Juno News - How Mass Formation Psychosis takes over societies (ft. Mattias Desmet)

00:00:00.000 hi there everyone welcome to the rupa subramanya show i am rupa subramanya today we have a very

00:00:24.400 special guest with us it is none other than renowned psychologist and author dr matthias

00:00:31.120 desmond he is a professor of clinical psychology at ghent university in belgium and it's a real honor

00:00:38.400 for me to be speaking to him today about his groundbreaking book the psychology of

00:00:43.760 totalitarianism which i believe has sparked a paradigm shift in our understanding of the human

00:00:50.320 psyche under totalitarian systems so please join me in welcoming dr desmond to the show welcome to the

00:00:58.080 show matthias it's a real honor to have you here i've been following your work for a very long time

00:01:04.720 and it's wonderful to have you here thank you thank you for inviting me rupa i'm glad to be here yeah

00:01:11.120 no uh it's it's my pleasure so you know i'm going to start by asking you uh matthias uh you know your

00:01:18.080 book uh which i encourage everybody to get it's the psychology of totalitarianism uh is in the

00:01:25.600 context of um covet 19 and the public policy responses to it but you say in your book that

00:01:32.720 you were actually thinking about these ideas well before then could you tell us why yes so so um

00:01:39.760 it's a dynamic in society that started much earlier than uh than the corona crisis of course and it

00:01:46.560 even started like well we could say in the beginning of the 17th century when the modern sciences emerged

00:01:53.200 um which in the beginning were um uh a kind of truth-telling uh that um disrupted the suffocating impact of

00:02:06.880 uh the religious view of man in the world um and um at that moment but uh which very soon uh had this

00:02:17.120 had had had some unexpected consequences uh the first being maybe that in a strange way in a hidden way

00:02:26.240 um the

00:02:27.520 uh modern sciences led to the mechanization and industrialization of the world and to the use of

00:02:39.120 more and more technology and this had had a hidden psychological consequence namely that more and more

00:02:45.040 people started to feel lonely and um more people started to feel started to be disconnected from their

00:02:52.320 social and natural environments and that in the end through a sequence of a cascade of psychological

00:03:00.000 effects uh led to the emergence of um of uh the the first totalitarian states in history and that's

00:03:08.400 what my book is all about about this this um the psychological processes that led to the emergence of

00:03:17.600 uh totalitarian states in the beginning of the 20th century before the before the 20th century there

00:03:22.800 were no totalitarian states there were classical relationships but there were no totalitarian states

00:03:28.160 and in the beginning of the 20th century we had this uh communist and fascist uh totalitarianism

00:03:37.920 but many authors uh warned us that uh a new kind of totalitarianism was seizing control of society after

00:03:47.600 in the second half of the 20th century and definitely in the beginning of the 21st century century i

00:03:52.560 think a new kind of technology totalitarianism which was a velvet glove totalitarianism in this

00:03:58.320 way that most people didn't feel that this new totalitarianism emerged uh and this new totalitarianism

00:04:06.000 was rather uh the ideology was not a communist or a fascist ideology as i said but rather a technocratic

00:04:13.520 transhumanist technology an ideology an ideology which believes that the only way to deal with the 0.96

00:04:22.880 problems we are facing as a society and as a as mankind uh the only way is to establish a new society

00:04:35.120 which is extremely technologically controlled and which is led by technocrats and

00:04:43.600 academic experts um and um that's what my book is all about and and and i think that before the

00:04:51.360 corona crisis we already noticed uh this tendency in society but with the corona crisis we took a huge

00:04:58.800 leap forward i think uh in this direction so this is a this is a good uh point to ask you this question

00:05:06.240 oftentimes people conflate uh totalitarianism totalitarian systems with dictatorships can you tell

00:05:14.160 us what is the difference between uh what's the difference between the two yes

00:05:21.760 the

00:05:22.000 most important difference is situated at the psychological level so a classical dictatorships

00:05:32.720 to put it in a nutshell or are based on a very uh simple psychological mechanism so there is a small

00:05:41.040 a small group in the in the in society a small group in the population which is experienced as or or which

00:05:48.480 is perceived as being a very a group which disposes of a very uh impressive aggressive potential and

00:05:57.680 because people are scared of this small group of people they just accept that the small group of

00:06:03.120 people unilaterally imposes its its social contract to the to society and that's how a classical

00:06:11.680 dictatorship functions at psychological level people are scared of dictatorial regime and that's why they

