Cognitive Dissonance or Group Think: how to understand GROUP THINK and WIN with that knowledge

As a member of the Conservative group I want my group to succeed, this means working hard to understand what groups are and trying to have that knowledge work for my group to make the Sarah Palin doctrine a reality.

"WE WIN, THEY LOSE"

cognitive dissonance

I'm dropping this in here because it is the liberal most popular way to explain your failing to believe the CORRECT things. I hate the progressive tactic of coming up with some bleak term for your group and explaining why you can believe what they think is unbelievable. So Jonesville and Heaven's gate and CONSERVATISM is explained with this term cognitive dissonance -- therapy jargon for not wanting to see what I didn't want to see. They needed this explanation because they had a hard time explaining away smart conservatives. Mostly they will convince you there are not too many smart conservatives. But if you come up with one like Chaney or Newt Gingrich they need a way to explain it. they have cognitive dissonance to explain this, smart conservatives just don't process all the facts. They selectively eliminate any contrarian beliefs, thus they are still smart but don't use all the facts. This probably happens without their conscious intervention.

This is a flaw in their DNA, Or has something to do with watching FOX news which carefully edits what you are allowed to hear.

Bush is stupid, (but he flew a jet and had better grades than John Kerry), Palin is stupid (but she ran a town and a state.)

First we are accused of being stupid and if those simple accusations of STUPID don't work , meaning the citizens don't buy it, then they play the cognitive dissonance, and walk away with a big win. IN THEIR MIND.

It is more or less agreed that these are the eight aspects of GROUP THINK

1. Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.

2. Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.

3. Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore
ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.

4. Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to
conflict seem unnecessary.

5. Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments
against any of the group’s views.

6. Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.

7. Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.

8. Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information
that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

(Sound like Climate Research Unit at

There is one point not made here, I might add
9) Often ridicule and persecute members of other groups.

Which isn't in the Psychologist list of 8 aspects.

If you apply this to Heavens Gate, Jonesville, Nazism or other GROUP THINK large or small you will see this is a pretty accurate depiction of those human endeavors which I refer to as GROUPING. Grouping is evident in all kinds of mans experiences as juvenile as to whether you prefer Pepsi or Coke or as profound as whether you are Capitalists or Communists. Obviously, there is the ability to join numerous groups over many venues. It would be schizophrenic to be both a Capitalist and a communist so these human beings don't exist mostly.

Now a Pepsi groupie may not persecute a Coke groupie but he will be confused and frustrated why the Code guy doesn't "GET" it. So obviously groupings have different levels of importance to the groupies. But it escalates to life and death struggle pretty easily such as soccer game riots.

Need I mention Islamic radicals?

The interesting point would be that it doesn't seem to matter how accurate or how momentous the beliefs are. The intensity is more a matter of the enthusiasm of the groupies. This might be because of some charismatic leader or of some cascading of grouping. For example, A Chicago, Illinois White Sox baseball fan has groups of Favorite sport, home state, and City all reinforcing the other.

http://flagwhitehouse.blogspot.com/2009/11/look-at-ways-of-men.html


Conservatives need to understand that the elitists with Harvard educations and equivalencies do belong to a group that know you are not capable of making your own decisions, and certainly not decisions effecting the country. They will say things like "people should have to be educated before they can vote". They have absolutely no understanding that your vote can legitimately be cast in your own self interest. They have a concept that they belong to a group that is dedicated to a greater cause than self interest.

If you run conservation, global warming, socialism and communism through the test of the 8 aspects of "group think" you will see that they meet all the criteria as well as cognitive dissonance. It is especially true of the Higher Moral standing and other egocentric attributes of these groups.

SO WHERE DOES THIS GET US?

The only useful strategy is to ignore DIRECT debate as a useful tactic, cognitive dissonance makes that non feasible, no one will change their mind and we do not have time to deprogram 23 million progressives and rehabilitate them. One on one debate is a time losing proposition, you can see that on news programs where everyone "shouts out" their "talking points", I never see anyone say "Yeah I didn't think of that your right!". The best way is to actually discredit what an opposing group believes in. Take the Global Warmist groupies for example. You have a few leaders and millions of followers. If you can discredit the leaders you will chunk off a lot of followers, after all winning is an important part of the grouping psychology, and if you are raising the chances of failure you will start seeing the groupies drop off.

So along comes the Climate Research Unit of Anglia hack. A dozen or so Scientists are brought up for scrutiny. Did they control peer review to suppress dissenting opinions. Did they falsify or hide data. Did they conspire to change data and "trick" programs? Maybe they did and maybe they didn't. The point is that they are discredited in some people minds, and people who were in the group might see it sinking and resign membership.

