Communal Delusion

CommunalDelusion is about delusions that are supported by the prevailing culture present within a community. Can be a group of close friends, a religious group, an institution, a country or continent. Or can be people who frequent this wiki. The community collectively have some blindspots somewhere.

I [who is I?] think we are conditioned to "gloss-over" some problematic issues and controversies. Repeatedly human settlements cluster around the fertile regions of the earth, at the base of volcanos, around flood plains of rivers, etc. The visible benefits of continuing in a given state of mind help to extinguish all the negativities and risk considerations. It is an example of HiveMind working against the long term interest of the group.

See David, the first paragraph is a fairly good definition written in the third person. That's a positive contribution to this wiki (first one in a long time). But then, pick up your poison, you either write anonymously in the third person, or you write highly personal and sign. Highly personal opinions, subject to personal value systems and interpretations should be signed. This is a basic service to the WikiReader and other co-contributor. A WikiReader can fairly easily get something from the first paragraph as is, unsigned, and it doesn't matter if it's written by David, Costin or Ward, it makes no difference. But the highly personal continuation cannot be interpreted without the proper context, which is the author who wrote it.

I am suggesting periods of delusions are fairly common. And it is necessary that we re-examine whether we need to break out from the hynoptic efforts of a group so real progress can be made.

This one is a Void claim (or unintelligible mumbo jumbo). What's "fairly common" ? What's the objective evidence for it being fairly common ? Hypnotic efforts of what group ? And what kind of "real progress" should be made ? --CostinCozianu

SeeNoEvil, HearNoEvil? and SpeakNoEvil? are three ageless examples. And these existed for good reasons.

Curious. What are some of these delusions among, say, the people who frequent this wiki?

"Close to delusion example"

I shall mention one point that is not really "delusion" since it is such a strong word. There is a fairly commonly held belief (e.g. looking at the likes of WhyWikiWorks) that it has not got a "soft underbelly". In LarrySangerAndLessonsInCollaboration he observed the destructive forces a persistent regular member of the community can unleash. I think the same holds true for this community. Within the XpCommunity (or people favoring WaterFall) there can be other blindspots. -- DavidLiu

I think you need to be more specific. This is vague to the point of being abstruse. Furthermore, if you claim there are delusions, perhaps you should either identify these or back off on the position that there are delusions. This "close to" delusion is not really a delusion, is it? -- DaveVoorhis

What can we do with knowledge of this pattern?

The danger of communal delusions and other kinds of delusion is inversely proportional with the level of CriticalSpirit promoted by a culture -- be that community culture, group culture, underground culture or national culture.

Costin if CriticalSpirit is your contribution that is a real good one. -- DavidLiu

CategoryPsychology