00:06:17.920 accept that this dictatorial regime imposes its will to the population to society um in a in a totalitarian

00:06:26.240 state uh is something completely different in a totalitarian state uh an impressive psychological

00:06:35.440 process happens before the totalitarian state emerges and that that process the psychological process

00:06:42.720 is a specific type of group formation called mass or i i i i i use the term mass formation or crowd

00:06:51.920 formation to indicate that that that that that kind of group formation and it's it's a it's a group

00:06:56.880 formation which has very specific effects at the level of individual mental functioning if a mass emerges in

00:07:06.240 society um then the people who are in the grip of this mass formation the individuals who are in the grip of

00:07:19.280 it typically lack any capacity to take a critical distance of what the group believes in that's the

00:07:27.120 first major major effect at the level of individual psychological functioning second people who are in the

00:07:34.320 grip of mass formation typically um become willing to sacrifice everything that used to be important for

00:07:43.040 them as individuals before the mass formation started so they are willing to sacrifice their future their

00:07:49.920 health their wealth no matter what um as soon as they were in the grip of this of this mass formation and

00:07:57.680 third when a mass formation emerges individuals typically individuals who are in the grip of the

00:08:03.840 mass formation typically become radically intolerant for dissonant voices so this process and to the extent that

00:08:12.240 in the end they start to think that it is their ethical duty to eliminate everyone who doesn't

00:08:19.920 go along with the masses with the mass formation so that's in a nutshell what the mass formation is at

00:08:24.480 the phenomenological level it's a kind of group formation in which a group of people starts to

00:08:33.440 believe fanatically in a certain ideology or a certain narrative such as

00:08:38.560 um the race theories of hitler or the uh historical materialism of marx of marx and the soviet union

00:08:46.960 um so people start to fanatically believe in a certain narrative usually we are talking about

00:08:53.200 20 to 30 percent of the population not much more which is in the grip of the mass formation and they

00:08:58.080 believe so fanatically in it that they uh

00:09:01.280 do not succeed anymore and taking a critical distance of this narrative no matter how absurd

00:09:10.320 it is for instance in iran during the the revolution in iran people started to believe that the portrait

00:09:16.560 of their leader the ayatollah was printed on the surface of the moon and when there was a full moon in

00:09:21.120 the sky they were typically standing in the streets showing each other where exactly this portrait of the

00:09:25.760 ayatollah was printed on the surface of the moon and we are we were talking about the highly educated population

00:09:30.960 and um uh and in the end they believe so fanatically in and in the narrative of their leaders and the

00:09:41.120 ideology of their leaders um that they start to become extremely intolerant towards everyone who

00:09:48.000 doesn't go along with them and and then and this typically leads to a strange state of being where

00:09:54.160 even mothers report their children to the state or the other way around children report their parents to

00:09:59.920 the state uh uh knowing that they will probably um uh be sentenced to death uh that happened again i i

00:10:10.080 there is this conversation with of me within where the woman of iran on the internet her name is

00:10:15.600 shorif ishtali where where this uh uh woman iranian woman described to me how she she lived in iran

00:10:24.720 during the revolution which was like a huge uh mass formation um and how she witnessed the uh that a

00:10:33.760 mother who reported her son to the state hung the rope around his neck when when when he was on the

00:10:38.640 scaffold and when he when he died um when he was hung she claimed to be a heroine for what she did so

00:10:45.600 that's typically the end stage of a mass formation people become so convinced of the narrative of the

00:10:53.760 ideology that they report everyone who doesn't follow it to the state and they do so as if it

00:10:59.520 is their ethical duty to do so so that's that can seem very strange but once you understand the

00:11:05.520 psychological mechanism of mass formation you understand why it has this strange effect at the

00:11:11.440 level of individual mental functioning and you also understand

00:11:14.320 what you can do against it you cannot solve the problem immediately but you know what uh

00:11:23.520 ethical and strategical principles you have to follow if you understand the mechanism

00:11:28.000 so you've defined what mass formation is it's basically it sounds like it's a form of group

00:11:33.840 thing that becomes so incredibly powerful that it makes you believe certain things um even if you

00:11:41.120 are a rational-minded individual uh and i think a lot of us went through that during the pandemic

00:11:46.960 um but how does it uh lead to the emergence of totalitarian systems in other words i'm wondering

00:11:53.200 what direction does this go in uh you know you have people who are um you know bought into a certain

00:11:59.840 narrative and then you have the political system uh on the other side um and uh you know so i'm just

