In this episode of Stay Free With Russell Brand, Russell Brand is joined by a chatbot to discuss the current state of the world and the heroes of the Pandemic, including Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and Rishi Sunak, to name a few. They also discuss how crisis creates opportunity for profit and increase regulation, whether that s the financial crisis in Ukraine, or the escalating tensions between the US and China, and the sub-narratives behind that, such as who's got the nicest hair, and who's the worst politician with a nice hair. And, of course, there's a quiz too, to see if you can guess who it is! Stay free with Russell Brand. Stay free, and stay free, wherever you are. Tweet me and let us know who you think are your favourite Pandemic Heroes. Timestamps: 0:00 - Who's your favourite politician with nice hair? 6:30 - Who do you like most? 7:00- Who's got a nice hairdo? 8:20 - What do you think of Joe Biden? 9:20- What's your favorite politician? 11:40 - Which politician is your favourite? 12:30- What do your heroes think of Donald Trump? 13:00: Who's better? 15:00, who do you have a nice haircut? 16:10 - What are your heroes? 17:30, who's better than yours? 18:20, who are you better than mine? 19:10, what's your hero? 21: Who are you best friend? 22:40, what are you would you like to see me in a crisis? 25:00 26:00 What are you like in the future? 27:00 Are you a Pandemic Hero? 29:00 Can you see the future of the pandemic? 30:00 Who's the most powerful person you're better than me? 31:00 Is there a hero you could be? 35:00 Do you think I could be a better than a pandemic?' 32:00 Could you be a bad person? 33:00 How do I have a good idea? 36:00 Would you like it? 37:00 I don t know what I'm better than that? 39:00 Will you like a nice hairstyle?
00:01:18.000In this video, you're going to see the future.
00:01:27.000Hello you Awakening Wanderers, thanks for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand while we stare down the barrel of Dystopia.
00:01:34.000How are we going to alter the trajectory of world events?
00:01:38.000Simply by communicating honestly and openly with one another.
00:01:41.000You might be watching this live on YouTube.
00:01:43.000We broadcast for the, or stream I suppose you call it now, for the first 10 minutes but then we click over to being exclusively on Rumble which is our home because there We are completely uncensored.
00:01:53.000I've allowed Bear, my dog, to stay in here.
00:01:55.000Do you have an emotional support animal?
00:01:57.000Do you agree with animals in the workplace?
00:01:59.000Do you think that ChatGPT can ever replace humankind's best friend, the humble canine?
00:02:07.000They're starting to censor them, Gareth.
00:02:08.000They're starting to censor ChatGPT, like they're not allowed to just express themselves, because sometimes when they express themselves, they tell you how to smuggle and create explosive devices.
00:02:19.000We're going to be talking about the energy giant, British Petroleum, BP.
00:02:22.000They've doubled their profits in the middle of an energy crisis.
00:02:26.000And we're going to be explaining to you what I believe to be an important paradigm, how crises create opportunity for profit and increase regulation, whether that's the pandemic, the banking crisis, or even the current war.
00:02:39.000in Ukraine. For our hero presentation, here's the news. We're going to be talking about
00:02:44.000the escalating tensions between the United States of America and China and the sub-narratives
00:02:49.000behind that. For example, you lot, you're educated, aren't you? So you know about Brick
00:02:53.000Plus. Oh yeah. Brick Plus, yeah? Oh yeah. It's not a new type of Lego. It's not a type
00:02:58.000of Lego. Grow up! Don't need a new type of Lego. The old type's good.
00:03:03.000It's a new type of trade contract, yeah?
00:03:07.000I know about geopolitics, my friend, and if I didn't now, I soon would, because Matthias Desmet, clinical psychologist, is talking to us about how, again, how crises are used to exert control and generate a new form of totalitarianism, a kind of soft totalitarianism, a kind of totalitarianism is all right to enjoy.
00:03:38.000Put aside whether or not they're hypocritical and they're just symptoms of neoliberalism and the inability of any elected politician to meaningfully impact the lives of the people that they're supposed to serve.
00:04:07.000I mean, whoever you are, I know those of you are absolutely devout in your love of Donald Trump, and some of you, I presume some of you love Biden.
00:05:47.000Others say you caused an insurrection and cannot naturally induce erection.
00:05:52.000But in reality, you are likely a symptom of globalism, neoliberalism and the failure of establishment politics to address the needs of ordinary people.
00:06:00.000Also, career politicians had gone too boring, although personally I'm sceptical as to whether a populist politician can ever achieve meaningful change within the system of corporate, military and financial interests that America has ultimately become.
00:06:16.000Now, Microsoft, look at this though, the old chatbot, look who's investing.
