cognitive dysfunction. This happens, I believe, because two psychological

tendencies are usually acting concurrently toward this same sad result: (1)

Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency, plus (2) Deprival-Superreaction Tendency.

 

One antidote to intense, deliberate maintenance of groupthink is an extreme

culture of courtesy, kept in place despite ideological differences, like the

behavior of the justices now serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Another antidote

is to deliberately bring in able and articulate disbelievers of incumbent

groupthink. Successful corrective measures to evil examples of groupthink

maintenance have included actions like that of Derek Bok when, as president of

Harvard, he started disapproving tenure appointments proposed by ideologues at

Harvard Law School.

 

Even a one-degree loss from a 180-degree view will sometime create enough

Deprival-Superreaction Tendency to turn a neighbor into an enemy, as I once

observed when I bought a house from one of two neighbors locked into hatred by a

tiny tree newly installed by one of them.

 

As the case of these two neighbors illustrated, the clamor of almost any group

of neighbors displaying irrational, extreme deprival-superreac- tion over some

trifle in a zoning hearing is not a pretty thing to watch. Such bad behavior

drives some people from the zoning field. I once bought some golf clubs from an

artisan who was formerly a lawyer. When I asked him what kind of law he had

practiced, I expected to hear him say, “divorce law.” But his answer was,

“zoning law.”