12 ICSA TODAY
plays into the group’s agenda, strengthening typically adversarial
us-vs.-them narratives and further coalescing recruits into “the fold.”
Approaching recruits on the basis of reciprocity is virtually
impossible in practice if not in principle. Membership in the group
is prerequisite for credibility, so genuine reciprocity with outsiders
is out of the question. Our merely being outside automatically
discounts or casts suspicion over everything we say.
Approaching recruits on the basis of communality is problematic
since it’s typically reserved for group members. However, there’s
an exception: potential recruits! Potential recruits aren’t given
full access to the group’s internal information and workings, but
enough access to enable them to build communal rapport with
established recruits who are eager to see whether they can win
over a new convert. And this exception brings us back to the basic
issue.
How to Get Believers to Think Critically
How can we approach recruits in a way that makes them genuinely
interested in thinking critically about their involvement in a
group? In my experience, this happens only in relationships of
communality, and taking on the role of a potential recruit is one
way of introducing the concept.
Presenting ourselves as open to recruitment would be
disingenuous if we were absolutely closed to it but if we were,
that would imply another irony. Critical thinking directs us to
recognize true and valuable ideas wherever we find them. Before
we can declare that truth and value can’t be found somewhere,
we first need to actually look for them there with open minds.
Even if we’re quite sure that the possibility is out of the question,
intellectual integrity requires that we at least give it a chance. If we
aren’t honestly willing to look, we have no right to advocate critical
thinking.
In their typical proselytizing zeal, fringe-group recruits need little
more than our openness to see us as candidates for recruitment.
I’m amazed at how intimidating it can be to face this prospect in
practice, but if it’s too much of a stretch, consider that all but the
most reclusively paranoid groups are amenable to us in a friends-
of-the-group status—especially if we’re generous friends! So even
knowing that we’ll never become a member, communality is still
possible as a friend of the group.
To help recruits, we need to
• gain access to them that they deem credible,
advantageous, and safe
• foster friendships—i.e., relationships of communality
• honor and defend keeping the responsibility for critical
thinking and other evaluative activities firmly in their
hands and
• approach critical thinking in a palatable form.
I suggest that we take an indirect approach, insinuating critical
thinking by modeling it as our own questions for our own sake,
relying on recruits to answer and resolve those questions for us.
To avoid their instinctive revulsion to critique, focus critique on
ourselves, on our questions and perplexities as friendly, actively
supportive, credibility-assuming, nonanalytical, nonevaluative
friends who are relying on them for answers. This is a relationship
model that they understand, and it’s not foreign to us, either. We
instinctively approach our friends openly and supportively about
their beloved pursuits. The more politic of us also approach them
this way even when they engage in pursuits we find objectionable.
On the flip side, being friendly when we feel it’s risky poses a
dilemma. We tend to retreat from the vulnerability and obligations
of friendliness when we face risks to our safety, well-being, or
status but we tolerate those risks for friends, at least to a point, so
we have precedents that serve as models. And curiously, avoiding
the conflicts discussed above reduces our sense of risk and, more
importantly, a fringe-group recruit’s sense of risk this in turn makes
it easier for us to develop and navigate friendships with them.
Here is just one way to use a friend approach with someone who is
getting involved in a fringe group (and there are plenty more, I’m
sure):
1. Familiarize yourself with your friend’s new interest, appreciating
her intentions and goals. Instead of implications of her
involvement in the group, focus on your friend and her hopes.
Even if you’re sure that she will be disappointed, identify with
what she experiences. Doing this makes you an ally in the real
purpose of group involvement: hope fulfillment.
2. Participate with your friend. Meet her new friends. Expose
yourself to her thinking and activities as much as you can,
especially her unusual, distinctive ideas and practices. Noticing
these shows that you “get it.” As things don’t make sense to you,
ask questions and pose problems as your own, and expect your
friend to provide answers and solutions, leaving the onus on her.
This approach increases her discomfort with the group’s beliefs
and agenda without your taking a critical posture.
3. Extrapolate: Carry the group’s claims to their logical conclusions,
steering away from theory and doctrine except as they pertain
to real-life outcomes. Leverage the same imaginative, synthetic
thinking that she counterposes against critical thinking to
stage a need for critical thinking. Imagine wonderful outcomes
resulting from group involvement, with the images serving as
goalposts by which to gauge progress toward hope fulfillment.
Because the extrapolations endorse the group’s claims, she will
likely accept them, even enthusiastically. Express that you can’t
at this time believe that those results will materialize and explain
why, albeit in sincere hope that you’re mistaken.
4. If necessary, after giving your friend and the group a fair hearing
and a sincere try, explain why you won’t continue to be involved.
At this point your reasons will carry more weight, and she will be
more sympathetic and receptive.
5. Check in periodically to see how the recruit is, especially to see
whether you—not she—might have been wrong. If she has new
information, explore it. If she merely reiterates beautiful beliefs
that her hopes will one day materialize, be supportive but point
Before we can declare that truth and
value can’t be found somewhere,
we first need to actually look for
them there with open minds.
plays into the group’s agenda, strengthening typically adversarial
us-vs.-them narratives and further coalescing recruits into “the fold.”