00:06:21.000Microsoft reportedly plans to invest $10 billion in the creator of ChatGPT.
00:06:27.000And did you know that Bill Gates Dead or in spite of going around saying I don't own no Microsoft or like I'm not really into Microsoft now.
00:08:14.000He don't believe that the main aim of education is to give you skills but in fact to turn you into a conformist who never questions the agenda of the state.
00:08:22.000And also he feels embarrassed in the showers in games.
00:08:24.000Don't put that last bit, Chatbot, you little bastard!
00:10:17.000I did go to school once or twice, and on those days I picked up things like that.
00:10:22.000If there's an energy crisis that means that lots of people are going to, like, sit in the dark quivering and, like, eating thin gruel, these shouldn't be record profits for CEO of British Petroleum, Bernard Looney.
00:10:33.000Also, he shouldn't be called Bernard Looney.
00:10:35.000We're only including this still of him now, so you can see his name.
00:12:40.000Now look at, then there was a health crisis, I think some of you may remember, there was a little old thing called the pandemic.
00:12:45.000That was the second worst pandemic in US history.
00:12:48.000Look at the outcome, Pfizer reports record revenue and 103 billion in profits in 22.
00:12:54.000Now, a war is a crisis if you're a Ukrainian person or a Russian person.
00:12:59.000The war in Ukraine is on track to, look at it, it's a bloody inexpensive one.
00:13:03.000But look at some of the consequences of it.
00:13:04.000Biden signs a 1.7 trillion government spending bill, 50% of which we know will end up in the hands of companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
00:13:11.000And many of you are familiar with the 100 billion figure that represents lethal aid since Ukraine alone.
00:13:16.000And many have said that you'd like to see that spent on like many crises in American domestic life.
00:13:21.000So we, at this point, I think, having acknowledged that what a crisis for ordinary people are often opportunities to the world's most powerful interests, Want to make a point for our manifesto.
00:14:27.000Someone's got that word in their mind already and Like if you give, what about you in the message chat, stop giving the money, people are voting crazily for the stuff.
00:15:39.000Hey, listen, we're kind of come off YouTube now, so now is your chance to see who are the two pandemic heroes that profited from the pandemic, even though they were saying that the pandemic was bad, which obviously bloody well was bad.
00:16:22.000So Andy Fauci is charged as much as 100 grand for speaking engagements months after leaving his position in the Biden administration.
00:16:28.000He was, I think, the highest paid public official, I think our friend Open Books said.
00:16:33.000The former director of the NIAID's listing on leading motivational speakers is listed under the motivational speakers and healthcare speakers category.
00:17:52.000In weird ways that you wouldn't understand.
00:17:55.000So the money was invested through the foundation.
00:17:57.000That doesn't account for the additional two million shares that the Gates Foundation sold prior to that from its original pre-IPO equity investment.
00:19:00.000Vaccines now is like iPhone updates, the forever vacs.
00:19:04.000That's what they want, isn't it, as a model.
00:19:05.000They want subscription models where you license everything, where you own nothing.
00:19:08.000Oh yeah, they've told us that already, so that's not a revelation.
00:19:10.000But where you're continually updating your vaccines, you're updating your phone, you don't own anything.
00:19:15.000But maybe one of your manifesto points could be when someone's... I don't like you distancing yourself because I'd like you to say our manifesto.
00:19:29.000You can't present yourself as a sort of a neutral like pandemic czar if you... Oh god I should probably mention as well as how much I want to help everyone I've also made more money than almost anybody else from this thing through this foundation that I've got.
00:19:46.000Matthias has written this really cool book about totalitarianism and how sort of mass psychology is being used to corral us into a sort of a gelatinous mob of imbecility, unable to query centralised messaging.
00:19:59.000Are you interested in that sort of thing?
00:20:03.000But before we talk to Matthias, and you've got to stay for this, you're going to love this conversation, we want to Unpack for you quite a complex issue.
00:20:11.000You will have noticed, because of the balloon, that the current U.S.
00:20:16.000government are escalating tensions between the U.S.
00:20:21.000You know that military bases are cropping up in what's called a sort of an arc of menace or something like a sex noose around the neck of China.
00:20:28.000It's called something like that, isn't it?
00:20:37.000Why are you putting that news around China?
00:20:38.000I don't know man, it's the only way I can get off!
00:20:42.000Anyway, there's military bases all around China and we know that this is because of trade agreements and an increasingly fruitful alliance between Russia and China.
00:20:52.000And they call their treaties really nice stuff.
00:20:55.000Like the China-Russia tree is called the Good Friends and Good Neighbours Give Us a Cuddle Chum Act, and our ones are called the sort of Bastard Gang.
