Issues in a New Group
Among the most problematic issues of a man’s life is the relationship within the group to which the man belongs to. Whether (s)he will be accepted or not, how the rest of the team will treat him/her and the like are often the matter of life and death to an individual.
Showing what place one takes in the given group is the key issue. Identifying ourselves in the company, we prevent ourselves from merging with the rest of the group, from losing our personality.
The rank is the second thing to consider. Depending on the extent of control that one can take over the rest of the company, the social status may be changed into a higher or a lower one.
Since every group has certain aims, it is important to realize whether your own needs and wants will be taken into account. Often connected with the rank and the amount of influence, this issue is extremely important for a healthy atmosphere in a group.
Finally, it is important to realize the quality of relationships in the group as well. Often haunted by the fear of alienation, many people try to get as close to the new company as possible. In spite of the fact that warm and hearty relations in the group are preferable, one must keep in mind that there must be a certain border between the company life and the private sphere of each of the members. Thus, it is necessary to be a little bit distanced from the group – just to differentiate between the peers and the family, for example.
Effective Goal Statements for Leadership in Group
At the end of the course, I will be able to take an active part in the group discussions and suggest working solutions for certain problems.
When the course is over, I will be able to make a distinction between the group goals and between my ambitions and compromise so that they both could coexist.
By the next week, I will take a more active position in the group activities.
As the course is over, I will try to change my current group status.
At the end of the year, I will become the group strategist who considers every problem which appears in the group and helps to solve it.
Reflections on Ricky Sherover-Marcuse’s “Towards a Perspective on Unlearning Racism” Article
“No young person acquires misinformation by their own free choice. Racist attitudes and beliefs are a mixture of misinformation and ignorance which has to be imposed upon young people through a painful process of social conditioning. “You have to be taught to hate and fear.”
It seems that if all people had an opportunity to read these words, there would be no wars at all. However, can it be that such a simple and natural idea could not occur to some people and trigger devastating wars and terrible misunderstandings? It seems that there much more to this problem than meets the eye.
On the one hand, hardly anyone wants to be buried under the thick layer of prejudices and social injustice. Yet, on the other hand, the political issues leading to discords and wars must be based on something much more solid than the ideas of hatred and fear.
There is no doubt that people have to be taught certain things to start a conflict or a war. However, there must be the one who implants the destructive ideas into the brains of millions of people, and this evil genius, this mysterious person is the key element of the paradox. Who could have taught this very person, the “firestarter”, the evil plans, and the harmful ideas? Could that be that the evil roots much deeper than people can think?
It seems that the plans of mischief and hatred cannot be merely seeded in someone’s head – in my opinion, it is unnatural for a man to be evil. This must be a psychological twist which certain people are born with, and they infect the others – this is where the above-mentioned “social conditioning” starts. Take Hitler as an example.
“As young people, we have often witnessed despair and cynicism in the adults around us, and we have often been made to feel powerless in the face of injustice. Racism continues in part because people feel powerless to do anything about it.”
Do the things which people witness at a young age influence their future life so hard that they cannot tell the right thing from the wrong one? Indeed, a child trauma can be painful, and it can result after a bunch of years have passed, but it still seems to me that childhood memories can be handled. The bases of psychoanalysis teach us that even the most painful experiences from the past can be handled, and an individual can be healed completely.
However, there is no doubt that, when neglected, a problem faced in childhood can bring tragic results in the future. Even if one seems to have forgotten about what happened some years ago, the reminiscences are still kept deep inside.
Still, these “rudiments” can be coped with, once a person realizes that something is going wrong deep inside him/her. Once the source of pain has been identified, it is possible to fight it, and thus even the oldest trauma can be healed. It is only that such a process can take time, like any other therapy.