Approaching recruits on the basis of reciprocity is virtually
impossible in practice if not in principle. Membership in the group
is prerequisite for credibility, so genuine reciprocity with outsiders
is out of the question. Our merely being outside automatically
discounts or casts suspicion over everything we say.
Approaching recruits on the basis of communality is problematic
since it’s typically reserved for group members. However, there’s
an exception: potential recruits! Potential recruits aren’t given
full access to the group’s internal information and workings, but
enough access to enable them to build communal rapport with
established recruits who are eager to see whether they can win
over a new convert. And this exception brings us back to the basic
issue.
How to Get Believers to Think Critically
How can we approach recruits in a way that makes them genuinely
interested in thinking critically about their involvement in a
group? In my experience, this happens only in relationships of
communality, and taking on the role of a potential recruit is one
way of introducing the concept.
Presenting ourselves as open to recruitment would be
disingenuous if we were absolutely closed to it but if we were,
that would imply another irony. Critical thinking directs us to
recognize true and valuable ideas wherever we find them. Before
we can declare that truth and value can’t be found somewhere,
we first need to actually look for them there with open minds.
Even if we’re quite sure that the possibility is out of the question,
intellectual integrity requires that we at least give it a chance. If we
aren’t honestly willing to look, we have no right to advocate critical
thinking.
In their typical proselytizing zeal, fringe-group recruits need little
more than our openness to see us as candidates for recruitment.
I’m amazed at how intimidating it can be to face this prospect in
practice, but if it’s too much of a stretch, consider that all but the
most reclusively paranoid groups are amenable to us in a friends-
of-the-group status—especially if we’re generous friends! So even
knowing that we’ll never become a member, communality is still
possible as a friend of the group.
To help recruits, we need to
• gain access to them that they deem credible,
advantageous, and safe
• foster friendships—i.e., relationships of communality
• honor and defend keeping the responsibility for critical
thinking and other evaluative activities firmly in their
hands and
• approach critical thinking in a palatable form.
I suggest that we take an indirect approach, insinuating critical
thinking by modeling it as our own questions for our own sake,
relying on recruits to answer and resolve those questions for us.
To avoid their instinctive revulsion to critique, focus critique on
ourselves, on our questions and perplexities as friendly, actively
supportive, credibility-assuming, nonanalytical, nonevaluative
friends who are relying on them for answers. This is a relationship
model that they understand, and it’s not foreign to us, either. We
instinctively approach our friends openly and supportively about
their beloved pursuits. The more politic of us also approach them
this way even when they engage in pursuits we find objectionable.
On the flip side, being friendly when we feel it’s risky poses a
dilemma. We tend to retreat from the vulnerability and obligations
of friendliness when we face risks to our safety, well-being, or
status but we tolerate those risks for friends, at least to a point, so
we have precedents that serve as models. And curiously, avoiding
the conflicts discussed above reduces our sense of risk and, more
importantly, a fringe-group recruit’s sense of risk this in turn makes
it easier for us to develop and navigate friendships with them.
Here is just one way to use a friend approach with someone who is
getting involved in a fringe group (and there are plenty more, I’m
sure):
1. Familiarize yourself with your friend’s new interest, appreciating
her intentions and goals. Instead of implications of her
involvement in the group, focus on your friend and her hopes.
Even if you’re sure that she will be disappointed, identify with
what she experiences. Doing this makes you an ally in the real
purpose of group involvement: hope fulfillment.
2. Participate with your friend. Meet her new friends. Expose
yourself to her thinking and activities as much as you can,
especially her unusual, distinctive ideas and practices. Noticing
these shows that you “get it.” As things don’t make sense to you,
ask questions and pose problems as your own, and expect your
friend to provide answers and solutions, leaving the onus on her.
This approach increases her discomfort with the group’s beliefs
and agenda without your taking a critical posture.
3. Extrapolate: Carry the group’s claims to their logical conclusions,
steering away from theory and doctrine except as they pertain
to real-life outcomes. Leverage the same imaginative, synthetic
thinking that she counterposes against critical thinking to
stage a need for critical thinking. Imagine wonderful outcomes
resulting from group involvement, with the images serving as
goalposts by which to gauge progress toward hope fulfillment.
Because the extrapolations endorse the group’s claims, she will
likely accept them, even enthusiastically. Express that you can’t
at this time believe that those results will materialize and explain
why, albeit in sincere hope that you’re mistaken.
4. If necessary, after giving your friend and the group a fair hearing
and a sincere try, explain why you won’t continue to be involved.
At this point your reasons will carry more weight, and she will be
more sympathetic and receptive.
5. Check in periodically to see how the recruit is, especially to see
whether you—not she—might have been wrong. If she has new
information, explore it. If she merely reiterates beautiful beliefs
that her hopes will one day materialize, be supportive but point
Before we can declare that truth and
value can’t be found somewhere,
we first need to actually look for
them there with open minds.
