader picks an advisory committee, he is unlikely to select either people who have very different views from himself or people who are more intelligent or more powerful in discussion than himself. The point cannot be proven, but to maintain their self-esteem leaders are likely to surround themselves by acolytes, thus exacerbating the tendencies already mentioned. Second, when a committee has a leader, the members will want to please him, particularly if he can influence their careers: this can be particularly pernicious, for the more the members agree with the leader, the more extreme his own attitudes are likely to become and hence the other members make even more extreme statements. It is a characteristic vicious circle.

Stuart Sutherland, Irrationality pg 46

Freedom of Speech

2. Don't badmouth your current or previous employer
Just like in an interview, keep your rants about your boss or company to yourself. If hiring managers see that you're willing to trash a colleague online they assume you'll do it to them, too. Plus, there's always the possibility of getting fired if someone sees your negative comments.

If you want to get fed, if you want to survive at all, you better shut up, slap on a smile and act like this world is perfect.


Better yet, don't act, really believe it. The happiest cotton picking slave was the one who wasn't just putting on an act when he slapped that smile on around the master. The happiest ones were the ones who convinced themselves that they really were inferior, that they needed white slave masters and that his personal master was a great man who only whipped him because he had to and that this was truly the best of all possible worlds.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090523/ap_on_re_as/as_china_suicide_help

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals.".....

The paper said Lai was released on bail Friday but did not give any details. It said he had been on medication for "a mental illness" for decades and had been on his way to a hospital for his pills.

I recall an episode of the Phil Donahue show from 25 years ago. Back then talk shows could still be somewhat intellectual and Phil's show was. He recently had a new show but made the mistake of somewhat questioning the Iraq War; having some people on the show who disagreed with it. His show was quickly canceled with the explanation that his ratings were bad, which was a lie.

Anyway he had an episode about suicide where he had on a lady who had been seriously depressed for many, many years and really just wanted to die. Very quickly a lady in the audience got up to ask (with a look of disgust on her face) why she hadn't just killed herself if she really wanted to die? Clearly she was just an attention seeker. Quite a few people in the audience clapped or voiced their approval.

Then I recall a guy who recently put up a link to a live cam of him killing himself to a discussion board. Most people laughed, told to him to go ahead, etc.

Then I recall linking this to another board, a board that has the word 'compassion' right in it's subtitle. Quickly multiple people come up talking about how you have to watch out for 'drama llamas', people just looking for attention, etc.

This in turn reminds me of quite a few others things, of people responding to others not hiding their pain with disgust, suspicion, etc...

I think that in order to ever truly be happy for a given moment, you have to ignore all negatives. You have to ignore your sufferings and the suffering of others. I don't think it's wrong to have moments when you do this. But i think a lot... most people spend too much time doing this? A lot of people want to ignore the negatives, the suffering way too often. And when someone else doesn't hide their own pain, they often respond with hate.

It's impossible to say to just how much of our time we should spend ignoring the negatives. I do wish that people would spend more time caring about the sufferings of others. And when they've reached the point that they respond with hate or suspicion to people not hiding their pain, they've just gone way too far.

....Beyond trying I guess to justify indifference by dismissing such behavior as "attention seeking", I've then seen a lot of people claim that the person not hiding their unhappiness is either being manipulative or commiting "emotional blackmail". Which... even if it were true I'd really rather err on the side of showing compassion and thus getting "manipulated".

...it sounds strange but I've really seen such behavior a lot. It really seems to be the majority who acts this way in my experience...

I think another concern is that there is an overriding sentiment that we're all supposed to be rugged individualists and that ultimately, just the whole way our society is set-up; the car/TV culture, we really don't have much to do with most other people and there's just not much of a clear selfish reason to be compassionate to these endless multitudes that we aren't really connected to. So most expect that everyone is supposed to hide their unhappiness and be a "rugged individualist" and when someone doesn't, people respond with disgust, because to them, this is a person who isn't properly conforming.

