Groupthink and the slide into
fascism By Ritt Goldstein
On
July 8, Asia Times Online broke the story (Patriotic pride and fear) of
how noted Canadian psychologist Daniel Burston (two PhDs
from Canada's York University and a widely acclaimed
author) perceived a broad retreat into "social fantasy
systems" and "socially patterned defects" as explaining
much of the Bush administration's decision-making. He
observed for ATol that such flaws bring those involved
to "act in ways which - from an outsiders perspective -
look insane". On the following day, July 9, the US
Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the
United States' justification for the Iraq war, claiming
an erroneous "groupthink" was to blame, and
coincidentally highlighting the validity of Burston's
observations.
Groupthink is defined as "a mode
of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply
involved in a cohesive group, when the members'
strivings for unanimity override their motivation to
realistically appraise alternative courses of action".
In other words, retreat into a "social fantasy system"
allowed "socially patterned defects" to flourish within
the group's members.
The Senate Intelligence
Committee chairman, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of
Kansas, stated that "it is clear this groupthink also
extended to our allies and to the United Nations and
several other nations as well". The July 8 ATol piece
provides parallel commentary on this, noting that "in
most cases, destructive impulses are rationalized,
ensuring 'at least a few other people or a whole social
group share in the rationalization and thus make it
appear to be realistic to the members of such a group'.
In effect, an emotional-support network is formed,
providing its individual members with a mistaken sense
of legitimacy."
In an October 2003 article
titled "Cheney's hawks hijacking policy", this
journalist revealed that former senior Pentagon staffer
Lieutenant-Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (retired) described
"a subversion of constitutional limits on executive
power and a co-optation through deceit of a large
segment of the Congress", adding that "in order to take
that first step - Iraq - lies had to be told to Congress
to bring them on board". Planned and deliberate lies
were told in order to manipulate Congress and the
American people purposefully, effectively, and
criminally, undercutting the very foundations of US
democracy.
Not to be misunderstood, the
"groupthink" in question is far from innocent error, and
administration critics charge that the Senate
Intelligence Committee reports' attempts to couch blame
as mere "fuzzy thinking" highlight the propaganda
efforts ongoing, the groupthink still dominating policy.
But this psychological phenomenon perhaps best
translates to a broad failure to appreciate the reality
of circumstance, the nature or implications of actions,
the very difference between right and wrong. And while a
hard core of believers/leaders is typically central to
such a phenomenon's workings, their influence radiates
broadly outward through their immediate group(s) and
those they interface with.
Coincident with the
Intelligence Committee's report, Senator Roberts
defended the Iraq war as justified for humanitarian
reasons, though numerous human-rights organizations have
condemned the US record in Iraq, the war crimes that US
forces are alleged to have committed there.
Notably, before the Iraq war began, numerous
figures had publicly challenged the Bush
administration's prewar assertions. On September 9,
2002, CNN had headlined "Former weapons inspector: Iraq
not a threat", noting, "Former UN weapons inspector
Scott Ritter says US military action against Iraq would
be a mistake." And oil-war questions were abundant.
But highlighting the dynamics of what was
ongoing, Kwiatkowski had charged that "there was an
extra-governmental network operating outside normal
structures and practices, 'a network of political
appointees in key positions who felt they needed to take
some action, to make things happen in a foreign affairs,
national security way'. She said Pentagon personnel and
the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] were pressured to
favorably alter assessments and reports", a hard core of
misguided individuals within the administration of US
President George W Bush enjoying "a mistaken sense of
legitimacy" in their efforts, spreading this false and
wrongful mindset to many of those they encountered.
While groupthink is undoubtedly to blame for the
Iraq war's false premises, the full implications of the
"groupthink" that occurred, as well as that which is
ongoing, appear to have yet to emerge.
Highlighting a disturbing reality, Burston had
noted parallels between the social psychology of the
present and that of the 1930s. In a further parallel
to the 1930s, on July 9 the conservative Chicago
Sun-Times (one of the United States' top 50 papers) ran
a commentary on US fascism, stating that "fascism' is
not an exaggeration", and adding that anyone who doubted
this "doesn't know what fascism is". It went on to note:
"Some liberals suggest that the administration is
capable of canceling the November election on the
grounds of national security if it looks like Bush would
lose. I doubt this." But on July 11 and 12, news of the
administration seeking legal authority for just such an
election postponement - a delay in the November election
for national-security reasons - widely broke.
