This concerns the phenomenon of groups of people, assumed to be deficient in some manner, forming networks in which they individually do not process information but spin and repeat it, echolalia processing networks or swarms of collective intelligence.
Echolalia refers to the repeating of words and phrases common to certain neurological disorders. I am seriously over the line using the word in a nonstandard fashion. It is a technical term, not casual slang. However, I find nothing in the language that describes what I am talking about as precisely as it does. So, aggressively, I'm using it.
The phenomenon in question is not the simple repetition of a neurological disorder but a complex 'spin', loading the word or phrase with extraneous meanings by usage, and repeating it in degrees of paraphrase. It is not the marker of a disorder that simple echolalia is but there are clear indications of processing deficiencies in its occurrence.
A database deficiency, an IQ deficiency, a paradigm deficiency, or even a mild neurological deficiency could generate this phenomenon. The spin maximizes at one logical next step from the individual cognitive perception of the word or phrase as a hypothesis of meaning created out of incomplete comprehension.
In a group of similar deficiencies this echolalia serves to 'level' communal discourse and process information by spin success and spin failure as judged by communal consensus in the common act of at least appearing to make sense.
Thus, the swarm is always smarter than the individual members leading to the apparent occurrence of communal intelligence. The adaptive advantage for people of significant deficiencies is obvious.
The swarm commands deference because it's more likely to be right than the deficient member.
A sound mind possessed of relevant databases and paradigms and sufficient comprehension distrusts groupthink because it's more likely to be hit and miss.
This profound dichotomy divides ideologically, religiously, and economically. It is unavoidable given the differential functioning of individual neurology. It is just a matter of style, different strokes for different folks, but the complications in human social existence are extreme.
Do Well and Be Well.
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