Possibility of other shocking challenges to groupthink?

Radical Disaffection Engendered by Elitist Groupthink? (Part #5)

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The more fundamental issue, as noted above, is the evidence of an unrecognized degree of dysfunctional groupthink amongst elites with respect to global governance. This frames the recognition of those who then need to be blamed and demonised. The issue for conventional thinking is then: What else have arrogant democratic elites got radically and dangerously wrong through denial?

The argument can be given focus through the case of Volkswagen -- upheld as an icon of corporate social responsibility through its long association with the UN Global Compact. It is not only the Volkswagen emissions scandal which is a cause for concern but the detection of other issues of which this may be but a a distracting example -- as with the detection of equivalent practices in other multinational corporations.

If the challenge is succinctly framed by Ron Atkin (as noted above): A surprise is an answer to a question we did not ask! What were the questions which were not asked with respect to: the financial crisis of 2008; the currently threatening rise of populism; climate change; rejection of human rights provisions; corruption and doping in international sport; extensive tax avoidance and use of tax havens; and with respect to the unprecedented recent rise in asylum seekers?

Ironically the latter can be explored in terms of military destablization of the countries from which people flee to the countries furnishing the arms, and benefitting significantly from that trade, as separately discussed (Evaluating the Grossness of Gross Domestic Product: Refugees Per Kiloton (RPK) as a missing indicator? 2016).

The existence of such challenges can be investigated in terms of that which is systematically designed off any negotiating table, possibly justified by political correctness (Global Strategic Implications of the "Unsaid": from myth-making towards a "wisdom society", 2003). Non-decision-making by elites on vital issues has become an art form, as may be variously explored (The Art of Non-Decision-Making -- and the manipulation of categories, 1997; Lipoproblems: Developing a Strategy Omitting a Key Problem -- the systemic challenge of climate change and resource issues, 2009). .

Possibilities, variously discussed previously, include:

• Radicalism? Whereas this threat has been conveniently associated with Islam, clearly those who voted so surprisingly and irrationally for Trump exhibit radicalism of a hitherto unrecognized form. The effort by "democrats" to do battle with them, even to the point of eradicating them in the Global War on Terror (Eradication as the Strategic Final Solution of the 21st Century? 2014).
  
  In electing Trump, with his terrifying policies, are those voters then to be explicitly associated with sympathy for home-grown terrorism -- engendered by the systematic negligence of politicians and the media? Given the radical choice by so many in voting for Trump, should radicalism itself be explored otherwise, as separately discussed (Radicalisation versus Demonisation? Enabling radical initiatives under conditions of strategic stalemate, 2015; Identifying the Root Cause Focus of Radical Identity, 2015).
  
  
• Erosion of collective memory: In the focus on hope for the future, featuring in the promises of politicians seeking election, is society witness to a remarkable erosion of collective memory. In many instances, "we have been there before". In celebrating their own history, and condemning the current actions of others, societies skillfully enable forgetting.
  
  The treatment and condition of American Indians offers one example (cf. Trail of Tears, Potawatomi Trail of Death). The case of France offers another. In radical response to the attacks to which it has recently been subjected, no recollection is encouraged of the very extensive use of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror through which was established the republic of which it is so proud. The repeated framing of the Holocaust by Jean-Marie Le Pen as a "detail of history" is considered aberrant in the extreme. However, with respect to the much-deplored beheading by Islamists, carefully forgotten is the official use by France of the guillotine until 1977 (Beheading versus Befooting: in quest of the lesser evil for the greater good, 2014).
  
  For a culture proud of the place of philosophy in its education, the failure of its reflection on radical engagement is remarkable, rendering terrifying the implications of radical new deradicalisation legislation in France (Radical Innovators Beware: in the arts, sciences and philosophy, 2016). This makes evident the relevance of the radical insight of George Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
  
  
• Ignorance? Given that it is claimed by informed elites that it is the ignorance of those voting so inappropriately for Trump which is the fundamental issue, how is any such ignorance to be recognized in democratic societies in which elites espousing different schools of thought frame each other as fundamentally misguided and unqualified -- and ignorant to a deplorable degree? Obvious examples include the mutual criticism of arts and sciences, science and religion, development entrepreneurs and environmentalists.
  
  The pattern is equally obvious within the sciences, the arts, the religions, the environmentalists, etc. Who is to educate whom about what -- notably in the light of the arguments of Nicholas Rescher (Ignorance: on the wider implications of deficient knowledge, 2009). How is the engagement with complexity to be effectively ensured when it is jeopardized by issues of ignorance and failures of comprehension -- notably amongst elites? How is ignorance to be given due recognition, as may be playfully asked: If Writers are Necessarily Right... Who are the "rongers", so necessarily wrong? (2015).
  
  
• Disagreement? Irrespective of recognition of ignorance, or assertions to that effect, how is a global society to be governed sustainably when so many variously disagree? In that sense the focus on achieving agreement and resolving conflicts appears increasingly naive and unrealistic (Ungovernability of Sustainable Global Democracy? 2011). The extent of dependence on the emergence of a unified world view, for which so many so desperately hope, is increasingly as inappropriate as the conflict between religions makes evident.
  