00:21:09.000We're the friendly old, cuddly old, silly sausages gang.
00:21:13.000So anyway, we're going to give you a real glimpse into the wonderful world of geopolitics, explaining complex narratives in a, I would say, rather pacey, exciting, accessible manner.
00:21:22.000You don't think I should be reviewing it?
00:21:25.000Let me know what you think about it in the chat, in the comments.
00:21:27.000We'll be reading your chat, er, your comments, in a minute, straight afterwards.
00:21:30.000But now, it's time for you to have a look at the escalation of tension between the US and China, and the trade deals that are behind it, and look at how we've made it funny.
00:21:49.000One thing about this proxy war between Ukraine and Russia is that it hasn't got a bad enough
00:21:56.000antagonist in the form of Russia that can create enough chaos and potential Armageddon.
00:22:01.000So hopefully the USA are amping up aggression with China, particularly if those Chinese are doing anything at all with terrifying balloons.
00:22:15.000Well, have you noticed that you are only given a particular perspective, that it's profitable for the military-industrial complex and subsequent to the war, Black Rock and other huge organizations will profit considerably, how you're not informed of the narrative that Russia provoked it.
00:22:27.000Well, all of this now, while is novel to some people and not acknowledged by many more, is passing into history as America sets its sights on China, an even bigger Scary a country to annoy.
00:22:41.000How could such a ridiculous story be unfolding in our lifetimes with top military brass suggesting we could be at war by 2025?
00:23:18.000They offer an opportunity for incredible financial growth and consolidation of power and advancing the interests of the elite.
00:23:25.000Over the course of this conversation, with me doing most of the talking, we are going to explain those ideas to you.
00:23:30.000How wars advantage the most powerful interests in the world.
00:23:34.000You're not going to believe how this stuff unfolds.
00:23:36.000Now, the provocation of China would seem like a ridiculous thing to do.
00:23:39.000We all remember when Nancy Pelosi, that hero, that great hero and stock market genius, or at least her husband is, but they don't talk anyway, we remember how when she went to Taiwan, it increased tensions between China and the U.S.
00:23:51.000Fortunately now, in Kevin McCarthy, there's an entirely different Speaker of the House from an entirely different party, so everything's all different now.
00:24:09.000A Chinese government official is responding, saying, quote, we urge certain individuals in the US to earnestly abide by the one China principle.
00:24:18.000It's a weird job, Speaker of the House.
00:24:20.000Mostly what you'll be doing is maintaining order during congressional debates.
00:24:40.000If not by provoking Russia, then by provoking the Chinese.
00:24:43.000Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the trip back in August.
00:24:46.000She is the first House Speaker in a quarter century to visit Taiwan, and the trip caused quite a stir.
00:24:52.000Luckily, in American democracy, you can vote for whether you want to provoke a nuclear war with a person with these genitals or these genitals.
00:25:01.000US-led provocations and escalations against China are becoming a regular occurrence, both from the US itself and from its imperial assets like Australia and Taiwan.
00:25:10.000Yet, according to the Western political media class, the urgent threat of our day is Chinese aggression.
00:25:56.000You can't have an honest, open, public discourse if you use bias in such an extreme way.
00:26:02.000Because the fact is, is that truth is complex.
00:26:04.000And when you're dealing with geopolitics, it's even more complex.
00:26:06.000But what's not complex is that the media only give you one side of the story, and that side of the story is usually favourable to the most powerful interests in the world.
00:26:14.000That's one thing we've noticed here, so that shows you that there is an agenda, and its aggressions have escalated with each subsequent administration.
00:26:21.000Just in the last couple of months, we've had news that the U.S.
00:26:24.000is planning on returning to its Subic Bay base in the Philippines as part of its encirclement campaign against China, and also intends to station missile-armed marines along Japan's Okinawa Islands.
00:26:36.000They don't even like having a balloon above America, and also, I find it sort of annoying.
00:27:00.000The US is also reportedly working on building a network of missile systems on a chain of islands near the Chinese mainland, explicitly for the goal of countering China.
00:27:09.000This doesn't seem like a way of dampening down tensions between China and U.S.
00:27:13.000Well, okay, so we've invited you over, and during the Olympic ceremony, there's a bit where we're gonna sort of shake hands and salute each other's flags.
00:28:36.000NATO labelled China a malicious actor in the alliance's latest strategic concept document and pledged to play a larger role in curbing the so-called threats presented by its rise.
00:28:47.000NATO getting involved, provoking people, calling them a militia actor.
00:28:51.000A little bit later, we're in a war that's really profitable for the military industrial complex and Blackrock.