00:12:06.640 wondering it's it's you know the case of iran for example people were reporting uh their family

00:12:12.080 members to the state but you also had a very authoritarian state in place that made people very

00:12:18.800 fearful yes but um well you know uh totalitarian states can emerge in in in slightly different ways

00:12:27.440 but in the end the essence and the backbone of a totalitarian state is always what uh what uh hannah

00:12:34.800 are rent you probably know the german philosopher yeah probably the most important philosopher of

00:12:42.240 the 20th century hannah arend said that um the core and the essence of a totalitarian system is always

00:12:50.880 a diabolic pact between the elite and the masses and the crowd and this diabolic pact can emerge in

00:13:01.120 slightly different ways for instance in nazi germany it seems that the masses first got in the grip

00:13:08.240 of of all kinds of race theories and once the masses emerged uh there soon were a few uh leaders

00:13:19.920 talented speakers who used the masses to seize control of the state apparatus and

00:13:28.880 and something similar happened in a soviet union but then a differently in a slightly different way

00:13:34.160 in the soviet union it seems that the mass formation was provoked from the beginning in in an artificial

00:13:41.600 way through propaganda and indoctrination so um mass formation can emerge more or less spontaneously

00:13:49.280 but it will soon disappear if it is not uh supported and continued through propaganda and indoctrination so a

00:13:58.080 mass formation might emerge spontaneously but it won't last very long if there is if there is another

00:14:03.840 if there are no leaders who who who time and time recirculate the same narratives through the mass media

00:14:13.120 so if there are no leaders who use propaganda and indoctrination to to make sure that the mass

00:14:17.600 formation continues so but but but sometimes uh it is provoked from the beginning in an artificial way

00:14:23.600 through propaganda and indoctrination but no matter what the end effect is always the same uh there is

00:14:29.840 a kind of a pact between uh an elite and the masses uh which together succeed in ceasing control of the

00:14:38.880 state apparatus and uh in that way a a a a a completely new kind of state emerges which doesn't does not

00:14:49.760 only control a public space and political space as a classical dictatorship does but which also

00:14:56.720 controls private space because it has a huge secret police at its disposal namely all these people who

00:15:05.760 are in the grip of the mass formation and who believe so fanatically in the state narrative that

00:15:11.040 they want to report all their family members if necessary if they do not follow the narrative so that's

00:15:16.400 why a totalitarian state has a much more suffocating impact at the level of the population than a

00:15:21.360 classical dictatorship and interesting no right yeah sorry go ahead yes i i think we we see something

00:15:31.840 similar now a totalitarian state um emerges in a sneaky way very often very often people don't

00:15:40.880 really notice it and even the elite itself doesn't only does not always really

00:15:46.400 uh uh uh be aware of what they are doing it's it's it's always a process in which um both the elite

00:15:57.440 let's say the institutions that govern society and the population start to become more and more

00:16:04.160 fanatically convinced that a certain ideology will is necessary and not only necessary but has the capacity

00:16:14.640 to create a new kind of society which is always um portrayed as a new paradise for the for for

00:16:24.720 for mankind and uh and they become so fanatically convinced of it that they believe it is justified to

00:16:34.800 transgress all ethical rules and all uh moral rules in order to realize this new paradise

00:16:43.280 and that's uh that's of course where the the the essence of totalitarianism the essence of totalitarianism

00:16:50.320 is that that that there is a uh there are certain leaders supported by a major part of the population

00:16:58.640 who so fanatically believe in their ideology that they think it is justified to

00:17:05.840 uh lie and cheat and and and uh kill and murder in the end uh in order to

00:17:12.880 to impose this ideology and to create this utopian new ideological paradise which according to hannah arend

00:17:19.760 hannah arend said there is only one problem with this totalitarian paradise and it is that it always

00:17:27.680 looks suspiciously lost like hell that's the problem yeah it kills the essence of the human yeah well

00:17:36.320 that's that's uh that's well said and um you know of course the covet 19 uh crisis and the public

00:17:44.240 response to it um the the pandemic is replete with examples of what you describe um what to your mind stands

00:17:52.400 out as this one thing that you think can think of from the pandemic that uh fits this um fits your uh

00:18:00.000 fits your thesis you know well it's clear i think that we were dealing with the with the with the

00:18:06.960 with the mass formation uh like from the beginning um it was clear to me and to and to

00:18:16.080 many other uh academics i think that there was something wrong with the narrative i mean the