And in a society based on force instead of reason (which I think is largely the reality of this world) the assumption is that this apparent plea for help is a trick. They must just want attention. They're just being manipulative. They're trying to commit emotional blackmail... They should be ignored or perhaps even attacked. At best they think the proper response to any display of unhappines is: "Go see a psychiatrist." As opposed to a nondysfunctional community where the response would be other members of the community simply showing some concern, some compassion, etc.

People then argue that it's dangerous for nonprofessionals to get involved as if any display of unhappiness means deep psychological issues (hallucinations, etc? and in trying to help you might say something that's worse than nothing at all ) as opposed to the reality that this is world where we're all struggling to survive and most of us are bit isolated as compared to the manner in which mankind has lived for many thousands of years. And that most people just could use a few more friends. Although occasionally they may need quite a bit more...

There's a lot more smiling going on in dystopia/hell then in utopia/heaven.

What's the point in the huge smile I get from that old Chinese man when I buy food from him? Is it really that joyous an event? Is he really that happy to see me? I've bought food for a long time from him but never really had a meaningful conversation. Am I all that?

(1) Is he smiling at me because he's always so damm happy to see me? (2) Or is it because he's trying to say that he's not a threat to me? (3) Or is he trying to conjure a happier world for both of us to pretend we exist in instead of this one where he's just selling some chinese tofu and broccoli to some guy whom he's got no meaningful connection to nor ever will despite seeing him once or twice a week for a couple years now?

I'm obligated to smile back. But I don't want to. I don't want to pretend three with him. I prefer to see this world change instead of just pretending things are OK as they are. But then I don't want to do number 2 with him because I want to pretend I'm in a world where we don't have to continously verify that we're not any kind of threat to one another. I would like to not be continously mired in such savagry(sp).

But we are mired in such. Me not smiling in return could mean I'm a anti-chinese racist. It could mean I consider him just some lowly chinese food making servant. Someone I think so little of I can't give him a friendly smile. I'm supposed to smile. I fucking smile. Down here with the savages. Have a banana.

I want to pretend one thing. I want to pretend we're basically civilized. And that we don't need to act like buying the broccoli is such a joyous occasion.

He either wants affirmation that I'm not a savage (and I guess more importantly to show me (over and over and over again) that he also isn't) or he wants to pretend we're in some very strange utopia or he really is just that happy to sell me some broccoli.

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When the chop chop (stress of life) gets bad, try thinking about the tick tock (how short and pointless your life is).

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The first step in being an advocate for nonconformity is proving how good you are at conforming. This to show that your advocacy of the nonconformity isn't simply because you personally are incapable of conforming but that you simply think the conforming behavior is wrong. Unfortunately this means having to do exactly what you think is wrong. Or otherwise being dismissed as a nut.

And at what point do you get to then introduce the nonconformed idea? For most people you can conform for years on end and whenever you suggest something unconformed they will immediately dismiss you as nuts no matter all that came previously. Your chemicals have finally gone out of whack or what came before was all a lie.

(Not true)

So it would definitely be too much trouble to keep multiple journals... I think. As opposed to just writing a bunch of different stuff in a single journal. The issue is diary type stuff. I've held back from including it here mostly. I shouldn't have. Will hold back less in the future. Good to have a clue who I was etc 10 years from now. I think back to who I was ten, 20 years previous. I have unusually good reasons for wondering if I was very similar as in some ways I've changed hugely over the years.

But ultimately I always had flashes of impressive intelligence combined with flat old stupidity. I scored in the 99.85%ile on the GRE. Had a bad day and scored in the 98%ile of my nursing entrance exam. Am barely surviving actual nursing school. Questions are way too subjective.

As with the AMA where half the potentially good doctors are turned away simply to maintain artificial scarcity and keep salaries inflated. So it goes in other fields I guess. It is capitalism. There must be pain for those who do OK. And there must be some who don't make it... So we have nursing school. My younger sister is a nurse. She was the dumb one in the family. She says she could teach me what I need to know to be a nurse in a couple weeks on the job. Every test I learn the material and then only get an 80/75% because there are always a number of extremely vague questions.

