{"id":66030,"date":"2004-07-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2004\/07\/18\/une-querelle-de-virtualistes-autour-du-groupthinking\/"},"modified":"2004-07-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-07-18T00:00:00","slug":"une-querelle-de-virtualistes-autour-du-groupthinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2004\/07\/18\/une-querelle-de-virtualistes-autour-du-groupthinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Une querelle de virtualistes autour du groupthinking<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Une querelle de virtualistes autour du groupthinking<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\t18 juillet 2004 Depuis le rapport du Congr\u00e8s condamnant la CIA dans la pr\u00e9paration de la guerre contre l’Irak, un concept d\u00e9j\u00e0 connu mais jusqu’ici discr\u00e8tement ignor\u00e9 en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, fait son apparition dans le d\u00e9bat public : le groupthink<\/em>, ou group-thinking<\/em>. En effet, ce rapport indique clairement que le premier reproche fait \u00e0 la CIA est celui de groupthink<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab Republicans, who have the majority on the committee, have ensured that suggestions that the administration manipulated intelligence do not appear anywhere in the report’s 500-plus pages. Rather the report chose to blame what it termed group-think assumptions Iraq had weapons that it did not. It said there were a number of factors for this. Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the committee, told reporters there had been a global intelligence failure.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbThis group-think dynamic led intelligence community analysts, collectors and managers to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD programme as well as ignore or minimise evidence that Iraq did not have active and expanding weapons of mass destruction programmes, the report concluded. It said such assumptions also led analysts to inflate snippets of questionable information.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNos lecteurs connaissent d\u00e9j\u00e0 le concept de groupthink<\/em>, notamment avec le cas de John Hamre, t\u00e9moignant en septembre 2003 sur les causes (injustifi\u00e9es) de la guerre contre l’Irak<\/a>. Hamre n’\u00e9tait pas trop partisan et ne tentait pas d’en faire un cas pol\u00e9mique contre tel ou tel groupe ; il est manifeste que les accusations contre la CIA, et seulement contre la CIA, si elles sont en partie fond\u00e9es, ne sont l\u00e0 que pour faire de l’Agence un bouc-\u00e9missaire ; qu’en fait de groupthink<\/em>, les groupes \u00e0 l’int\u00e9rieur de l’administration, au Pentagone, chez les n\u00e9o-conservateurs, autour de GW et chez GW lui-m\u00eame, d\u00e9passent la CIA de cent, de mille coud\u00e9es, et que l’accusation contre la CIA est donc, stricto sensu<\/em> et sans couvrir la CIA de vertus qu’elle n’a pas, une compl\u00e8te imposture historique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOn peut avancer que la CIA, dans l’affaire de l’Irak, \u00e9tait le groupe qui croyait le moins aux capacit\u00e9s d’armement et de menace de Saddam. Le bouc-\u00e9missaire fut, dans cette affaire, le plus mod\u00e9r\u00e9 de tous<\/a>. (Par exemple, le Guardian<\/em> du 10 octobre 2002 : \u00ab President George Bush’s attempt to maintain public support for military action against Iraq has taken a fresh blow from an unexpected quarter, with the publication of a letter from the CIA stating that while Saddam Hussein poses little threat to America now, a US invasion could push him into retaliating with chemical or biological weapons.<\/em> \u00bb). La d\u00e9signation de la CIA comme bouc-\u00e9missaire n’a pour fonction que de mieux dissimuler la parano\u00efa des autres et leurs responsabilit\u00e9s, et mieux pr\u00e9parer l’entreprise de remise au pas de la CIA qui s’annonce.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tQuoi qu’il en soit, l’\u00e9pisode nous invite \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer avec int\u00e9r\u00eat l’\u00e9mergence du concept groupthink<\/em>. Nous rappelons, comme on le voit avec notre commentaire de l’intervention de John Hamre<\/a>, que ce terme est pour nous le terme bureaucratique qui d\u00e9signe le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne d’uniformisation conformiste de la pens\u00e9e qui se rapproche le plus du virtualisme, terme d\u00e9signant \u00e0 son tour la cr\u00e9ation d’un univers parall\u00e8le au n\u00f4tre avec la particularit\u00e9 fondamentale que les protagonistes et acteurs de cet univers croient sans restriction \u00e0 sa r\u00e9alit\u00e9 \u00e0 la place de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9. C’est un \u00e9trange d\u00e9bat qui s’ouvre aux USA : cette super-puissance si satisfaite de sa puissance et de son contr\u00f4le du monde vit-elle dans l’univers r\u00e9el ? Vaste sujet, vaste programme.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSignalons deux commentaires qui reprennent cette id\u00e9e de groupthink<\/em> en la d\u00e9veloppant pour leurs propres th\u00e8ses, l’un de fa\u00e7on critiquable, l’autre certainement moins. Cela promet, puisque ainsi appara\u00eet le paradoxe de voir le concept de groupthink<\/em>, ou virtualisme, d\u00e9sormais en voie d’\u00eatre manipul\u00e9 par certains dans un but virtualiste, \u00e9videmment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0Le texte le plus caract\u00e9ristique, t\u00e9moignant du degr\u00e9 atteint aujourd’hui aux USA dans la construction id\u00e9ologique d’irr\u00e9alit\u00e9s absolues, on le trouve dans ce commentaire de William Safire<\/a>, reproduisant selon une approche structur\u00e9e la th\u00e8se g\u00e9n\u00e9rale des n\u00e9o-conservateurs, qui laisse sans voix : ainsi, c’est bien la CIA qui a construit un casus belli<\/em> illusoire pour nous lancer contre l’Irak, alors qu’il existe bel et bien un v\u00e9ritable casus belli<\/em> mais que la CIA n’a pas su voir, parce qu’elle a une pens\u00e9e type-groupthink<\/em> Le texte de Safire est du second, du troisi\u00e8me degr\u00e9 : accuser la CIA d’un montage virtualiste pour conclure qu’\u00e9videmment elle dissimule ainsi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, laquelle est en r\u00e9alit\u00e9 un deuxi\u00e8me montage virtualiste, celui des n\u00e9o-conservateurs qui savent bien que les liens entre Saddam-Al Qa\u00efda sont aussi gros qu’un c\u00e2ble d’amarrage d’un quatre-mats d’entra\u00eenement des \u00e9quipages de la Flotte.