irrational intensity to even a small loss, or threatened loss, of property,

love, friendship, dominated territory, opportunity, status, or any other valued

thing. As a natural result, bureaucratic infighting over the threatened loss of

dominated territory often causes immense damage to an institution as a whole.

This factor, among others, accounts for much of the wisdom of Jack Welch’s long

fight against bureaucratic ills at General Electric. Few business leaders have

ever conducted wiser campaigns.

 

Deprival-Superreaction Tendency often protects ideological or religious views by

triggering dislike and hatred directed toward vocal nonbelievers. This happens,

in part, because the ideas of the nonbelievers, if they spread, will diminish

the influence of views that are now supported by a comfortable environment

including a strong belief-maintenance system. University liberal arts

departments, law schools, and business organizations all display plenty of such

ideology-based groupthink that rejects almost all conflicting inputs. When the

vocal critic is a former believer, hostility is often boosted both by (1) a

concept of betrayal that triggers additional Deprival-Superreaction Tendency

because a colleague is lost and (2) fears that conflicting views will have extra

persuasive power when they come from a former colleague. The foregoing

considerations help account for the old idea of heresy, which for centuries

justified much killing of heretics, frequently after torture and frequently

accomplished by burning the victim alive.

 

It is almost everywhere the case that extremes of ideology are maintained with

great intensity and with great antipathy to non-believers, causing extremes of