Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

Newsletter – Autumn 2017 51
Some persons might find this very satisfying. After all, one of the most
common fears in the Western society is to speak in public. To be able
to overcome this fear and to be able to speak so people can hear and
maybe listen, is of course a great accomplishment for many of us. If
this is one of the major purposes of the large group I will have to
accept that group analysis has developed in another direction than I
expected. But it makes me sad that young group analysts and
newcomers will not have the full experience, which has meant so
much to me, of a large group at the GASi symposia.
Why has dialogue not developed in the large groups during
the GASi symposia lately? Seating might be one explanation. It was
somewhat, but not much, better in Lisbon where we could see the
faces of the people on the opposite side. Sometimes leadership is
questioned, but my impression is that the conveners have done a good
job. Would it be better to have a leadership team which could meet
between sessions and discuss how to understand the process? Maybe,
but that is not at the core of the problem. In my view the convener in
Berlin, Gerhard Wilke, did a great job and he was on his own. In spite
of his hard work it did not help. So, what is the problem? As I see it,
it is about simple arithmetic.
The room for the large group in Berlin had chairs for all
participants of the symposium, i.e. 630. Let us assume that we would
give everybody a chance to talk during the four days, i.e., 90 minutes
x 4 = 360 minutes. That would give everybody about half a minute
each to speak. Obviously, that would not be a meaningful thing to do,
which implies that for somebody to speak more than one minute
during the four days somebody else needs to keep silent. We have
created a structure that gives the members a choice of two basic roles,
to participate verbally or to be a bystander, part of the audience. Early
on it was obvious that some members of the symposium did not want
to make that choice, and they decided not to take part in the large
group at all. From pictures of the large group it seems that there were
maybe 400 participants, which would give each member almost a
minute each if everybody would be given a chance to talk, which is
still a ridiculous idea. From where I sat, I could observe many
members who were silent all four days. I have talked to many who
decided not to participate in the fight for speaking time. A rough
estimate is that about 50% did not speak at all or contributed only with
a few words. From this perspective, it is logical that most of those who
talked stood up; they entered the scene and took the role of participant
in front of an audience. This is what rhetoric is about. Maybe this
dynamic is a reflection of the incohesion of today’s narcissistic society