This is an excellent article! I was in college during 1965-1969, and entered grad school in clinical psychology immediately after. Many of my friends participated in NTL groups. I wrote my master's thesis on NTL groups, focusing on the correlations between self-reported change in participants and behaviors they ascribed to group leaders. My thesis was neutral on the safety of T-groups, as the participants in the groups I studied reported mostly positive experiences. I never participated in them myself, however, because of the frightening stories I heard from friends who did.
One of the core features of T-groups was that participants were encouraged to engage in highly aggressive behavior towards other participants. The stressful group environments tended to elicit aggressive behavior anyway, and the leaders were intensely critical of anyone who tried to protect victims from attacks. The result was that participants were "broken down" emotionally, and this was viewed as a positive, necessary stage in the process. This philosophy has declined in popularity but continues to influence the conduct of unstructured group psychotherapy in clinical settings.
I don't know to what extent the NTL approach also influenced the diversity training that was so popular in corporations several decades ago. These were generally very structured trainings, involving a lot of low level personality tests (like the Myers Briggs) and experiential exercises. They were relatively benign in comparison with the T-groups, but the evidence base reportedly shows that diversity training of that type ranged from ineffective to destructive relative to the goal of decreasing racial tension in workplaces. (I can't offer my own opinion about the evidence base because I haven't reviewed it).
Descriptions of the current type of mandated "anti-racism" trainings do indeed sound a lot like the NTL model. Thanks to Joseph Klein and RLS for bringing out this history, which has not been mentioned in any other literature I have read regarding DiAngelo.
Your second paragraph is a nearly perfect description of social media over the last 5-8 years. The Internet is enabling NTL groups on a global scale. Horrifying.
Yes, that is a good point. In both cases the aggression is disinhibited via highly stressful stimulation in a group, mob context. Disinhibited abuse basically, in which the power of authority figures is aligned with the aggressors at the expense of victims.
The feminist CR groups I was in from 1970 to a few years later were not at all like NTL groups that I studied. The university connected feminist groups in my area were what would be today classified as "support groups," in which women talked about things of importance to them as women and read articles written by influential feminists. There were also community organizing groups that did presentations designed to recruit activists. Over time, a more authoritarian faction of women developed who were very into policing the thought, language, clothing, behavior in relationships, and sexual preferences of women activists. Many of the policing types were consciously self-identified with "Marxist" activism and had been previously involved in the New Left of the Sixties and early Seventies. I remember hearing favorable opinions of Mao's group criticism sessions.
The NTL groups I knew about were also during the Seventies. They were professionally led, mostly but not entirely by mental health professionals. A similar kind of program went on at Tavistock during the same time.
Discussing and deciding to require the training does provide a huge opportunity for performative wokery on the part of the executives, and the training certainly won't interfere with their activities.
Yes, words, not deeds, are what count in this performative era. One must always stay one step of ahead of the next non oppositional ideology even if it contradicts the last non oppositional ideology. No better example than the human rights experts who quickly shape shifted and morphed into pro torture, pro war terrorism experts after 9/11..
Mat Walsh has shown how this anti- racism campaign has become highly lucrative .
Di Angelo charges $15,000 to be interviewed.
Another grifter charges $30,000 for her group sessions in which she tells the participants that they make her uncomfortable, and that they can never overcome their racism, because of their white skin.
A “ hostess “ charges , $5,000 each to attend dinners where they are told that America is “ a piece of shit” where racism is systemic.
DEI is the American version of the “re- education “ during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
There's a really great book about this same subject called "Race Experts" by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, especially good are the parts about Esalen, the upscale California home of the Human Potential Movement, where shrinks became New Age gurus and where Encounter Groups led to Diversity Training:
—The triumph of the race experts in many ways embodies the "harangue-flagellation ritual" writ large. This ritual cast blacks in the role of repressed, angry victims and whites in the role of oppressors who need to expiate their guilt. Strikingly familiar to present-day Americans, it is one ritual by which racial issues often get raised and explored. It is also one reason racial issues often stay unresolved. And it is a ritual played out and renewed through the mushrooming diversity training programs in workplaces, educational institutions, counseling rooms, and numerous other social arenas.
