“GROUPTHINK MENTALITY”
June 30, 2019
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
The media, academia, and “entertainment” industries and the leftist politicians seem to be locked into a “groupthink” that many of us find dumbfounding, or, even perverse. Much of the groupthink is largely dishonest or deliberately ignorant of history. One cannot find many descriptors in between. However, one can be labeled “racist” for merely questioning the erroneous, recurring narratives spun by the leftist groupthink.
Anyone born in the 40s, or earlier like me, has witnessed many changes and overcome difficult times. And our victories over those trials gave us a love of country and an abiding faith in the greatness of America, and, by extension, our mostly European forebears. Our generation witnessed the conquering of crippling diseases like TB and polio, with its ubiquitous iron lungs and kids in leg braces. We witnessed the discovery of atomic energy and how to harness it for peaceful purposes. We witnessed the American generosity that rebuilt war-torn nations in Europe and the Pacific, and we helped bring about the rebirth of freedom by bringing down the iron curtain. Back home, we witnessed the end of segregation and Jim Crow. And we witnessed the expansion of wealth and modern conveniences to all elements of society willing to work that has made us the envy of the world and a prized magnet for folks from all over the world.
And, while many of us were busy working and bringing these miracles to life, others among us seemed to have missed this show altogether. To them, all of those great things just somehow happened. And worse, they allege that we are guilty of profiting from these advances at the expense of many, both foreign and domestic. We also see that real American history is no longer worth teaching. Our amazing and venerable (and elsewhere much-admired), American constitution is now an outmoded obstacle to modernity written by a bunch of old, white slave-holders.
It is a fact that the American way has unleashed unheard-of prosperity for all groups. Proof? It’s right before your eyes. Americans of every ethnic background have their own group of multimillionaires and even billionaires. And they are represented in the Congress, at the state level, and even, in the case of black Americans – eight years in the White House – Obama being elected to two terms with a majority of white American voters.
Yet, such success is not enough. More needs to be done. Today we are told that humanity is no longer binary – it has a rainbow of colors and we are institutionally blind to the needs of those who declare themselves something other than male or female or whose proclivities fall outside the mutual attraction of male to female (and vice versa) genders set by nature. Discussion of almost anything, anyplace is often accompanied by name-calling and subsequent shunning. “You must NOT say or question such things!” And then there is the “multi-culti” nonsense that defames Western history and achievements. Why? Who says so?
But, it strikes this old hand that the silliest of all the groupthink shibboleth is that pale-skinned folks are guilty of “white privilege” and we must not only repent, but atone, by taking courses or reading material that explains such “privilege.” Well, like many of the kids this graybeard attended school with, I began working every summer before entering junior high school. By high school almost every kid had a summer job, and many of us worked after school, too. The biggest lesson we all learned was that such menial summer and after-school jobs would not be there for us as adults. So we prepared to make ourselves more qualified for better, higher-paying jobs when we became of age. Such is “privilege?” Maybe we should recognize it not as “privilege” but as common sense.
Are we, as a society, too far gone to reclaim common sense and to detach ourselves from the ubiquitous and corrosively libelous groupthink? How do we go about the great detachment? Our “education” system is a great place to start, if we are up to the task. Learning has become indoctrination into groupthink mentality. Such must stop. Truth must out! It is near criminal to warp eager young minds into doubting the greatness of mankind’s last best hope and the people and ethos that made it so.
Old Frank