My Mama's Mustache & Other Inherited Stuff  

Pretend these are twenty children

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 " A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

The new paradigm, sadly, is to demonize scholarly journalism as a tool of the 'left'. Then by omission and/or commission, the 'right' is able to arrange, invent, and conjure up false or misleading facts and use them as the building blocks of hate. Witness the growth of hate radio, newspapers, and at least one national TV outlet (fix news). All callers, guests, and experts are screened. Debate is not sharing ideas, in a scholarly fashion, but is a platform for the 'right'. HH

An old paradigm is similar to a new paradigm. Its a set of values and beliefs that creates a reality for a community that holds similar values. However, old paradigm later becomes invalidated by newer paradigm that seem truer or are proven by facts. For example, in the ancient days, people believed that everything revolved around the earth and it was the center of the universe. Today we know that the earth is not the center of the universe and its one of 9 planets that revolve around the sun."

From answers.com

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.

Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns (1896 - 1996)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line

"" set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

The new paradigm, sadly, is to demonize scholarly journalism as a tool of the 'left'. Then by omission and/or commission, the 'right' is able to arrange, invent, and conjure up false or misleading facts and use them as the building blocks of hate. Witness the growth of hate radio, newspapers, and at least one national TV outlet (fix news). All callers, guests, and experts are screened. Debate is not sharing ideas, in a scholarly fashion, but is a platform for the 'right'. HH

An old paradigm is similar to a new paradigm. Its a set of values and beliefs that creates a reality for a community that holds similar values. However, old paradigm later becomes invalidated by newer paradigm that seem truer or are proven by facts. For example, in the ancient days, people believed that everything revolved around the earth and it was the center of the universe. Today we know that the earth is not the center of the universe and its one of 9 planets that revolve around the sun."

From answers.com

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.

Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns (1896 - 1996)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line

I keep thinking I will get this show organizwd better and every week the family I was raised in finds another means of attack. Tar and feathering can only be a heartbeat away. LOL

Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group.^[1] During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.

[edit] Origin

William H. Whyte coined the term in 1952, in Fortune magazine:

Groupthink being a coinage—and, admittedly, a loaded one—a working definition is in order. We are not talking about mere instinctive conformity—it is, after all, a perennial failing of mankind. What we are talking about is a rationalized conformity—an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well.^[2]

Symptoms of groupthink

To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).

1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty".
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking^[5]

1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selection bias in collecting information
7. Failure to work out contingency plans.

I talk about life, the good, the bad, the funny and sad.

I talk about life, the good, the bad, the funny and sad.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), (attributed)

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.

Walter Anderson

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), letter to John Melish, January 13, 1813

Son, always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time.

Sam Rayburn (1882 - 1961), quoted Washingtonian, November 1978

Step Four - "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

"So when A.A. suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do. Both his pride and his fear beat him back every time he tries to look within himself. Pride says, "You need not pass this way," and Fear says, "You dare not look!" But the testimony of A.A.'s who have really tried a moral inventory is that pride and fear of this sort turn out to be bogeymen, nothing else. Once we have a complete willingness to take inventory, and exert ourselves to do the job thoroughly, a wonderful light falls upon this foggy scene. As we persist, a brand-new kind of confidence is born, and the sense of relief at finally facing ourselves is indescribable. These are the first fruits of Step Four." pp. 49-50