The dominance of the therapeutic mentality has allowed New Age therapies that once rightly existed on the fringe of society to insinuate themselves into the mainstream. Far-fetched notions about the capacity of self-obsessed wallowing in emotional outpouring to heal not only the individual but all the ills of the world are incorporated into the diversity training programs to which our co-workers, children, and teachers are exposed.
The replacement of the religious or moral arguments for equality with ones based on the psychological disorders of discriminatory institutions altered not only the means by which change could be seen to come about but also the ends themselves. The desired goal was no longer civic equality and participation, but individual psychic well-being. This psychological state was much more nebulous, open to interpretation, difficult to achieve, and controversial than the universal guarantees of political equality sought by the early civil rights movement.
Lasch-Quinn is the daughter I believe of Christopher Lasch who wrote great books about American life such as The Culture of Narcissism, The revolt of the Elites and more.
Was a bit bemused by your phrase “psychological disorders of discriminatory institutions” (psychological pertaining to individuals and institutions to social structures, if you will). Anyway, I’m not clear what people are on about re: “anti-woke”? Seems to me a “good thing” to try and encourage tolerance? Granted, the “Diversity Training” workshops our workplace held a few times did not seem to change people but I see nothing wrong with discussing these things? So, now we have nearly empty shelves in Florida school libraries (banning ‘woke’ books) and a Trumpian plan to just dismantle the entire Department of Education (in the USA here)!! Thanks to the anti-woke movement? Hope my comments don’t make you mad at me 😬
It's unbelievable that this is just a single excerpt of a larger book 😬 So unnerving to think of how many people and institutions have embraced variants of this ideology and its practices with no clue how twisted the origins are!
I think the main difference between woke organizations and cults is that the woke have no central, god-like figure who calls the shots and sets the tone. Quite the opposite, in fact; wokeists are always in perpetual crouch, ready to leap upon even the most beloved among them should they catch a whiff of racism, sexism, classism, fill-in-your-ism.
Example: In Philadelphia, where I live, there is an organization that helps homeless and addicted gay and lesbian youth, known as The Attic. The Attic was formerly founded and headed by Carrie Jacobs, who was *revered* in the community, and rightly so. The kids she ministered too were the most abused and neglected kids you'd ever meet, and Jacobs had that job forever...until she was accused of being improperly respectful of diversity. Then she was promptly relieved of her duties and quickly sidelined. The Attic board of directors never specified exactly what she had supposedly done wrong, and still hasn't, five years later. I remember at the time feeling poleaxed by the whole thing, and it was my first introduction to the quick and merciless shunning woke folk will deliver to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Put a foot wrong, or even be suspected of doing so, and your reputation, your history and your part in the community will be meaningless.
Come for the community, stay for the punitive moralism and the tantalizing prospect of getting to batter and wound someone for the crime of ideological impurity...these hothouse movements draw sadists, sociopaths and other opportunists like moths to light because they provide the pretext that allows them to injure others "for a good cause". This allows weak people to feel strong, stupid people to feel smart, lost souls to feel purpose, and ugly people to whitewash their hatred with abstractions like Justice and Equality.
Everyone who wants to "fix/change the world" needs to start with themselves first.
"This allows weak people to feel strong, stupid people to feel smart, lost souls to feel purpose, and ugly people to whitewash their hatred with abstractions like Justice and Equality."
Does sound like a pretty good deal, when you put it that way!
Reminds me of Aldous Huxley's quote: "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.’"
We really enjoyed this article. It’s so important to take a step back from these cultural movements to understand both their historical and psychological context, and how humans behave under stress to conform. You should check out the Asch Conformity Experiments!
