"Some time back, a reader drew my attention to the book in which, 40
years ago, a Yale professor of psychology, Irving Janis, analysed what,
with a conscious nod to George Orwell, he called “groupthink”. It is a
term we all casually use (which even he derived from another writer),
but he identified eight symptoms of groupthink. One is the urge of its
victims to insist that their view is held as a “consensus” by all
morally right-thinking people. Another is their ruthless desire to
suppress any evidence that might lead someone to question it. A third is
their urge to stereotype and denigrate anyone who dares hold a
dissenting view. Their intolerance of “independent critical thinking”,
as Janis put it, leads them to “irrational and dehumanised actions
directed against outgroups”.
[...]
"But another characteristic of groupthink that Janis doesn’t fully
explore in his book is that those caught up in these mindsets have never
actually worked out their thinking on the subject for themselves. They
have taken on their belief-system, and the reasons for supporting it,
ready-made and wholesale from others. That is why it is impossible to
have any intelligent dialogue with, say, zealots for man-made climate
change or the European Union, because they have not really examined the
evidence for themselves but have come to a set of opinions that are
skin-deep and second-hand. They can only parrot the mantras they have
picked up from others. "
[...]
"That is why, as we see illustrated on every side (not least in much of
the output of the BBC, or, for that matter, the online comments below
this column), they cannot tolerate or offer rational arguments, or
explore the three-dimensional truth of a subject. They quickly resort
just to dismissing anyone who disagrees with their beliefs as an
“idiot”, “hopelessly ignorant”, “wildly inaccurate” or “anti-science”.
Or they appeal to what Gustave Le Bon called “prestige”, citing
supposedly respected authorities, such as the reports of the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which are only voicing the
“consensus” views of other adherents of the same groupthink. "
http://tinyurl.com/n8s66cf
Do these ideas ring a bell when applied to some members of this group?
Do not all political parties represent examples of group think tanks?