In the Lian Hearn book Across the Nightingale Floor, the young adept warrior Takeo learns to silently cross a floor specifically designed to squeak when it is being stood on. Not so Victorian Judith Troeth and Queenslander Sue Boyce, who today defied squeaky new Liberal leader Tony Abbott to cross the floor, stepping across the line that divides one annoying sibling (Labour) from its irritatingly messy brother (the Liberals).
These two women crossed the floor to support emissions capping despite a prior statement from their new leader that sounded a lot like a warning – Abbott said he didn’t think many would cross the floor because they owed too much to their party. And this is true – before the change of leadership, twelve Senate members supported Labour’s Emissions Trading Scheme and amendments that were to be taken to Copenhagen – only two today followed their convictions and crossed the floor.
With the potentially career threatening decisions of Boyce and Troeth in mind I want to explore the psychology and philosophy of decision making.
The founder of the pragmatic maxim, Charles Sanders Peirce propounded logic as a way to clear apprehension of the mind and drive thought to purpose in decision making. Perhaps it was logic which drove him to part his hair and beard clean down the middle…
Clearly not trying to be obtuse but managing it anyway because of his subject matter and the thickness of his beard, he said: “It appears, then, that the rule for attaining…clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”
Meaning: You step on the floor knowing it will squeak, and you cross the floor knowing you may lose your job and hurt the reputation of the party you have spent a large part of your life and effort supporting, and knowing also that you may be the one to tip the scales in favour of a policy that seems good to you. Your understanding of the effects of this decision will drive the action of your decision. This all seems like very straight-forwardey commonsense, but when put in a high pressure situation as Troeth and Boyce were, decision-making can be swayed by other factors.
William H. Whyte coined the term ‘Groupthink’ in the 50s (think Mad Men, the rise of CEOs and the urban way of life), for the way cohesive groups rationalise decisions. I’ve got to admit, I love the term. It makes me think of ‘Newspeak’ in George Orwell’s 1984. The man who followed in the ‘Groupthink’ footsteps of Whyte, Irvin Janis defined it as:
“A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”
Malcolm Turnbull certainly seemed to expect this way of thinking from his party, growing increasingly frustrated and outraged with the many crossings of the floor last week. However, Whyte, not happy with coining a whole new term, jumped upon his soapbox to declare that there were several ways of telling if a flock (in this case of politicians) was following the sticky road of Groupthink. The first was that they would have ‘illusions of invulnerability’. Despite Turnbull’s attempts to put a positive spin in the media on the votes for the Emissions Trading Scheme, and on his own popularity within his party, this year’s current of change in the social arena, in climate awareness, and in unsteady popularity numbers for the ALP certainly won’t have gone any way to creating illusions of invulnerability. A sudden change in leader certainly hasn’t bolstered any ‘illusions of unanimity’ either.
Will the Liberals show a bit more uniformity in the future under Abbott, and is this a bad or a good thing, do you think? Personally I love the idea of individuals making their own informed decisions regardless of the Groupthink of their party. In a perfect world crossing the floor would have no repercussions. What do you think? Check out Groupthink and see if you can spot it in the coming weeks in Abbott’s Coalition. Have ten Senate members succumbed to peer pressure and Groupthink? You decide and let me know just WTF you think!
(Read Kerry O’Brian’s interview with Troethe here)
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I watched the interview with yer woman last night on the 7:30 report. I reckon she’s a plant. I’m not sure she is a stand out from the norm, a non-groupthink-er. She’s touting Nuclear energy. Same as Abbott. She’s a sneaky wee plant to point the lefties to Uranium as an alternative fuel source. And I’m not sure the Groupthink theory is in effect here for the messy brother either. They’ve been told, new leader new broom, behave, toe the line or yer gettin it, right in the throat. So they have. It’s not groupthink as I understand it, it’s being a cowardly, spineless yellow-bellied bunch of shitehouse bastards. I’m fuming that these selfish fuckers couldn’t take action, any kind of action, simply because they’re too busy thinking about themselves. And all that nonsense about it being a win for the Australian people. Loada wank. The dark age far right shouting about not believing climate change and the greens shouting about it not being good enough, no compromise ever is for them. Surely something done is better than fuck all. Aussie pollies need to take a hard look at themselves. Never mind whether or not they’re being cowed into groupthinking.
Sorry bout the rant. As you can see it pisses me off. loving this blog though Kate. nice work.
I’m away to grow a bushy beard and oil my centre parting.
Brilliant, thanks you of the bushy beard and centre parting (I want to see this in effect very soon!!! I’ll hold you to it!)
It was very irritating that Troethe jumped on her soapbox about nuclear energy, it wasn’t the right time, but I think if she was a plant it was very well devised – it gave her an opportunity to keep a foot in her camp, and shoved nuclear energy back into the media simply because of the coverage of her crossing the floor. Groupthink as I understand it IS being a cowardly, spineless yellow-bellied bunch of shitehouse bastards: that’s why I love the concept so much. I think it perfectly describes a lot of what happens in Australian politics. Which makes me sad. But at least now I can slap a name on it.