The "casualties" should be no surprise. What I'd like to see is real research into paradoxical reactions to "anti-racism training" and the institutional response to those reactions. Are the trainees who end up with 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 negative attitudes toward racial minorities viewed by the trainers as a net positive for their interests? Don't the worsened attitudes, after all, show what an intractable problem the congenital racism of white people is, thus the need for even greater investment in the training (and even greater fees for the trainers)?
I read this excerpt from Jake Klein’s soon-to-be-released book with interest, having some knowledge of the subject. I’ve participated in many groups and trainings that were descendants of T-Groups, as well as leading some myself.
In my opinion, the methodology of T-Groups is value-neutral. Participants engage in an unstructured group setting, observe their own behavior, receive feedback, and learn about their impact on others. That makes it easy to apply in a variety of fields and environments, and probably accounts for its widespread adoption. There is evidence that T-Groups are effective in instigating change in individuals and groups, although that’s somewhat subjective. It’s my personal experience. As T-Groups evolved and were adapted to different situations they generally became less extreme, and more sophisticated.
It’s unsurprising that DiAngelo and others would turn to that model when conducting their groups. It’s a structure that can be adapted to whatever content you like.
However, like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.
I’ve seen it used both ways, sometimes even in the same organization. Once you dismantle the participants’ belief system you may find yourself with a lot of power, and unfortunately some people abuse it. But a skilled leader uses it to encourage positive attributes like self-awareness, honest interpersonal communication, and sensitivity to others. The ethical, self-aware leader encourages participants to think for themselves.
Above, I said the methodology was values-neutral, and I think that’s generally true. However, you could make the case that one of the values promoted in such groups is self-awareness. In my experience, that’s often the result. Also, direct interpersonal communication is often encouraged, which is consistent with Western values; that’s not necessarily the case in other cultures. To the extent that the methodology itself can be said to incorporate values, they’re consistent with those of Enlightenment liberalism. It probably looks neutral to me because those are my values.
On the other hand, if you want to create a cult and instil a belief system it’s also very effective. That’s manifestly what DEI trainings seek to do. In the case of DiAngelo, she’s so convinced of her own infallibility that workshop participants who were resistant and hostile to her message were pathologized as having “white fragility.” She invented and popularized a term for what were her personal failures as a workshop leader, as well as the incoherence of the ideology she was promoting. Her teaching methodology no doubt amplified those weaknesses, but it was not their origin.
Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of engaging with a CSJ activist has quickly realized that they’re impervious to rational argument and facts. That observation has led to comparisons with cults, which are apt.
As far as I know, those of us who are critical of DEI, and of critical social justice in general, have not come up with an adequate response to it. Maybe that’s not important. The whole shoddy enterprise will collapse eventually from its internal incoherence. However, if you did want to deprogram cult members, or more realistically, inoculate people who haven’t yet succumbed to group-think, you would want to consider T-Group methodology. There’s nothing intrinsically nefarious about it, and in fact it’s a useful tool.
Is it ethical, when you’re in the midst of a destructive mass delusion, to sit on the sidelines and wait for it to implode on its own? I’m interested in the conversation about constructive responses to the ideology that at least mitigate the damage, if not accelerate its demise.
About 25 years ago, cross cultural communication was a big thing. How to work together and understand each other. Like the American Melting Pot concept.
I'm not sure how it all went crazy, but my money is on Judith Butler and shoddy scholarship.
"White Fragility" was hilarious, there's actually some good stuff in there too, but a lot of it is obvious nonsense. I looked at the website linked accusing Deangelo of plagiarism, sure, some of it seems to be actual plagiarism, but several of them are cases where her paper and the plagiaree were referencing a third, who she did credit. I'm not sure is those cases should be counted. I'm not familiar with academic norms however.
Great read! Very informative! We need people like the author to shine different perspectives or evidence contrary to a narrative or agenda!
I personally do not feel the burden of other people’s labels, if I allowed every label, thrown liberally around these days, to stick, I would have suffocated by now! I KNOW ME and know I have zero hate for my fellow human beings!