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab Today, as Election Day nears, groupthink has swung back again, to this: Saddam not only had no terror weapons, but he had little or nothing to do with Al Qaeda – therefore, our liberation of Iraq was a waste of lives and money.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Consider the official pressure to get with the latest groupthink: the 9\/11 commission staff assured us recently that repeated contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda (including the presence in Baghdad and Kurdistan by the reigning terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), did not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee chimed in, saying these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship. <\/em>[]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t \u00bb <Think about that. Do today’s groupthinkers believe that Osama bin Laden would sit down with Saddam in front of the world’s cameras to sign a mutual assistance pact, establishing a formal relationship? Terrorists and rogue states don’t work that way. Mass killers collaborate informally, without a photo-op, even secretly.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0Le deuxi\u00e8me texte, encore plus int\u00e9ressant sans doute, est de Barbara Ehrenreich, sous le titre \u00ab All Together Now<\/em> \u00bb, paru dans le New York Times du 15 juillet 2004<\/a>. Ehrenreich aborde le probl\u00e8me du groupthink<\/em> en observant que cette trouvaille donn\u00e9e pour expliquer les erreurs de la CIA, ressemble, apr\u00e8s tout, \u00e0 l’exercice courant de l’enfoncement des portes ouvertes, Attendu, \u00e9videmment, que nous d\u00e9bouchons ainsi sur l’univers virtualiste. En fait, observe-t-elle, il s’agit ni plus ni moins que de la description de l’\u00e9tat psychologique de l’Am\u00e9rique depuis le 11 septembre 2001. Cette approche, combin\u00e9e aux pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes, tend \u00e0 montrer que, de plus en plus, s’affirme aux Etats-Unis une interrogation confuse, complexe, contradictoire mais puissante, non plus sur la puissance de la nation, ni sur son comportement moral, etc, mais bien sur les caract\u00e9ristiques fondamentales d’une psychologie secou\u00e9e au-del\u00e0 de toute description par les \u00e9v\u00e9nements survenus depuis le 11 septembre 2001.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab Their faces long with disapproval, the anchors announced that the reason for the war had finally been uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it was groupthink, not to mention collective groupthink. It sounds so kinky and un-American, like something that might go on in a North Korean stadium or in one of those sex clubs that Jack Ryan, the former Illinois Senate candidate, is accused of dragging his wife to. But supposedly intelligent, morally upstanding people had been indulging in it right in Langley, Va.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb This is a surprise? Groupthink has become as American as apple pie and prisoner abuse; in fact, it’s hard to find any thinking these days that doesn’t qualify for the prefix group. Our standardized-test-driven schools reward the right answer, not the unsettling question. Our corporate culture prides itself on individualism, but it’s the team player with the fixed smile who gets to be employee of the month. In our political culture, the most crushing rebuke is to call someone out of step with the American people. Zip your lips, is the universal message, and get with the program.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb This summer’s remake of the Stepford Wives doesn’t have anything coherent to say about gender politics: Men are the oppressors? Women are the oppressors? Or maybe just Glenn Close? But it does play to the fantasy, more widespread than I’d realized, that if you were to rip off the face of the person sitting in the next cubicle, you’d find nothing but circuit boards underneath.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb I trace the current outbreak of droidlike conformity to the immediate aftermath of 9\/11, when groupthink became the official substitute for patriotism, and we began to run out of surfaces for affixing American flags. Bill Maher lost his job for pointing out that, whatever else they were, the 9\/11 terrorists weren’t cowards, prompting Ari Fleischer to warn (though he has since backed down) that Americans need to watch what they say. Never mind that Sun Tzu says, somewhere in his oeuvre, that while it’s soothing to underestimate the enemy, it’s often fatal, too.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Une querelle de virtualistes autour du groupthinking 18 juillet 2004 Depuis le rapport du Congr\u00e8s condamnant la CIA dans la pr\u00e9paration de la guerre contre l’Irak, un concept d\u00e9j\u00e0 connu mais jusqu’ici discr\u00e8tement ignor\u00e9 en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, fait son apparition dans le d\u00e9bat public : le groupthink, ou group-thinking. En effet, ce rapport indique clairement que… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3936,3635,4315,3831,4242,3794],"class_list":["post-66030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-al","tag-groupthink","tag-groupthinking","tag-neo-conservateurs","tag-qaida","tag-safire"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}