Floyd Fenix read my column about radical Americans and certain corporations banding together to "cancel" those with whom they disagree, thus ignoring our U.S. Constitution that guarantees individual freedoms of speech and expression.
Fenix, a retired general manager, president and vice president for various companies, earned a reputation for turning ailing businesses into successful enterprises.
He was able to create winning teams of employees by teaching managers the discipline of group membership social identity. "As a result, I was able to repeatedly build world-class teams of employees over and over," he said.
The theory was conceived in the 1970s by Henri Tajfel. Tajfel, a Polish social psychologist, is best known for his pioneering work on the cognitive aspects of prejudice and social identity theory.
Tajfel's theory suggests that individuals will experience a collective identity based on their membership in any group, such as racial/ethnic and gender identities. Therein lies one explanation for radicals who unite in common cause when it comes to "canceling" supposedly inferior fellow citizens who refuse to embrace their ideology.
Fenix, of Texarkana, said he didn't realize there was a discipline called "group membership identity" until after retirement. "I had discovered and used this process, I just did not know there was a name," he said.
Neither did I in 1973 when I became executive editor of the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record and challenged my newsroom staff of 14 to work together to become "the best small daily paper in America."
As the months ticked away, the staff for the first time began regularly producing one blockbuster local news story after another; the national recognition received as a result took a back seat to no other smaller daily nationwide. By 1976 I believe they'd achieved that common group goal primarily because they believed they could.
They began to believe in themselves as members of a team with a renewed common cause of excellence and therefore repeatedly strived to create their pattern of success.
It was very similar to what Fenix has accomplished. "People want to belong to a superior group," Fenix said. "All people. So, I created an image (out of thin air) that these people were a 'world-class team' and they were better than anyone else ... anywhere." Then it happened.
"When all my managers managed well, in unison I could see the entire facility turn on a dime and become much better in just three or four weeks' time with additional growth going on forever."
Fenix said he continually bragged about his teams to everyone at those facilities and even in town. And as employees took ownership, their self-esteem increased.
"They became proud of being on a winning team and started performing on that level. It became real to them and became a vital part of who they were. This became their identity," he said.
In the process, Fenix said, they verbally ran down competing firms and displayed prejudice and discrimination against competitors. In terms of certain groups canceling others, the concept of demeaning competitors and displaying prejudice against conservatives is just what we see happening now, he added.
"Group social identity does two things," Fenix said. "It increases self-esteem and it maximizes positive behavior toward the group they identify with. (This is what is happening now against the conservatives.)"
This concept could be difficult for some to visualize having never seen it, yet it is very real, he further explained. It's "as strong a motivator as sex. Works unbelievably well."
He went on to say that employing social identity group membership can cause people to even advocate for things they feel are wrong or criminal. "If you tell someone this, they will think you are nuts," he said. "Sounds illogical. But the desire to become a part of a 'superior group' is so powerful it causes people to change their basic values.
"This is why people join motorcycle gangs and then start doing terrible things. This is why youths band together and pick on weaker children at school."
My initial column that mentioned how social cliques in high school routinely ignored or demeaned other students they perceived as unworthy of their group is what prompted Fenix to write to me to explain the nature and power of social identity.
Groups of like-minded Americans banding together to cancel those who don't subscribe to their supposedly "superior" ideology seems entirely reasonable (though misguided) when explained this way.
It also helps explain why so many German citizens would have willingly followed the self-appointed "Master Race" of Nazis during World War II, even though they may have disagreed with the terrible things they saw committed by the Third Reich.
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.