A couple of weeks ago when i was flipping through the television channels I came upon a discussion that immediately caught my interest. It was a local PBS show called Boston Common and the guest was Wendy Kaminer.
Ms. Kaminer had written a book titled "Worst Instincts, Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU". It appeared that she had been on the board of the ACLU and had verbally challenged and opposed some of its inner practices. Her premise is that most people are swayed by a need for social acceptability to not rock the boat. People tend to go so far as to ostracize those who ask questions and speak up. And predictably, the person who is being defended and protected is a most defective, egocentric, power hungry type.
I ordered the book and have been reading it slowly. Ms. Kaminer was hurt by the backlash against her. She is verbose in enumerating all her gripes though each has its own nuance and is well founded.
"Whether glorifying the leader is cause or effect of glorifying the group he embodies,
it elevates maintaining the group's idealized image over confronting the reality of its
performance, the degradation of of which group members may be the last to perceive.."
"Cults of personality and the irrationalism they foster naturally accompany the practice of
personalized politics and the metaphor of political and professional groups as families."
This love of paternalism and being politically correct can lead groups to lie, obfuscate facts, and castigate people who ask questions and who openly disagree with the status quo. We not only like our leaders but we want to be their unquestioning flock.
The experiences of Wendy Kaminer have resonated with me strongly. As part of a not-for-profit board, albeit microscopically tiny in contrast to the ACLU, I have witnessed the going along for the sake of going along scenario countless times. And like her, I have chosen to interrupt the seamless strategies presented by the board president with persistent questioning and alternatives to her ideas. This, of course, is a lonely process.
The last paragraph of "Worst Instincts" also summarizes my feelings.
"Virtually all of us have succumbed to social pressures and deferred to collective
judgments, on occasion at least; and that is not always lamentable. I don't mean to
denigrate our social instincts, collegiality, or cooperation, and I take for granted
that groups are sometimes smarter than individuals. But I suspect that groups are
smartest when members retain their individuality and faith in their own judgments,
distinguishing between corruption and co-option, wending their ways between radical
individualism and immersion in the collective. So while I don't mean to romanticize
contrarianism or to characterize individualism as unmitigated good, I regard them as
oddly essential to associational life."
At our last board meeting, one of the agency's employees shared her summer reading with the board. They were mostly how to books on running and developing a not for profit agency. I sent her an excerpted link to "Worst Instincts" to peruse and without reading it at all, she forwarded it to the rest of the board. They are in for some surprise reading.
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