I want government and their bureaucratic cronies to take a hike and let me live my life! If their so called insights were correct, why is the world MORE hateful now than I remember in my lifetime (rhetorical question).
I’ll resort to kindergarten language (it’s how establishment & cronies treat us) and say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me”. Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true, the labels go on my mental bonfire and I move on!
Thought I’d give a basic personal view, I’ll leave the deep dives and high-brow analysis to folks like the author who’s intelligence far outweighs mine 😂🤝
I read this excerpt from Jake Klein’s soon-to-be-released book with interest, having some knowledge of the subject.
I’ve participated in many groups and trainings that were descendants of T-Groups, as well as leading some myself.
In my opinion, the methodology of T-Groups is value-neutral. Participants engage in an unstructured group setting, observe their own behavior, receive feedback, and learn about their impact on others. That makes it easy to apply in a variety of fields and environments, and probably accounts for its widespread adoption. There is evidence that T-Groups are effective in instigating change in individuals and groups, although that’s somewhat subjective. It’s my personal experience. As T-Groups evolved and were adapted to different situations they generally became less extreme, and more sophisticated.
It’s unsurprising that DiAngelo and others would turn to that model when conducting their groups. It’s a structure that can be adapted to whatever content you like.
However, like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.
I’ve seen it used both ways, sometimes even in the same organization. Once you dismantle the participants’ belief system you may find yourself with a lot of power, and unfortunately some people abuse it. But a skilled leader uses it to encourage positive attributes like self-awareness, honest interpersonal communication, and sensitivity to others. The ethical, self-aware leader encourages participants to think for themselves.
Above, I said the methodology was values-neutral, and I think that’s generally true. However, you could make the case that one of the values promoted in such groups is self-awareness. In my experience, that’s often the result. Also, direct interpersonal communication is often encouraged, which is consistent with Western values; that’s not necessarily the case in other cultures. To the extent that the methodology itself can be said to incorporate values, they’re consistent with those of Enlightenment liberalism. It probably looks neutral to me because those are my values.
On the other hand, if you want to create a cult and instill a belief system it’s also very effective. That’s manifestly what DEI trainings seek to do. In the case of DiAngelo, she’s so convinced of her own infallibility that workshop participants who were resistant and hostile to her message were pathologized as having “white fragility.” She invented and popularized a term for what were her personal failures as a workshop leader, as well as the incoherence of the ideology she was promoting. Her teaching methodology no doubt amplified those weaknesses, but it was not their origin.
Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of engaging with a CSJ activist has quickly realized that they’re impervious to rational argument and facts. That observation has led to comparisons with cults, which are apt.
As far as I know, those of us who are critical of DEI, and of critical social justice in general, have not come up with an adequate response to it. Maybe that’s not important. The whole shoddy enterprise will collapse eventually from its internal incoherence. However, if you did want to deprogram cult members, or more realistically, inoculate people who haven’t yet succumbed to group-think, you would want to consider T-Group methodology. There’s nothing intrinsically nefarious about it, and in fact it’s a useful tool.
Is it ethical, when you’re in the midst of a destructive mass delusion, to sit on the sidelines and wait for it to implode on its own? I’m interested in the conversation about constructive responses to the ideology that at least mitigate the damage, if not accelerate its demise.
I remember reading Race Experts by Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn a few years ago and thinking the things she was criticizing sounded really similar to some of the “recovery cult” insanity (synanon and its offshoots). Sounds like that’s not a coincidence. Looking forward to reading or listening to your book
This is an excellent article! I was in college during 1965-1969, and entered grad school in clinical psychology immediately after. Many of my friends participated in NTL groups. I wrote my master's thesis on NTL groups, focusing on the correlations between self-reported change in participants and behaviors they ascribed to group leaders. My thesis was neutral on the safety of T-groups, as the participants in the groups I studied reported mostly positive experiences. I never participated in them myself, however, because of the frightening stories I heard from friends who did.