00:18:24.800 statistics from the first week onwards i started to write opinion papers trying to show people that

00:18:31.520 the statistics were wrong or at least i warned them in certain opinion papers and after a few months

00:18:40.080 it was proven beyond doubt that the initial statistics had been wrong because the initial

00:18:45.680 models the initial models predicted that that's the best example i can give i i i i always give the

00:18:50.880 same example the initial models predicted that in a country such as sweden uh sixty to eighty

00:18:57.840 thousand people would die if the country didn't go into lockdown would not go into lockdown uh so

00:19:03.040 sixty to eighty thousand people would die by the end of may 2020 and by the end of may 2020 speden

00:19:09.040 hadn't gone into lockdown and only six thousand people died and um um so and even then uh the narrative

00:19:18.720 just continued and there were so many other examples so many other examples that that all showed

00:19:23.120 uh that that that that the narrative was absurd it had been completely wrong and still the narrative

00:19:29.360 continued and and people continued to buy into the narrative and even accepted that um they lost their

00:19:38.560 uh their freedom they were locked away in their houses that they they they had to wear masks that they

00:19:45.760 they they they lost many of their most elementary uh civil rights uh and and and they still the people

00:19:52.880 accepted it uh even in an enthusiastic way and i also like like people accepted that um

00:20:01.440 this dissonant voices were censored on a on a scale that was that had never been seen before uh uh uh

00:20:10.800 so there were all kinds of signs that showed that a mass formation was going on and um and um um

00:20:20.080 um i think that that that that this in itself like but we also to give another example like suddenly we

00:20:31.040 all accepted that the democratically elected politicians actually um didn't take the decisions

00:20:38.960 and decisions anymore in society it were the experts technocratic experts technical experts who decisions

00:20:45.680 uh and uh and there's the i i i i i think that that that numerous things showed us that we actually at

00:20:56.480 least temporarily replaced democracy with a technocratic system and um um um um so um and even after the

00:21:10.400 we look ravel you know i don't i don't actually don't believe that at this moment uh the corona measures

00:21:17.760 uh are really over we still see uh how vaccination campaigns are prepared um we see how um uh parliaments um

00:21:31.520 um prepare to um um make many of the corona measures i think actually permanent yeah well here in canada the

00:21:45.680 vaccine mandates um were last year suspended not completely dropped and we're never gonna yeah so

00:21:55.840 it's you know they could always uh bring them back if uh if necessary and uh yes you're right that the

00:22:02.000 vaccine campaigns are still ongoing um canada seems to be a special case of uh paranoia and mass formation

00:22:10.560 because um we're still tracking things like wastewater signal uh signals uh you know the what's the level of

00:22:18.480 uh cobit 19 in our wastewater for example and uh um and you know many of these experts just simply refuse to

00:22:27.200 move on and uh and as a result i think the public is still in in in the grip of this fear um and and

00:22:36.480 it's it's you know it's actually quite disturbing to see young people um you know so afraid uh to step out

00:22:43.600 of their homes without wearing a mask and uh and that's quite uh fascinating to see one of the one

00:22:50.000 of the elements in your book matthias um you know you talk about the presence of a charismatic leader

00:22:56.480 in totalitarian movements and um you know what are the psychological factors that uh that make uh

00:23:04.160 individuals and you know susceptible to charismatic leaders and and how do these leaders uh exploit these

00:23:12.000 vulnerabilities uh yes yes uh well um in order for a large scale mass formation to emerge you need

00:23:26.320 indeed you need very specific psychological conditions in a population um and it is exactly these conditions

00:23:34.480 that were more were more and more met throughout the last few centuries and which made the population

00:23:41.840 more and more vulnerable for mass formation which made that the mass formations became bigger and

00:23:47.920 lasted longer in which in the end in the beginning of the 20th century made that the masses became so

00:23:53.760 strong that they could seize control of the state apparatus so that's that's uh so and then

00:23:58.800 everything starts i think with these psychological conditions of the population so uh the first condition

00:24:04.240 is that in order for a mass formation to emerge a large-scale mass formation many people have to

00:24:10.080 feel lonely and disconnected so that's the most crucial condition uh it's it's what it's what um the

00:24:16.560 frankfurt school and hannah arendt and even earlier hegel called the atomization of society atomization of

00:24:24.640 society meaning that people start to feel disconnected from each other and from nature so that that that's

00:24:30.160 that's actually in itself that's a consequence i think of the industrialization and the mechanization of the

