APPENDIX B - Group Myth Analysis

In addition to analyzing personal myths, you can also analyze group myth. Knowing a group’s myth will tell you what a particular group is all about and help you decide if you want to be a member. If you are already a member, group myth analysis can help you improve the group and solve some of its problems as well as figure out your proper place in the group and how to better relate to the other members.

Whatever you want from the analysis of a group’s myth, state that goal now. Write it down so you will make it clear to yourself exactly what questions about the myth you want answered.

Group Type
What kind of group is it? Does it have a formal written structure, perhaps detailed in bylaws, or is it more loosely structured based on understandings and relationships among the members? Is the group long-term, such as your family or your high school? Is it short-term, coming together for a particular agenda and then disbanding, such as the party you went to last weekend or the jury you served on?

Long-term groups will have an ongoing myth that will probably be cyclic, demonstrating similar morals time and again. The roles in a long-term group will often outlast the members’ stay in the group, so a role will be filled by one person, then another.

Short-term groups will have a simpler, more direct story line. They myth will have a central question the group exists to answer and when an answer is obtained, the myth is over and the group disbands. Usually a given role will be filled by the same person throughout the entire myth.

Story Questions
We can start our group myth analysis by asking what questions the group exists to answer. Every group has questions it is answering that organize the group’s behavior. Formal groups may have a written mission statement. “Can we accomplish our mission?” is one of their questions. An informal group, such as the regulars at the coffee shop, might be working on question like “Can we entertain each other and help each other’s myths advance?”, even though such questions have never occurred to them.

No group knows all the questions it is answering. The staff of a school is aware of the question “Can we teach these children to read?” It is less aware of the question “Can we get these children to abandon any sense of their own personal authority in favor of our version of the common knowledge from the cultural group myth?” or the question “Can we relieve our own alpha starvation by dominating the students?” There are questions every group myth has but the group must not acknowledge or the group myth might not hold the members. Members that see these hidden questions that contradict the nominal mission of the group and their own ideals may find themselves under such stress that they burn out and leave. However, if they can persevere, they have a chance to lead the group to clean up its myth and become much more effective.

To analyze the group myth you need to see as many of its story questions as you can. Watch carefully what the group does. What is actually happening as opposed to what the group tells you it is doing? Everything the members are doing in connection with the group is in response to a question in the group myth. There are many questions in any group myth. Try to see the most important ones, often those that are the source of repeated action, and as many others as you can. The more you see, the more complete will be your analysis.

Obstacles
What are the obstacles the group confronts? As with questions, there are obstacles the group is aware of and others that it is not. Your job is to, as much as possible, see them all. As you did with questions, see what barriers, problems, and delays the group is actually dealing with instead of just the ones they think they face.

Actions
What does the group, as a whole and as individual members, do to achieve its goals and thus get the desired answers to its questions? What does the group do that seems counterproductive to reaching its nominal goals? These actions are in response to questions in the group myth at cross purposes with those goals. Noticing these actions will help you realize the full range of questions in the group myth.

Are there actions that would be more effective ways for the group to meet its goals? What would they be and why doesn’t the group use the better method? Is it ignorance of the better way, or does the inefficient method yield other results the group needs to answer questions and demonstrate morals in its myth? What actions are prohibited in the group? Why?

Characters
The group is the protagonist of its myth and as such is a character. If that character were a person, how would you describe that person? What kind of character does the group play?
What kind of people does the group attract? What sort of characters are they? Do they tend to come from the same subgroups of society, sharing gender, ethnicity, religion, educational level, political affiliation, or some other characteristic?

Roles
What are the roles of the various members of the group? What kind of character is most apt to be found in each of the roles? Do the members change roles easily in the group or is the structure more rigid? Is information equally shared by all members, or do some members withhold information from others?

Who are the group’s enemies? What do the enemies represent to the group? Does conflict exist? At what points in the group myth are the enemies most important to the group?
Does the group have rivals, other groups of similar morals that compete with the group in question? Are the rivals seen as enemies?

Morals
What morals are demonstrated by the group myth? Consider the questions in the myth and the actions against the obstacles the group encounters. What statements about the larger reality arise from the progression of the myth?

What are the moral packages of the members and how do they relate to that of the group? The moral package of the group is not the same as the sum of the morals of its members, any more than the wants of the group are the same as the sum of the wants of the members.

If you look at the moral package of the group, you can figure out what world the group lives in. Is that a place that is conducive to what the group wants to do? Is it a place where the members have a chance to have happy and productive individual myths? Is it a place you want to be?

The Group Myth
You now should know enough about the group to be able to tell its story, not only the parts of the group would like you to tell, but also those parts it has no awareness of and those which the group would prefer you to keep quiet about. Now go back to what you wanted to know when you began the analysis. Your answer should be clear.