One of the core features of T-groups was that participants were encouraged to engage in highly aggressive behavior towards other participants. The stressful group environments tended to elicit aggressive behavior anyway, and the leaders were intensely critical of anyone who tried to protect victims from attacks. The result was that participants were "broken down" emotionally, and this was viewed as a positive, necessary stage in the process. This philosophy has declined in popularity but continues to influence the conduct of unstructured group psychotherapy in clinical settings.
I don't know to what extent the NTL approach also influenced the diversity training that was so popular in corporations several decades ago. These were generally very structured trainings, involving a lot of low level personality tests (like the Myers Briggs) and experiential exercises. They were relatively benign in comparison with the T-groups, but the evidence base reportedly shows that diversity training of that type ranged from ineffective to destructive relative to the goal of decreasing racial tension in workplaces. (I can't offer my own opinion about the evidence base because I haven't reviewed it).
Descriptions of the current type of mandated "anti-racism" trainings do indeed sound a lot like the NTL model. Thanks to Joseph Klein and RLS for bringing out this history, which has not been mentioned in any other literature I have read regarding DiAngelo.
Thank you! Could you send me your masters thesis? Would love to see it.
https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/7158
Thanks!
My pleasure! I appreciate your interest!
Thank you for sharing this!!
Your second paragraph is a nearly perfect description of social media over the last 5-8 years. The Internet is enabling NTL groups on a global scale. Horrifying.
That would make for a great essay. Social media as a digital NTL group.
Yes, that is a good point. In both cases the aggression is disinhibited via highly stressful stimulation in a group, mob context. Disinhibited abuse basically, in which the power of authority figures is aligned with the aggressors at the expense of victims.
Feminist consciousness raising groups used the NTL model too.
The feminist CR groups I was in from 1970 to a few years later were not at all like NTL groups that I studied. The university connected feminist groups in my area were what would be today classified as "support groups," in which women talked about things of importance to them as women and read articles written by influential feminists. There were also community organizing groups that did presentations designed to recruit activists. Over time, a more authoritarian faction of women developed who were very into policing the thought, language, clothing, behavior in relationships, and sexual preferences of women activists. Many of the policing types were consciously self-identified with "Marxist" activism and had been previously involved in the New Left of the Sixties and early Seventies. I remember hearing favorable opinions of Mao's group criticism sessions.
The NTL groups I knew about were also during the Seventies. They were professionally led, mostly but not entirely by mental health professionals. A similar kind of program went on at Tavistock during the same time.
Today's "Anti racist" training is the Corporate Cultural Revolution's version of the Maoist "struggle session."
Discussing and deciding to require the training does provide a huge opportunity for performative wokery on the part of the executives, and the training certainly won't interfere with their activities.
Yes, words, not deeds, are what count in this performative era. One must always stay one step of ahead of the next non oppositional ideology even if it contradicts the last non oppositional ideology. No better example than the human rights experts who quickly shape shifted and morphed into pro torture, pro war terrorism experts after 9/11..
Mat Walsh has shown how this anti- racism campaign has become highly lucrative .
Di Angelo charges $15,000 to be interviewed.
Another grifter charges $30,000 for her group sessions in which she tells the participants that they make her uncomfortable, and that they can never overcome their racism, because of their white skin.
A “ hostess “ charges , $5,000 each to attend dinners where they are told that America is “ a piece of shit” where racism is systemic.
DEI is the American version of the “re- education “ during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
There's a really great book about this same subject called "Race Experts" by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, especially good are the parts about Esalen, the upscale California home of the Human Potential Movement, where shrinks became New Age gurus and where Encounter Groups led to Diversity Training:
—The triumph of the race experts in many ways embodies the "harangue-flagellation ritual" writ large. This ritual cast blacks in the role of repressed, angry victims and whites in the role of oppressors who need to expiate their guilt. Strikingly familiar to present-day Americans, it is one ritual by which racial issues often get raised and explored. It is also one reason racial issues often stay unresolved. And it is a ritual played out and renewed through the mushrooming diversity training programs in workplaces, educational institutions, counseling rooms, and numerous other social arenas.