Your patient has trouble swallowing. Should you tell the nurses aide to:
A. feed him small amounts
B. cut his food into bite sized pieces

It so happens that I am a nurses aide on a neurology floor. I got this extremely vague question wrong. This question has nothing to do with anything really. Just a random spinning of the wheel to ensure there are some failures.

I'm thinking of a number. Is it:
A. 3
B. 7

Trying to just keep my mouth shut as I won't be changing the way things are done here. Perhaps I'll mess up big time these last few crucial tests. Probably I won't. No point getting annoyed/angry about it.

So close to freedom now. I suppose I could just take this week off..? Just daydream through class. Doesn't matter. Lectures are taped. Next week off. Tonight will look into building some cheap cat shelters. That will be fun. I remember I used to yearly try to save a few hundred tadpoles before parents cleaned their pool up for the summer.

I'd put them in a kiddie pool and they'd turn into frogs and hop away. Always loved frogs. One year my retarded rightwing brother-in-law flipped the kiddie pool when they were still all tadpoles, thus killing them all. The pathological liar... the very bad patholgical liar whom constantly tells lies that are so obvious they are that much more insulting claimed he didn't notice the 500 tadpoles in the pool.

I'm so impressed with myself that I never beat the living crap out of him; the stuff he's done. The thing is, ultimately it'd be like fighting a marshmellow. Lucky for him. (Not an issue now; this violence. Was when younger. Lucky for him back then he's such a pitiful marshmellow it held me back, he's done far worse than the... silly tadpole thing. That's nothing.)
----
How different, how the same was I ten years previous?

More temper. More sexual. More likely to destroy a multiple choice test but I think I can pretty much ignore these nursing tests. They are not about common sense. They are a special kind of learning to conform I think. Where it's not about logical thinking. It's about almost instinctually knowing what actions will be pleasing to the authority figure. So like Airman Mantooth lies and says he didn't have money to get a haircut. Why? Because it's not about universal ideals; not about the universal ideal of honesty. It's about the ideals of The Group. About being a team; working together. Pointing out this other's person dishonesty would show that the team was really not working together at all and instead it was just every man for himself. This would anger the leader, the older man.

Reading and loving Zizek. Wow! Wonderful stuff... Very... nourishing. Anyway though perhaps he doesn't understand (or I should say doesn't give enough emphasis) how men think in terms of groups, that such is our evolution. That it's rarely really about universal ideals.

And so, smaller meals or cut into bite sized pieces? Don't think logically about how we have no idea at all what the consistency of the food is. Don't think about how we should assume a continuum from steak to yogurt. Some bell sized probabilty curve of what consistency the food might be..... TBH, I have no clue how in the world anyone would deduce the correct answer is small amounts.

If you have to cut it, it's too hard. It should be food that doesn't need cutting therefore it's small amounts? Why would someone make such assumptions? They get the orders wrong all the time at the hospital. In class they've told us repeatedly not to make assumptions.

Oh, stupid to bother thinking about. Just a retarded question. When I hear other people got 90plus percent I think they must be stupid. Or perhaps much, much better at just instinctually assimilating correctly. This isn't logic. It's not universal ideals. The world we live in today is the result of some groups defeating others through violence. Being able to think logically was helpful... but it's a special kind of logic. Where the ability to think logically doesn't get in the way of the mindless assimilating necessary for the group to work very well together. IOW to just follow whoever managed to get the power thanks to their shortcomings. (Their power hungryness). To listen to the order to go kill those other people.

It is the same. The disregarding of logic and instead mindless conforming. The reason why it works, the reason it exists in our society is because it was a beneficial trait. A trait that increased the potential to spread genes. Because it meant listening to the power hungry leader and killing the Others. This same trait (mindless assimilation) is then used for things not related to war/violence. Mundane crap including even this nursing program, in which the material is too easy so they have to put extremely subjective questions and just almost arbitrarily flunk a few people. Which ends up being perhaps a few who don't instinctually assimilate to whatever illogical type of thinking they are supposed to be applying.