  How is it that "healthy disagreement" is only acknowledged as a simplistic device to frame the unfortunate failure of attempts at dialogue? Is there a need to discover more fruitful ways to disagree in order to build necessary diversity more effectively into a system which cannot be "unified" in a simplistic manner? Again the issue has been usefully framed by Nicholas Rescher (The Strife of Systems: an essay on the grounds and implications of philosophical diversity, 1985; Aporetics: rational deliberation in the face of inconsistency, 2009). The challenge is evident with respect to every strategic proposal -- and the rationalization of its inappropriateness (Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming, 2010).
  
  
• Overcomplexification: The upside of an information-based society is widely promoted. Relatively little attention is accorded to a variety of downsides variously acknowledged through personal experience. These include: increasing complexity of rules, regulations and laws in every domain; increasing complexity of transactions (especially in relation to taxation, and entitlements); increasing complexity of consumer product ingredients (in terms of health benefits, side-effects and environmental impact); increasing sophistication of jobs (variously threatened by automation and artificial intelligence); increasing theoretical complexity of reality (whether of social, environmental or physical systems).
  
  These developments tend to favour those who claim greater mastery of complexity and its comprehension -- typically the elites -- to the relative disadvantage of the less privileged, the less competent, the vulnerable and the elderly. This is especially evident with respect to (internet) banking. Of related concern is the individual and collective dependency on highly complex systems in many domains -- systems which are vulnerable to catastrophic failure, especially in the event of cyberwarfare (when they may simply be shot down).
  
  
• Potential ungovernability and collective incapacity: Given the heavy investment in unquestionable optimism by leaders seeking to elicit popular support for their initiaitives through hope-mongering, there is little incentive for realisitic assessment of remedial capacity and possibility of coping in response to fruture crises -- whatever claims are vainly and optimistically made for the potential to govern sustainably (Future Coping Strategies, 1992). The track record of inefficacity is obscured by a systemic need for upbeat reporting significantly enabled by denial and a pattern of cover-ups.
  
  The possibility of coping has become a prime feature of post-truth governance through elaboration of fiat realities -- previously deprecated as spin. Debate is framed largely by appeals to desirability disconnected from the constraints of policy, and by the repeated assertion of fiat realities concerning which factual challenges are ignored. Again the possible ungovernability is a reality which cannot be discussed -- other than to claim that alternative possibilities would guarantee it.
  
  
• Unforeseen consequences: Given the natural propensity to concentrate on immediate results in the light of mainstream thinking -- reinforced by confirmation bias -- thereby circumventing unforeseeable problematic consequences, relativity little effort is expended on detection of longer-term and subtler consequences.
  
  In the light of past surprises these have engendered, it is to be expected that blinkered technological development will ensure their emergence (Geo-engineering Oversight Agency for Thermal Stabilization, 2008).
  
  
• Overpopulation? It has long been argued that ever increasing population numbers are severely undermining the coping capacity of national and global governance. Increasing numbers severely challenge infrastructure and resources with respect to: food, water, accommodation, waste disposal, transportation, education, health, security, and employment, for example. There are few issues preoccupying local, national and global governance which are not exacerbated by increasing numbers -- increasingly a consequence of refugee movement.
  
  Curiously however, the media and elites which so blindly deprecated the candidacy of Trump are equally negligent of the population issue -- notably influenced by an analogous pattern of vested interests (Institutionalized Shunning of Overpopulation Challenge: incommunicability of fundamentally inconvenient truth, 2008). Irrespective of recognition of the issue itself, there is global resistance to any discussion of how the global population challenge might be fruitfully debated -- whatever the outcome of such debate.

Given the universal political commitment to "family values", what of the premature fatality of future progeny engendered by lack of resources, by resource constraints, and by inadequate coping mechanisms? Groupthink can be understood to avoid such challenges by focusing on derivative strategic issues, as separately argued (Vigorous Application of Derivative Thinking to Derivative Problems: transcending bewailing, hand-wringing and emotional blackmail, 2013).

It is intriguing to note how Trump's negligent challenge to the newly articulated elite consensus on climate change now evokes calls for mobilisation to oppose his policies in order to "save the planet". With the probable existence of other issues "under the radar" of global elites, could it be argued that "climate change" is now being used as a cognitive device to deflect attention from such issues -- much as with the deprecated use of "human shields" by cowardly enemies?

This tendency would add a particular twist to the failure to explore embarrassing "anthropogenic" processes of climate change -- especially the unquestionable increase in population and its challenge to both coping and remedial capacity. Trump then serves as a highly convenient focus for blame for any failure of the Paris Agreement (2015) and enabling the implementation process agreed in Marrakesh (2016). Difficult discussion of fundamental flaws in any remedial strategies can then be avoided since the explanation is so readily available.

Are there indeed credible arguments to distinguish between global economic dependency on population increase and the processes essential to a Ponzi scheme of global proportions? The possibility is all the more intriguing in that it is precisely the failure of authorities to question the processes of a Ponzi scheme which is vital to its success for those who benefit most from it -- as remarkably demonstrated by complicity of elites in the Madoff investment scandal. Does a major argument for promoting population growth -- sub-replacement fertility -- curiously echo the major challenge of sustaining a Ponzi scheme to ensure the benefits for the few?

Rather than the cynical explouitation of "humanitarian shields", similar parallels could be explored between drug addiction by invididuals and the oil addiction of collectivities driving the foreign policy with respect to ongoing major regional conflicts -- as highlighted by Alan Greenspan:

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil (The Age of Turbulence: adventures in a New World, 2007, p. 463).

Efforts can be made to map such forms of denial as a cognitive "underground" (Mapping the Global Underground, 2010).

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