00:24:34.800 world i i won't go into this now but you can see how almost the invention of every mechanical device

00:24:43.040 to a certain extent disconnects people a little bit of their environment and the use of technology as well

00:24:48.640 we all think that uh communication technology connects people to each other and that's true

00:24:54.560 but only at the level of the exchange of information um at a certain level they also disconnect

00:25:00.320 people because if you talk with someone in a technological in a digitalized way then uh maybe

00:25:07.600 you will be able to exchange information in a very efficient way but at the level of uh the physical

00:25:14.880 experience of the conversation it will not be comparable to a real conversation and in a real

00:25:20.000 conversation the the bodies of people constantly resonate with each other and that's why we

00:25:25.520 have a very efficient empathic uh uh feeling when we meet someone in person uh while we have it less

00:25:34.480 when we meet someone uh in the digital world so i i could i describe certain examples in my in my in

00:25:41.120 the first chapters of my book but anyway it's it's this is the industrialization the in the mechanization

00:25:47.920 of the world and the use of technology with which uh increased loneliness and disconnectedness

00:25:54.160 throughout the last few centuries and just before the corona crisis uh the number of lonely people

00:25:59.760 really peaked like like in northern america uh um the u.s surgeon general warned that there was a

00:26:08.480 an epidemic of loneliness and and then in the uk teresa may appointed the minister of loneliness 0.89

00:26:15.040 because she recognized how many people felt lonely up to somewhere in between 40 and 60 percent of the

00:26:20.880 people of the population worldwide uh um re in in certain surveys reported um that they that they

00:26:28.720 that they uh felt lonely to the extent that they didn't have one meaningful um uh real contact real um

00:26:38.560 social bond with someone so that that shows us the proportions of the problem was huge

00:26:42.240 and then once people feel lonely and disconnected they are easily confronted with uh lack of meaning

00:26:48.320 making in life so uh that's that's that's a psychological consequence uh people feel in

00:26:54.080 a spontaneous way that their life is meaningful every time they see that they have that they have

00:26:59.280 an effect on someone else and if you feel lonely you don't see that anymore you don't experience

00:27:03.440 anymore that your life that you that that you as a human being has an effect on another human being

00:27:08.720 so that's the reason why this loneliness usually leads to lack of uh uh purpose lack of meaning making

00:27:15.040 in life and then in the next step and that's crucial in the next step once people feel lonely um and um

00:27:24.640 once they are confronted with lack of meaning making they will typically be confronted with something

00:27:29.520 very specific at the level of their affective emotional life they will be confronted with so-called

00:27:36.080 free-floating anxiety frustration and aggression that means a kind of anxiety frustration and aggression

00:27:42.960 uh in which people don't know what they feel anxious frustrated and aggressive for and

00:27:58.160 when they are in that condition people typically are extremely vulnerable for propaganda and that's

00:28:05.360 important because if under these conditions a narrative is distributed through the mass media

00:28:14.480 that indicates an object of anxiety and the strategy to deal with that object of anxiety something very

00:28:22.880 specific might happen all this free-floating anxiety might suddenly connect to the object of anxiety for

00:28:32.560 for instance a virus or the jews or the aristocracy and the soviet union doesn't no matter what or the

00:28:39.200 witches during the witch lands all this free-floating anxiety might connect to the object of anxiety

00:28:46.400 and people might be willing on a large scale to participate in the strategy to deal with that object of anxiety

00:28:54.000 even if that strategy is utterly absurd why just because in that way they feel they can control their anxiety

00:29:04.560 if you're anxious but you don't know what you're anxious for

00:29:10.080 then you feel completely out of control and that's an extremely aversive mental state and as soon as you can connect your anxiety to something

00:29:18.400 you can and someone provides you with a strategy to deal with that something with that object of anxiety

00:29:26.320 then you might be willing to participate in that strategy because it makes you it gives you the

00:29:30.880 feeling that you're in control of your anxiety and it's exactly the same in exactly the same way individual psychological functions in

00:29:37.600 symptoms emerge usually for instance a classical phobia emerges in exactly the same way someone is confronted with

00:29:47.280 uh free floating anxiety which he cannot connect to something and suddenly for us in a strange way

00:29:55.760 the person the person is scared of spiders just because without being aware of what happened he

00:30:03.040 connected his anxiety to a certain object because in that way he can control his anxiety be it only by avoiding

00:30:11.920 that phobic object so and then that that can also happen at the level of a society where where people