The dominance of the therapeutic mentality has allowed New Age therapies that once rightly existed on the fringe of society to insinuate themselves into the mainstream. Far-fetched notions about the capacity of self-obsessed wallowing in emotional outpouring to heal not only the individual but all the ills of the world are incorporated into the diversity training programs to which our co-workers, children, and teachers are exposed.
The replacement of the religious or moral arguments for equality with ones based on the psychological disorders of discriminatory institutions altered not only the means by which change could be seen to come about but also the ends themselves. The desired goal was no longer civic equality and participation, but individual psychic well-being. This psychological state was much more nebulous, open to interpretation, difficult to achieve, and controversial than the universal guarantees of political equality sought by the early civil rights movement.
Lasch-Quinn is the daughter I believe of Christopher Lasch who wrote great books about American life such as The Culture of Narcissism, The revolt of the Elites and more.
I ❤️ LASCH
is amazing that perhaps our most insightful and prescient social analyst died 30 yrs ago!
gone too soon, for sure.
Thanks for the book tip. Bought it.
great, let me know what you think.
(fyi she is christopher lasch's daughter)
Was a bit bemused by your phrase “psychological disorders of discriminatory institutions” (psychological pertaining to individuals and institutions to social structures, if you will). Anyway, I’m not clear what people are on about re: “anti-woke”? Seems to me a “good thing” to try and encourage tolerance? Granted, the “Diversity Training” workshops our workplace held a few times did not seem to change people but I see nothing wrong with discussing these things? So, now we have nearly empty shelves in Florida school libraries (banning ‘woke’ books) and a Trumpian plan to just dismantle the entire Department of Education (in the USA here)!! Thanks to the anti-woke movement? Hope my comments don’t make you mad at me 😬
It's unbelievable that this is just a single excerpt of a larger book 😬 So unnerving to think of how many people and institutions have embraced variants of this ideology and its practices with no clue how twisted the origins are!
I think the main difference between woke organizations and cults is that the woke have no central, god-like figure who calls the shots and sets the tone. Quite the opposite, in fact; wokeists are always in perpetual crouch, ready to leap upon even the most beloved among them should they catch a whiff of racism, sexism, classism, fill-in-your-ism.
Example: In Philadelphia, where I live, there is an organization that helps homeless and addicted gay and lesbian youth, known as The Attic. The Attic was formerly founded and headed by Carrie Jacobs, who was *revered* in the community, and rightly so. The kids she ministered too were the most abused and neglected kids you'd ever meet, and Jacobs had that job forever...until she was accused of being improperly respectful of diversity. Then she was promptly relieved of her duties and quickly sidelined. The Attic board of directors never specified exactly what she had supposedly done wrong, and still hasn't, five years later. I remember at the time feeling poleaxed by the whole thing, and it was my first introduction to the quick and merciless shunning woke folk will deliver to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Put a foot wrong, or even be suspected of doing so, and your reputation, your history and your part in the community will be meaningless.
These folks are a bunch of sociopaths.
Come for the community, stay for the punitive moralism and the tantalizing prospect of getting to batter and wound someone for the crime of ideological impurity...these hothouse movements draw sadists, sociopaths and other opportunists like moths to light because they provide the pretext that allows them to injure others "for a good cause". This allows weak people to feel strong, stupid people to feel smart, lost souls to feel purpose, and ugly people to whitewash their hatred with abstractions like Justice and Equality.
Everyone who wants to "fix/change the world" needs to start with themselves first.
"This allows weak people to feel strong, stupid people to feel smart, lost souls to feel purpose, and ugly people to whitewash their hatred with abstractions like Justice and Equality."
Does sound like a pretty good deal, when you put it that way!
lolol
Reminds me of Aldous Huxley's quote: "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.’"
the man knew what he was talking about
We really enjoyed this article. It’s so important to take a step back from these cultural movements to understand both their historical and psychological context, and how humans behave under stress to conform. You should check out the Asch Conformity Experiments!
