What my moving to the Bay Area has solidified for me, is that we as a culture do not know how to deal with group psychology.
Really, it's no wonder, because the mechanisms of group cohesion and ingroup/outgroup distinction have probably been with us even longer than language has. Furthermore, practically every form of human organization uses those mechanisms for group solidarity. As a result, we are as ill equipped to deal with the consequences of group psychology as ancient greek philosophers were at dealing with aerodynamics. Because no human culture yet has the proper "mental furnishings" to effectively deal with such phenomena, the best that most people currently manage is to point out examples of everyone else's groupthink while being largely blind to our own.
The way that group membership and identification distorts thought is essentially "bought into" by our language and our culture, to the point that even our attempts at dispassionate academic examinations of the phenomenon are colored by the same phenomena.
Just read through the thread again and I really enjoyed your comments. I just wanted to say they were well thought out and you've given me the impression you know your stuff, or are knowledgable enough to form an opinion. I am neither when it comes to psychology, but I love to read anyhow. Thanks for all the various psychology links and new reading. This was a long winded compliment, in case I lost my point along the way.
Really, I'm just embarking on studies around such psychology. I'm beginning to think that ingroup/outgroup psychology and society's general ineffectiveness at dealing with it is a foundational problem I was meant to work on.
Really, it's no wonder, because the mechanisms of group cohesion and ingroup/outgroup distinction have probably been with us even longer than language has. Furthermore, practically every form of human organization uses those mechanisms for group solidarity. As a result, we are as ill equipped to deal with the consequences of group psychology as ancient greek philosophers were at dealing with aerodynamics. Because no human culture yet has the proper "mental furnishings" to effectively deal with such phenomena, the best that most people currently manage is to point out examples of everyone else's groupthink while being largely blind to our own.
The way that group membership and identification distorts thought is essentially "bought into" by our language and our culture, to the point that even our attempts at dispassionate academic examinations of the phenomenon are colored by the same phenomena.
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psyc...
I would like to thank EricaJoy for writing about such experiences so clearly.