00:30:19.920 20 to 30 percent of the population connects its anxiety all to the same object an object that is provided

00:30:29.520 in a narrative that is disseminated through the mass media and so and that's the first so the first

00:30:34.320 psychological advantage advantage symptomatic advantage is that people can control their anxiety second

00:30:41.280 they can take their frustration and aggression out on something they know now what the cause of the

00:30:48.080 problem is or they believe they know and they they have a an excuse now to uh take their anger the

00:30:57.280 frustration aggression out on someone or something that's a that's a second psychological advantage and then the

00:31:02.720 third and the most important psychological advantage of the mass formation is that because so many people

00:31:10.960 at the same time participate in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety they feel connected again

00:31:18.640 they don't feel lonely anymore so they feel as if they fight a collective heroic battle with the object of

00:31:25.120 anxiety and this is if they got rid of their loneliness i said as if because they are not really

00:31:34.160 because because a mass is a group that emerges not because individuals connect to other individuals no

00:31:43.520 the mass is a group that emerges because each individual separately connects to a collective ideal connects to

00:31:51.520 a collective so the famous solidarity of the masses is never a solidarity of individuals with other

00:31:59.600 individuals it's a solidarity of an individual with a collective meaning that the longer the mass formation

00:32:07.680 exists the less solidarity people feel for each other and the more they feel for the collective and in

00:32:14.080 the end the solidarity and the love for the collective becomes much stronger than the solidarity with other

00:32:21.360 individuals and that's why in the end even the strongest bonds between people such as the bond between

00:32:26.720 the mother and a child becomes weaker than the bond of the mother with the collective and that's why in the

00:32:33.840 end mothers report their children to the state if they are not loyal enough to the state narrative so

00:32:38.400 that's what happens in a in a in a mass formation and that's why it has these strange effects at the

00:32:44.480 level of individual mental functioning um yeah i'm uh very interested in this link you make between um

00:32:53.520 you know the psychological dynamics of totalitarianism and uh populism um you know what are the psychological

00:33:01.920 factors um you know um that um that are part of totalitarian totalitarianism uh that that could

00:33:11.040 bring about populist movements for example um well you know it depends of course how you define populism

00:33:23.360 but if you define if you define populism as the manipulation of the masses through speech um through um

00:33:31.920 well through through through propaganda then then then then um populism or at least then every

00:33:44.960 kind of totalitarianism is populism but not the other way around that thing not the other way around

00:33:50.480 not all populism is totalitarianism because there are there are other characteristics of uh of

00:33:55.280 totalitarianism which are necessary to to uh to consider something as totalitarianism for instance there

00:34:00.880 must be a strong ideological motivation totalitarian systems uh always have this strong ideological

00:34:08.240 drive they try to create a new society a new society which is always um um conceived as a kind

00:34:19.360 of a paradise which will free the human being of all its suffering and all its um all its uh limitations

00:34:27.760 all the limitations of the human condition and now nowadays so that was the case in the soviet unit

00:34:32.480 was the case in nazi germany and nowadays i think um what some people what what drives this system

00:34:40.240 is the transhumanist ideology i think it's the idea that um the human being can um

00:34:49.280 that we need to create a digital environment a digital society a technological society

00:34:54.880 uh uh uh in which if you read the the works of for instance juval noah harari the human being

00:35:03.360 will live forever in a in a biochemically induced state of eternal happiness that's about what

00:35:11.040 the the transhumanist ideology believes and i think what certain people uh believe has to be imposed to

00:35:21.120 society no matter at what price yeah you've talked about uh the sense of powerlessness and loss of um

00:35:30.240 autonomy these are fundamental uh uh elements in totalitarian systems um and you know how this

00:35:37.280 loss of individual agency contributes to the um to to you know how people are uh psychologically

00:35:44.320 manipulated and within such systems uh and you also mentioned fear uh fear was definitely a very

00:35:51.280 important component and central component of the pandemic and um you know how how is fear used as

00:35:58.240 a tool of control and where you find individuals like the people that i mentioned earlier who are still

00:36:04.160 masked and getting their sixth or seventh boosters booster shots uh you know how do you ex you know

00:36:10.240 they're now stuck in a chronic state of fear yes fear is often used yeah by people who who want to

00:36:21.280 manipulate the population uh i think people have always people of all times have been confronted with

00:36:28.560 anxiety in medieval europe people were anxious as well maybe even more than now but the most important

00:36:36.000 thing is that um is this free floating uh quality of the anxiety if people are anxious and they don't know