Check out some of our articles! We think you’d enjoy them too :)
Bought the book (kindle version).
Thank you! Hope you enjoy!
Leave a review on Amazon if you like it!
The "casualties" should be no surprise. What I'd like to see is real research into paradoxical reactions to "anti-racism training" and the institutional response to those reactions. Are the trainees who end up with 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 negative attitudes toward racial minorities viewed by the trainers as a net positive for their interests? Don't the worsened attitudes, after all, show what an intractable problem the congenital racism of white people is, thus the need for even greater investment in the training (and even greater fees for the trainers)?
I read this excerpt from Jake Klein’s soon-to-be-released book with interest, having some knowledge of the subject. I’ve participated in many groups and trainings that were descendants of T-Groups, as well as leading some myself.
In my opinion, the methodology of T-Groups is value-neutral. Participants engage in an unstructured group setting, observe their own behavior, receive feedback, and learn about their impact on others. That makes it easy to apply in a variety of fields and environments, and probably accounts for its widespread adoption. There is evidence that T-Groups are effective in instigating change in individuals and groups, although that’s somewhat subjective. It’s my personal experience. As T-Groups evolved and were adapted to different situations they generally became less extreme, and more sophisticated.
It’s unsurprising that DiAngelo and others would turn to that model when conducting their groups. It’s a structure that can be adapted to whatever content you like.
However, like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.
I’ve seen it used both ways, sometimes even in the same organization. Once you dismantle the participants’ belief system you may find yourself with a lot of power, and unfortunately some people abuse it. But a skilled leader uses it to encourage positive attributes like self-awareness, honest interpersonal communication, and sensitivity to others. The ethical, self-aware leader encourages participants to think for themselves.
Above, I said the methodology was values-neutral, and I think that’s generally true. However, you could make the case that one of the values promoted in such groups is self-awareness. In my experience, that’s often the result. Also, direct interpersonal communication is often encouraged, which is consistent with Western values; that’s not necessarily the case in other cultures. To the extent that the methodology itself can be said to incorporate values, they’re consistent with those of Enlightenment liberalism. It probably looks neutral to me because those are my values.
On the other hand, if you want to create a cult and instil a belief system it’s also very effective. That’s manifestly what DEI trainings seek to do. In the case of DiAngelo, she’s so convinced of her own infallibility that workshop participants who were resistant and hostile to her message were pathologized as having “white fragility.” She invented and popularized a term for what were her personal failures as a workshop leader, as well as the incoherence of the ideology she was promoting. Her teaching methodology no doubt amplified those weaknesses, but it was not their origin.
Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of engaging with a CSJ activist has quickly realized that they’re impervious to rational argument and facts. That observation has led to comparisons with cults, which are apt.
As far as I know, those of us who are critical of DEI, and of critical social justice in general, have not come up with an adequate response to it. Maybe that’s not important. The whole shoddy enterprise will collapse eventually from its internal incoherence. However, if you did want to deprogram cult members, or more realistically, inoculate people who haven’t yet succumbed to group-think, you would want to consider T-Group methodology. There’s nothing intrinsically nefarious about it, and in fact it’s a useful tool.
Is it ethical, when you’re in the midst of a destructive mass delusion, to sit on the sidelines and wait for it to implode on its own? I’m interested in the conversation about constructive responses to the ideology that at least mitigate the damage, if not accelerate its demise.
About 25 years ago, cross cultural communication was a big thing. How to work together and understand each other. Like the American Melting Pot concept.
I'm not sure how it all went crazy, but my money is on Judith Butler and shoddy scholarship.
Good old Synanon.
Don’t be surprised if a name like Jordan Peterson starts a Masculine Spirit recovery system.
