Book Review: Victims of Groupthink (1972)

Well this book will certainly teach you how stupid our government is, if nothing else. Most of the worst military and political blunders that the book goes over all feature a few common elements. The group that precided over all the decisions was composed of a bunch of circle jerking, high fiving morons that didn't even consider the negatives so long as they all felt good about each other. 

The book has several relevant pictures, yes I did enjoy them. Thank you for asking. Sometimes I just need something else to look at besides the walls and walls of text that trap my eyes like a prison cell. Though pictures are all in black and white. They aren't the kind of black and white that looks smoky and mysterious. They just look like documentary style photos. So the book loses credit for having boring photos.

The general idea behind the hypothesis presented in the book is that if you are with a group of people that you admire and want to do well with, you will ignore evidence in order to do what the group thinks is best. D.A.R.E. tried to convince us that this was called peer pressure when we were growing up. They wanted to make sure that we didn't start doing drugs or boning because our friends thought it would be cool. But I started doing drugs and boning because I thought it would be awesome. It was awesome! Seems like D.A.R.E. was a campaign against all things awesome.

My copy has a bunch of starring and underlining in it. So somebody thought they were really learning a lot from it. Or maybe I did all that when I was in a scholarly drinking session. Those are rare for me, but they are usually brought on by Scotch.

If you've ever read Ayn Rand then you already know that groups are shit and individuals are the best. This book doesn't find that individuals are the best way to go, but it does show that group ideas and rationalizations will override the individuality of each member of the group.

I think anyone that has ever had to do a group project already knows that groups are shit. Just reduce the amount of workload and giver everyone an assignment on their own. See what we are made of just one to another. Don't test us on how well we can work with other people. Although this book does make me wonder, if you are always making the wrong calls in a group of people that you like, will you ascend to total mastery of the universe if you are in a group with people that you can't stand? I can't stand anyone really, so maybe that's what I need. A group of random people that I can't stand. Or, just a group of random people.