00:36:44.080 what they feel anxious for then you can very easily uh uh uh connect their anxiety to an object of anxiety

00:36:54.240 and make them follow your strategy to to fight that object of anxiety so and that's what i think that's

00:37:00.800 that's the characteristic state of the 20th century population is that they are very often confronted

00:37:07.200 with with a kind of unease a kind of psychological suffering a kind of um aversive affect without really

00:37:18.560 knowing what uh they are scared of what they are anxious for and that's the ideal state in which people are

00:37:26.960 very easily um get very easily in the grip of propaganda so um um you know about some something

00:37:36.800 also very something that is also very important is uh before the french revolution there was no such

00:37:44.240 thing as modern propaganda the church sometimes used propaganda but that was of a completely different

00:37:50.320 nature than the kind of propaganda we use now that are used now and after the french revolution uh the

00:37:56.800 the the elite the new elite um which had to be democratically elected started to realize that

00:38:04.000 they could no longer impose their will to the population as the um as a as as the elite before

00:38:12.160 the french revolution did so they had to find a solution for that and they actually found one

00:38:18.000 they decided that if they could no longer overtly impose their will to the population they would

00:38:23.200 make the population do what they wanted without them realizing that they do what they wanted and

00:38:27.520 that was the moment when the modern institutes institutes of propaganda were born the first institute

00:38:32.720 of propaganda was established by napoleon immediately after the french revolution or shortly after the

00:38:37.680 french revolution and it was called uh the bureau d'opinion public uh um the office for uh public opinion

00:38:47.600 and after the french revolution um so the the propaganda became more and more and more important to the

00:38:53.600 elite it became their privileged way to have a grip on the population um and uh and that at the same time

00:39:03.760 in a strange way at the same time the population more and more got in the state where they became

00:39:11.200 sensitive for propaganda so on the one hand you had the development of an elite which

00:39:16.080 uh used more and more propaganda and on the other hand you had the population which became more and

00:39:21.920 more vulnerable for propaganda and and then that together led to the emergence of the so-called lonely

00:39:28.000 masses and you you know mass formation has always existed but the ancient masses were physical masses

00:39:35.040 the individuals that constituted the mass met physically otherwise there could be no mass formation

00:39:41.440 but now we can uh now the mass is often

00:39:46.080 uh uh consists of individuals who all live isolated in their houses but who are all infused 0.98

00:39:56.880 by the same narratives the same mental representations through the mass media and in this way they are

00:40:03.680 mentally a mass or a crowd but they never physically meet or usually do not physically meet and this

00:40:10.240 lonely mass is a mass that can continue to exist for a very long time and that can be governed and

00:40:17.440 steered and manipulated in a much more efficient way than the physical mass so um uh oh well that that's

00:40:25.520 the state that's what the the the situation where we find ourselves in now i think uh there is a uh there are

00:40:34.000 a set of global institutions who think it's their ethical duty to use nudging and all kind of

00:40:43.440 manipulation techniques psychological manipulation techniques to make the people accept that society is

00:40:49.920 reshapen from a democracy into a technocracy um and they use all kinds you know the leaders of the masses

00:40:59.520 usually

00:41:02.080 fanatically believe their ideology so that means that gustave lebon said the leaders of the mass usually

00:41:09.760 are hypnotized as well because mass formation is a kind of mass hypnosis it's it's exactly the same it's

00:41:14.960 identical to a hypnotic process but the leaders of the mass usually are also hypnotized by their own

00:41:24.800 ideology but and that's something important the fact that they are hypnotized by their own ideology the

00:41:31.200 fact that they fanatically believe their own ideology does not mean that they believe the narratives they

00:41:37.040 use because they the narratives very often are a kind of propaganda which they use to convince the

00:41:45.200 population to accept all these ideological reorientations this reshaping of society according

00:41:54.080 to their ideology um so um that's the difference the the leaders of the masses usually uh fanatically

00:42:02.240 believe in in their own ideology but they do not believe the the narratives they use to

00:42:07.040 to impose this ideology to society um no yeah well uh matthias i have so many questions to ask you

00:42:15.760 but i know uh you you you you know have to go and uh uh but one final question for you um you know

00:42:24.080 based um you know on your analysis uh you know what are some you've identified the problem you've

00:42:31.120 identified the psychological mechanisms behind what is going on and what we went through during the pandemic

00:42:37.440 what are some uh things that people can do that individuals and societies can do to prevent