The truth of the emails doesn't necessarily determine the impact, it's the believability, That's why we start to see all sorts of fabrications and lies, because even tho we may be subject to cognitive dissonance there may be an opportunity to pick off some group members with stories of corruption, sexual misconduct, animal cruelty and so on because these resonate with individuals more than their group affiliations. I would caution conservatives that dirty tricks is not a good way to build an enduring group, and I do not recommend it.

It would be like finding an original Quran that said love the infidels as you love God. The people who really had to hate infidels would need a new group, at the least we would have a schism. A Schism is a good thing for the opposing group because it cuts the size of the opposing groups. More often than not, especially in a representative democracy a larger group is a more powerful group. Resolutely preaching tenets to those who haven't yet chosen a group is an effective way to grow your group, there is no better forum than schools to do this. Ask Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro. Another effective means to shrink the opposing group is to kill them Ask Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro.

So am I really going to propose a solution or am I going to just keep rambling on?

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I HAVE A SOLUTION

"Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:8-10).

" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'

– (Luke 15:31-32, NIV)

Can you love a liberal or progressive? Probably not, but you can want to love them as a Christian "We want to love you, return to the fold". This is easily mumbled quickly into "We love you, return to the fold".

The Rise of Christianity

by Rodney Stark - published by Princeton University Press, 1996

http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/riseofchristianity.html

"Christianity recognized women as equal to men, children of God with the same supernatural destiny. Moreover the Christian moral code of prohibition against polygamy, divorce, birth control, abortion, infanticide, etc. contributed to the well-being of women, changing their status from powerless serfs in bondage to men, to women with dignity and rights in both the Church and the State.
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Why did Christianity grow then? According to Stark, "It grew because Christians constituted an intense community, able to generate the 'invincible obstinacy' that so offended the younger Pliny but yielded immense religious rewards. And the primary means of its growth was through the united and motivated efforts of the growing numbers of Christian believers, who invited their friends, relatives, and neighbors to share the 'good news'." At the heart of this willingness to share one's faith was doctrine, that which was to be believed. "Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organization." The chief doctrine, of course, which was radically new to a pagan world groaning under a host of miseries and saturated with capricious cruelty and the vicarious love of death, was that "because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another."
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To build a post-millennial "civilization of love and truth," it would seem imperative that we continue to study how it was done, or begun, the first time around by our "role models", the first Christians, with such splendid results.
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Amen

So am I proposing a religious movement? No not at all. I am presenting to you one of the most successful and self expanding groups of all time. I gave a small glimpse of why it was successful. I tell you with certainty that this movement about Dignity of spirit and man himself, about love and self love, individual freedoms and rights are spelled out in glorious simplicity above left in the five commandments for man. This is a blue print for a thriving rational society. A "as good as it gets" social engineering model. The five commandments about MAN loves MAN.

I believe the five commandments about God are optional. But to have a reasonable functioning society the law is based on the five commandments for man it always has been. We are whittling away till we think adultery is maybe enough fun that it is OK. But maybe the evidence in our world of our crumbling societies should get us to re-think the whittling away. I don't see things improving.

I think they, liberals and progressives ridicule our God, challenge us to prove the unprovable, say we dis avow science, use that as a leverage to abuse our intelligence. And I am saying to you, my relationship with God can be a private thing, and should be of no concern to them.

We need not explain the five commandments of MAN, they are self evident.

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

1) Respect our senior citizens
2) Respect life
3) Respect Family values
4) Do not take another's property
5) Respect the rights of others, including their reputation

These are 4000 year old principles established before Christianity.

It could well serve us again to explain our conservative beliefs and our belief we can not protect our freedoms without a moral people and a moral body of representation.
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http://www.free2pray.info/5founderquotes.html
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John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned his fellow countrymen stating, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams is a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and our second President.

Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence said. "[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be aid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind."



Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary said, "[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. . . . and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence."

Gouverneur Morris, Penman and Signer of the Constitution. "[F]or avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy . . . the only ground of hope must be on the morals of the people. I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. [T]herefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God."

Fisher Ames author of the final wording for the First Amendment wrote, "[Why] should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind."

John Jay, Original Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court , "The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts."

James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice, "Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary stated, "The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. . . All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."

Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U. S. House, "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."

George Washington, General of the Revolutionary Army, president of the Constitutional Convention, First President of the United States of America, Father of our nation, " Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society."

Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence "[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

"Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness . . . it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several States to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof." Continental Congress, 1778
There Is No Freedom Without Moral Responsibility http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/KirillFreedom.php
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Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad
[OrthodoxBooksOnline.com]
The chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations answers questions from the 'Literaturnaya gazeta' weekly, November 2-8, 2005
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From The Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6586181.ece
June 26, 2009
Credo: Without a shared moral code there can be no freedom in our society
When it comes to personal behaviour we have now come to believe that there is no right and wrong. Instead, there are choices.
Jonathan Sacks