Well that’s been about par for the course. What I find interesting is the enabling of it. It’s utterly strange to me. I don’t mind straight talk. I can forgive oddities since we are all that but I find the group behaviour fascinating. Probably more fascinating than anything else. I am reminded of a few interesting psychological experiments from the fifties and sixties of the last century and despite the view of some on here, that I should refrain from talking of that on which I have made a decent living for decades, shall talk about it.
the first is the asch experiment which demonstrated very clearly what is really experimental proof of the fable “the emperor has no clothes”. The second the milgram experiment that showed most people will do what they are told once they have ascribed authority to someone.
the third is the Stanford prison experiment which shows how extreme people become when assigned a role and the extent to which they forget that there are real humans on whom they are inflicting their role. Sadly they forget about humility, real decency and connection.
the last two - well with all the humility of a bull they will take to the person who has offended them and basically stomp on them regardless. (Stanford) Others may engage because they feel compelled (milgram and asch) until such time as they look at it
I think it’s sad myself that others allow it but then I remind myself of the power of cognitive dissonance that makes it hard to unravel oneself.
I’ve watched the thread from time to time when feeling idle and it provides substantial entertainment in a strange way. I’m sort of grateful for my training because it helps me understand and understanding brings a different way of looking at it
I also remind myself from time to time that one if the reasons I was deeply involved in leading a small part of the reform of an education system some years ago was precisely because I was not a teacher. They were so hopelessly entrenched in their views of the world and had so little ability to engage in open enquiry beyond their realm of knowledge and interest that they had built a fortress that served few. It was one of the most demanding but satisfying experiences - to create an environment in which we could engage actively with different sources of input to build something different. Might not have been right or perfect by any means but people felt they’d had a chance.