So today I went off to school and found the rest of my clinical group saying a number of negative things about our instructor (who no one can actually deny is a nice man) to another instructor.

It makes me think of Kundera talking of the collective insanity with which people regularly destroy this or that person's career. I recall a story of his where a guy decided to never talk again to a long time friend of his because he didn't speak in his defense when the insanity was being aimed at him. (His friend meanwhile was proud of himself for not talking part in the attack.)

What do I personally do in these situations?

I don't just say nothing. I always speak up on the person's behalf if they even remotely deserve some defense. In fact even if I don't know anything about it I say something and piss the little monkeys off. I've done it everywhere and from this more than anything else in my entire existence I've realized, I'M NOT NORMAL. :(

In this case I had found absolutely no issue at all with our instructor while all the other people in the group bad mouthed him. They know he's been bad mouthed before. Do they understand they could get him fired? Destroy his life? Cause a nervous breakdown or worse?

I'm not sure. I think a few are dumb enough they don't understand this. Some of them are early 20's. But then some are into their 30's like me.

So I spoke up loud and clear that I had no problem with our instructor and tried to help them understand his actions which they had managed to take such offense at. I strongly suggested talking to him instead of going to the head of the department.

But no. They went to the head of the department. I again, made it clear I had no issue with him. If they don't like me for it. I don't care.

He's a good guy. They've at least just caused him a lot of unhappiness that they all went to the department head. Considering he's had such issues before this sort of thing is probably especially wearing on him...

It's all women and one effeminate guy while I'm a not remotely effeminate man and neither is the instructor. That probably plays a role. Hopefully with my defending him the seemingly very very reasonable department head will not do anything horrible. She said words in his defense. Mentioned gender differences... Etc.

Thoughts about this... people suck first and foremost. I think I get the same thing done to me at work to an extent... As far as I can tell some people think it's appropriate to fill any silence with smearing people behind their back. It's like juicy conversation or something....? I suspect they just straight out make up negative crap about others to fill silence. I've always been appalled by it and if I know anything at all about the situation stick up for whoever. If I don't even know who's being talked about I still usually say something. I'm sure I've made enemies as a result.

Which brings up the subject of conformity. I'm still reading Opening Skinner's Box and all the insane conformity experiments. How people will utterly ignore common sense in order to fit in... An experiment where two actors are ignoring smoke pouring into a room and the majority of unwitting test subjects thus insanely do the same as a film of grit covers their body.

Not a chance I'd say nothing as our instructor is being smeared. Not a chance I'd say nothing at work. This is not a world to conform with.

Or are you a panglossist? Is this the best of all possible worlds? Heaven on earth?

It is not a world to conform with, pretending otherwise is unethical, and thus even if I may be potentially hurting myself there is some conformity I'm just not going along with.

And for that matter someone was smearing me at work this last week also. Claiming untrue things. Such tired old crap... but still it does affect me. I don't want to get fired. Also just really annoys me that I have to get dragged down into such stupidity. Unfortunately the bosses don't seem quite so intelligent at work as this department head so the smearing is more of something to be worried about.

That I can see, it's pretty clear that the best defense is a good offense. The notorious back stabbers rise fast. But I'm not going to play.

It's really something how people do it to one another. Such evil little effing monkeys. I think it's just about all they know how to do.

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....but. It's not always this way. I've been in situations where such didn't occur so much. Actually had a recent very good stretch. The main backstabber at work, who rose like a rocket to being considered one of the top CA's in less than a year over people who had been there a decade, snagged herself a doctor and immediately quit without even two weeks notice. There was a nice calm period since she left. And pretty much everyone who's really worked any amount with me likes me. So, it's not all so bad. It can be OK.

The attack on the instructor is because he's being a little tough with people for what he feels is their own good. Trying to get them to figure stuff out on their own instead of immediately having him take over.

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...so then of course immediately after writing this crap I go out to dinner to a meatchain with wife and a few of her work people and all they do the whole time is make fun of/talk bad about people they work with.