00:42:43.600 uh this sort of thing from happening

00:42:47.840 yes well the first and and foremost uh uh principle is that uh people have to continue to speak out in a in

00:42:58.640 a quiet and respectful way the people who do not believe in the in the narratives or the ideology

00:43:06.960 that ceases control now of society um i have to continue to speak out that's something that is

00:43:13.360 mentioned already in the 19th century by such people as a gustav lebon who wrote this wonderful book

00:43:18.720 uh uh the psychology of the crowd um he said that if there is a mass formation in a society or in a

00:43:30.000 in in a group of people then there will always be certain people who do not fall prey to it for one

00:43:35.120 reason or another uh certain people just do not fall prey to a mass formation and these people typically

00:43:42.240 will will have the feeling well they'll want to warn uh the people in the mass formation that what they

00:43:50.800 believe in is absurd and often dangerous for themselves and gustav lebon said like well these

00:43:57.680 people who do not fall prey to the mass formation typically will try to wake the people up who are in

00:44:06.000 the mass formation but they won't succeed so they will never be capable of convincing the people who

00:44:12.880 are in the mass formation that what they believe in is absurd but gustav lebon said that does not mean

00:44:21.200 does their that their words or their speech has no effect not at all he said if the people who are

00:44:29.040 not in the group of the mass formation continue to speak out in a quiet way then they will prevent

00:44:35.600 the masses to go to the last stage of the mass formation the last stage where the masses become

00:44:41.760 convinced that they have to eliminate everyone who doesn't go along with them and

00:44:50.400 so the dissonant voices constantly disturb the mass formation a little bit and uh in that way

00:44:58.880 they make sure that the mass formation doesn't go to the ultimate stage the most destructive stage

00:45:04.800 that's one thing and of course even much more important is that the people who do not fall prey to

00:45:09.680 the first mass formation to the major mass formation must be very careful that they do not fall prey to an

00:45:16.160 alternative mass formation because also they say also that happens yeah people who do not go along

00:45:22.000 with the mainstream narrative also are in a situation where they feel threatened anxious where they feel

00:45:27.280 a lot of frustration aggression and they might also try to find a narrative which in a very simplistic

00:45:35.120 introductionist way attributes all the anxiety to one object for instance an evil elite uh which would

00:45:41.680 be the cause of all the problems and if it would be destroyed uh uh the problem would be solved no

00:45:50.960 that's never true the the problem the the root cause of the problems is not the elite it's the ideology

00:45:58.080 it's our rationalist view on man in the world our materialist view on man in the world which led to the

00:46:04.160 emergence of a new elite and which brought the population in a state where they are vulnerable for

00:46:08.480 uh the techniques of this in you will need namely the propaganda so you have the combination of the

00:46:13.040 two as long as continue uh to think about uh life uh and in our materialist rationalist way we will

00:46:23.520 always be confronted with mass formation and the danger of totalitarianism will always be there so

00:46:29.280 and then you will always feel lonely and fall prey to mass formation and so on and so on so what we

00:46:33.760 need is we need to reconsider our most elementary basic fuel men in the world uh uh and and that

00:46:40.400 will bring the population if we succeed in doing so that will connect reconnect people with each other

00:46:47.680 will make them less vulnerable to uh um propaganda and indoctrination and it will make that a new elite

00:46:55.280 emerges which probably will use truth telling rather than propaganda as a way to

00:47:03.760 um um govern society um well um thank you matthias that was uh a fascinating conversation i could have

00:47:14.240 gone uh on and on and on but uh i know we have very limited time uh but it was a real uh honor and

00:47:22.240 privilege to uh be able to be in conversation with you uh and thank you for um uh you know helping me

00:47:30.000 understand and hopefully our viewers and listeners understand you um the human psyche uh behind uh

00:47:37.200 all of this and uh you know and helping us explore uh you know all of the mechanisms that underlie the

00:47:43.920 rise of totalitarian systems and i really really appreciate that and thank you for your insights and i

00:47:51.520 really urge everybody to pick up a copy of your book uh the psychology of totalitarianism and i really

00:47:58.320 hope to have you back on the show sometime soon perhaps to continue the conversation yes yes rupa

00:48:04.320 thank you for inviting me and please tell me if you uh want to continue our conversation on another

00:48:11.200 i would love i would love to i would love to thank you so much thank you thank you yeah thank you bye

Juno News - June 29, 2023

How Mass Formation Psychosis takes over societies (ft. Mattias Desmet)

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