nefariously lurking

The idea that communities tend to form a group mind, by virtue of which they function, is likely to be controversial. At least it is post-Kleinian theorists who sometimes suggest it, but it is not widely written about. Such theorists refer to how the function of this group mind is a way of coping caused by stress, and leads to a use of the unconscious mind at a primitive level, to forge a sense of oneness with the other members of the organisation. Donald Meltzer, following Wilfred Bion, refers to basic assumption groups and this link states that It is only at the level of fantasy that the regression occurs. Yet it can be very clear to one who has been operating outside of the logic of any particular group's "basic assumptions" that these assumptions tend to coalesce into something more solid than the notion of a group "fantasy" readily explains. To encounter the fantasy from the point of view of one who is operating well outside of the fantasy is to reinact the experience of the Titanic "discovering" and iceberg for the first time. Up until then, the idea that the group was working on the basis of primitive systems of communication that go beneath the level of rational consciousness would have seemed outrageous to you.

But not now. Now you know that you have most certainly hit something. And even if what it was you hit cannot yet be understood, the gaping gash in the side is testimony to the fact that something significant has been encountered in actuality, not as fantasy.

I think there is a reason why why those who have experienced bullying within some kind of organisational system have difficulty explaining themselves. There are those who will maintain quite forcefully that "there are no icebergs here" and "nothing has been struck!" -- for indeed the ocean seems to look extremely calm from the perspective of the surface of consciousness. It is only once something has been hit that one changes one's entire view about all of this. Whilst life may seem to offer nothing but plain sailing, there is often something else that lurks nefariously beneath sun-gilded surfaces.

Some would call it politics.