Burston had said he believed the US could be
poised "on the verge" of a corporate fascism, and
eminent political scientist Dr Michael Parenti (Yale PhD
in political science and author of 18 books) spoke
similarly. And indeed, the slippery slope of
"groupthink" in effect provided the basis for the
psycho-dynamics dominating the rise of 1930s fascism,
its proponents of a "new order" perceiving endless lies,
propaganda, repression, mass violence, and even mass
murder as legitimate means to what they perceived as
their "noble" ends, versus tragic and criminal
delusions. Students of history will note the
"groupthink" evidenced in Germany's 1930s mass rallies
at Nuremberg, though the realization of what was then
occurring didn't fully emerge until the Nuremberg War
Crimes Tribunals of the 1940s.
As discussed in
ATol's July 8 article, the process of groupthink then in
effect spawns "'socially patterned defects' that enabled
large groups of people to adjust themselves comfortably
to a system that, humanly speaking, is 'fundamentally at
odds with our basic existential and human needs'".
Burston then noted that this resulted in "deficiencies,
or traits, or attitudes which don't generate internal
conflict when, in fact, they should". He then cited
"Nazi mass-murderer Adolf Eichmann as representing the
'prototypical example' of what the phenomenon of
'socially patterned defects' can engender", emphasizing
that "with one very questionable exception, Eichmann
tested normal on all psychological tests that were
administered to him by mental-health experts before his
trial".
In discussing questions of contemporary
fascism with Asia Times Online, Dr Parenti said, "When
fascism came to power [in the 1930s], what it did was
cut back on the public sector, privatize a lot of
state-owned industries, abolish inheritance taxes and
other taxes on the rich, abolish corporate taxes, cut
wages, destroy labor unions, and destroy or undermine
opposition parties." He described fascism as simply a
tool employed by ruthless power-elites in achieving
their ambitions. He added: "There's a concern that we're
[the US] heading towards fascism, or that we're
replicating fascism today."
Parenti saw
citizenry being mobilized by "waving the flag in their
face, and wrapping the flag around the leader, and
telling them that they're being threatened by one menace
or another, from abroad or within." In a parallel, Bush
critics have long charged his administration with
precisely this. Parenti cited Nazi Field Marshal Hermann
Goering's similar explanation of popular motivation,
which emerged from the period of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
In a purely American vein, Parenti recalled that
former US secretary of state John Foster Dulles had
said: "To get the people to support large military
budgets and intervention, you've got to conjure up a
threat, and you've got to make this scenario of 'one
nation is a hero, another nation is a villain'. It's got
to be hero versus villain." And the Senate Intelligence
report does aid parallels between Dulles' vision and the
Iraq war.
"You fool the people into thinking
that you're protecting them, you're watching out for
their interests, and you get them to vote against their
own interests," Parenti charged.
Comparing
today's United States to the 1930s, Parenti addressed
the recent US Supreme Court decision allowing Vice
President Dick Cheney and the Bush administration to
refuse public access to the documents of Cheney's
so-called Energy Task Force. Indications exist that
oil-war questions were discussed within this group, a
September 2003 Inter Press Service article, "Oil war
questions surround Cheney energy group", addressing such
concerns. Parenti strongly emphasized the implications
of the court decision.
"The Supreme Court
decision does, in effect, lift the executive power to an
unaccountable and undemocratic status. So you really
have no way for Congress or the public to hold these
people accountable for what they're doing. You're, in
effect, setting up a cloak of impunity on their actions
under the guise of 'executive privilege' ... so what
we're getting here is many of the same things that the
fascists accomplish, while maintaining a democratic
veneer," Parenti claimed, adding: "You're getting
enormous tax cuts for the rich - there are now
corporations that are making billions of dollars in
profits that are paying no taxes - you're getting the
rollback of trade unions through outsourcing, closing
down unionized factories ... you're getting depressed
wages, wages aren't keeping up with inflation;
increasing spending in the military sector - this is
just exactly what the fascists did. So you're
accomplishing a lot of these same things without having
to 'go all the way' and destroy every little shred of
democracy." Parenti then proceeded to draw a firm
parallel with the Italian 1930s "corporative state".
"In practice, the big decisions regarding the
political economy were made by the industrialists,"
Parenti noted, but prefacing that by saying all groups
within the Italian corporative state were "supposed to"
share the decision power. He likened the large Italian
industrialists' group to America's National Association
of Manufacturers, saying, "in effect, those were the
guys who were really thoroughly incorporated, and most
of the ordinary people were left out in the cold, as
subjects of the state".
After a moment, Parenti
quickly observed that "the people always get a share of
this action, though. The American people get a share of
it, the Italians did ... their share is the taxes and
the blood. They pay the taxes, and they send their sons
off."
Notably, with the Nuremberg Tribunals,
society long ago determined that those who may commit
criminal acts while influenced by groupthink are
nevertheless criminals, and should be judged
accordingly.
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