"White Fragility" was hilarious, there's actually some good stuff in there too, but a lot of it is obvious nonsense. I looked at the website linked accusing Deangelo of plagiarism, sure, some of it seems to be actual plagiarism, but several of them are cases where her paper and the plagiaree were referencing a third, who she did credit. I'm not sure is those cases should be counted. I'm not familiar with academic norms however.
Great read! Very informative! We need people like the author to shine different perspectives or evidence contrary to a narrative or agenda!
I personally do not feel the burden of other people’s labels, if I allowed every label, thrown liberally around these days, to stick, I would have suffocated by now! I KNOW ME and know I have zero hate for my fellow human beings!
I want government and their bureaucratic cronies to take a hike and let me live my life! If their so called insights were correct, why is the world MORE hateful now than I remember in my lifetime (rhetorical question).
I’ll resort to kindergarten language (it’s how establishment & cronies treat us) and say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me”. Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true, the labels go on my mental bonfire and I move on!
Thought I’d give a basic personal view, I’ll leave the deep dives and high-brow analysis to folks like the author who’s intelligence far outweighs mine 😂🤝
I read this excerpt from Jake Klein’s soon-to-be-released book with interest, having some knowledge of the subject.
I’ve participated in many groups and trainings that were descendants of T-Groups, as well as leading some myself.
In my opinion, the methodology of T-Groups is value-neutral. Participants engage in an unstructured group setting, observe their own behavior, receive feedback, and learn about their impact on others. That makes it easy to apply in a variety of fields and environments, and probably accounts for its widespread adoption. There is evidence that T-Groups are effective in instigating change in individuals and groups, although that’s somewhat subjective. It’s my personal experience. As T-Groups evolved and were adapted to different situations they generally became less extreme, and more sophisticated.
It’s unsurprising that DiAngelo and others would turn to that model when conducting their groups. It’s a structure that can be adapted to whatever content you like.
However, like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.
I’ve seen it used both ways, sometimes even in the same organization. Once you dismantle the participants’ belief system you may find yourself with a lot of power, and unfortunately some people abuse it. But a skilled leader uses it to encourage positive attributes like self-awareness, honest interpersonal communication, and sensitivity to others. The ethical, self-aware leader encourages participants to think for themselves.
Above, I said the methodology was values-neutral, and I think that’s generally true. However, you could make the case that one of the values promoted in such groups is self-awareness. In my experience, that’s often the result. Also, direct interpersonal communication is often encouraged, which is consistent with Western values; that’s not necessarily the case in other cultures. To the extent that the methodology itself can be said to incorporate values, they’re consistent with those of Enlightenment liberalism. It probably looks neutral to me because those are my values.
On the other hand, if you want to create a cult and instill a belief system it’s also very effective. That’s manifestly what DEI trainings seek to do. In the case of DiAngelo, she’s so convinced of her own infallibility that workshop participants who were resistant and hostile to her message were pathologized as having “white fragility.” She invented and popularized a term for what were her personal failures as a workshop leader, as well as the incoherence of the ideology she was promoting. Her teaching methodology no doubt amplified those weaknesses, but it was not their origin.
Anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of engaging with a CSJ activist has quickly realized that they’re impervious to rational argument and facts. That observation has led to comparisons with cults, which are apt.
As far as I know, those of us who are critical of DEI, and of critical social justice in general, have not come up with an adequate response to it. Maybe that’s not important. The whole shoddy enterprise will collapse eventually from its internal incoherence. However, if you did want to deprogram cult members, or more realistically, inoculate people who haven’t yet succumbed to group-think, you would want to consider T-Group methodology. There’s nothing intrinsically nefarious about it, and in fact it’s a useful tool.
Is it ethical, when you’re in the midst of a destructive mass delusion, to sit on the sidelines and wait for it to implode on its own? I’m interested in the conversation about constructive responses to the ideology that at least mitigate the damage, if not accelerate its demise.
I remember reading Race Experts by Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn a few years ago and thinking the things she was criticizing sounded really similar to some of the “recovery cult” insanity (synanon and its offshoots). Sounds like that’s not a coincidence. Looking forward to reading or listening to your book