I have been thinking alot about groups lately, group dynamics, family dynamics even internet dynamics. Its interesting that many of the best and the worst aspects of typical group behaviour can be magnified in cyberworld. Many on-line groups and services offer 24 hour information and on-line support and communication. With a few key strokes, an internet user can be introduced to a new world, new people with similar interests and concerns across the globe. The potential for creativity is tremendous. Modern medicine for instance, can access the expertise of a surgeon from another country anywhere in the world and this person can perform a delicate operation in his office, while the patient lies on a table hours or days away by flight. On-line therapy means that a client may have his choice of therapists, specializing in any area of expertise allowing a person the choices he wouldn't normally have in a remote community. On-line games keep happy gamers logged-on for hours.Yes, the possibilities great and small are endless.
But group dynamics are another thing. On-line forums and support groups, chat rooms may very well bring people from all over the world to a place to discuss common interests, but the age old problem of unconscious material is not typically handled well in cyberspace, in my opinion. This is new terrain, relatively speaking in the history of human interaction. While the on-line group can be a potential for great communication and healing, it can also be a place where the worst of human dynamics take place. Great damage against others can be inflicted without the same level of conscientious consideration that face to face contact demands. Lets face it, no one thinks that a few words can cause harm or influence others. But as it has been said through antiquity, indeed "the pen is mightier than the sword". Add to on-line writing, hate filled rethoric, malicious intent and zero consequences for unethical actions, and many people can be routinely influenced by the negativity and bullying of internet banter. Hateful rethoric can be disguised as "free speech", "nonsencical or fanatical thought" and honest opinion but that is limited to an online paper, journal or blog.
What if malicious dialogue happens routinely in a group, where psychological connections and associations are made with other group members? What if it is tolerated as the norm within the group and any protestors are seen as outside the group norm?
These are interesting questions for cyber ethics and group study. The on-line forum has great potential for connection, relationships, dialogue and intellectual sharing. It also has great potential for incubating psychopathology both in the internet and in non-internet social settings. The antedote in my opinion, is reflection on problem group dynamics and healthy group dynamics and applying the principals learned to internet settings.
The problem of group influence over its members is an old one-much study of groups has learned how typical family dynamics are often taken into social settings unconsciously and then people take on the unrealized roles in a family: The goodchild; the fixer; the scapegoat; the problemchild; the bully; the ghost; the dependent one;the clown, etc. Here is an intersting link to group dynamics study. There are many out there but little has been written on group dynamics in cyberspace.
http://www.proteuscoven.org/proteus/frypan.htm
Yes, my recent experience with forum participation has made me think of a poem written by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
Poem "First they came ...." (1976 version)
Original
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.
Peace,
CK
