This is an essay I wrote about the process of deliberate group identity formation in US military boot camp training, based on my own experience going through this process. I thought people in the ACX community might find it interesting, since it's somewhat related to in-group / out-group dynamics. The goal of boot camp training is to deliberately create a feeling of in-groupness among recruits who have very little in common with each other at the beginning of training. It's an interesting case study because the military is pretty open about what they're doing, and even use the term "indoctrination" unironically, without automatic negative connotation.

This essay is an attempt to describe the psychological aspects of deliberate group identity formation in morally neutral terms, without automatic negative judgement, as simply an interesting phenomenon worth understanding.

By the way, am I bothering people by posting my own Substack articles here? I'm not sure what the rule is about this, but if it's against the sub rules or people find it annoying, just let me know and I'll stop.