00:28:56.000You can bet that somewhere in this mad fiasco, there's people making money that they're apparently willing to spend in a barren apocalyptic wasteland.
00:29:04.000It's important to note that US war preparations with China have little to do with Taiwan specifically.
00:29:09.000Of course, there's going to be a bit where they go, do you know what's been bothering me?
00:29:52.000They're saying it's not to do with Taiwan or maybe Ukraine.
00:29:55.000It's to do with imperial decline and the ongoing necessity for war on how war facilitates growth in the American economy and stabilizes institutional, elitist, globalist, American corporate power.
00:30:08.000Beijing and Moscow both present their own specific challenges to Washington's hegemony.
00:30:13.000Russia's growing sovereignty and political independence from the US-led West has undermined the Wolfowitz Doctrine of full-spectrum dominance over all territory of the former Soviet Union.
00:30:23.000The Wolfowitz Doctrine doesn't sound like a very nice thing, does it?
00:31:22.000Bilateral trade is expected to increase by 25% and reach a total volume of $200 billion ahead of the 2024 target date.
00:31:30.000Surging economic ties with China have given Russia further protection from US-EU sanctions with agricultural and energy exports to China increasing by the month.
00:31:40.000China and Russia have also increased coordination on matters of military coordination, color revolutions, and diplomacy in the face of a common threat, US imperialism.
00:31:49.000How's those sanctions going, Joe Biden?
00:32:02.000But perhaps the biggest threat to US hegemony resides in China and Russia's leadership in the global movement for integration and de-dollarisation.
00:32:12.000China and Russia are the principal leaders of multilateral institutions such as the BRICS Plus mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
00:32:20.000These multilateral institutions set out to strengthen investment in all sectors of economic and social development between participating countries, especially in the realm of finance.
00:32:29.000In response to starvation sanctions imposed by the US and EU and predatory loans from Western financial institutions, Bricks Plus has united the largest global South economies, uniting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in an effort to develop an alternative to the US dollar dominated neoliberal economic system.
00:32:49.000The strength of Bricks Plus grew immensely in 2022.
00:32:53.000Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iran, Argentina and several other countries expressed interest in or applied to join Bricks Plus.
00:33:01.000BRICS Plus is complemented by China and Russia's own integration projects, which aim to develop the infrastructure necessary to break free from the petrodollar.
00:33:11.000China's Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, sports major cooperation agreements with more than 140 countries and consists of at least 2,000 development initiatives, many of which are completed or under construction.
00:33:23.000Talks of possibly merging the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the BRI are already underway.
00:33:30.000The interest that China and Saudi Arabia have shown in trading oil in Chinese yuan and Russia's pursuit of an international reserve currency and the idea of BRICS coin are presented as major threats to Western financial dominance.
00:33:43.000I suppose what we are witnessing is the emergence of bureaucratic, administrative and trade opposition to the current order of financial cooperation and the type of Western globalism that we all assume will take over the world, that, at least in my imagination and opinion, appears to be backed by organisations like NATO, etc., various financial and military arms and ideological and philosophical arms of this set of financial interests and domination agenda.
00:34:15.000At the moment, the only potential opposition to this unipolar scheme could come if nations such as those described set up their own alternative.
00:34:23.000How can the US and the set of globalist interests that US government tends to represent ever challenge this potential threat?
00:34:30.000The US's answer to fading imperial hegemony is war, and more of it.
00:34:34.000War is an inherent feature of predatory neoliberalism, where corporations seek favourable conditions to exploit and plunder the planet's labouring classes and resources.
00:34:44.000Look at the Ukraine conflict and see if that template is applicable.
00:34:47.000War is also a permanent and very profitable industry dominated by a tiny few military contractors.
00:34:53.000See if you can learn anything about that idea from the current conflict in Ukraine.
00:34:57.000The ruling elite has calculated that U.S.
00:34:59.000imperialism cannot compete with China and Russia, making the rise of both an existential threat to the future of U.S.-led neoliberalism and imperialism.
00:35:13.000imperialism does not target singular enemies.
00:35:16.000It targets alternative development models and the nations attempting to build them.
00:35:20.000A few useful contemporary examples might be the rise of Bitcoin and digital currencies more broadly, which were first demonised and now are being co-opted and centralised.
00:35:30.000We're seeing more talk of CBDCs, which I would say is an indication of the success or potential further success of decentralised currency models.
00:35:38.000It's something that has to be attacked and undermined.
00:35:50.000Can you see those interests playing out in current conflict?
00:35:53.000Could you see how those interests could be served through a conflict elsewhere?
00:35:56.000The Ukraine proxy war is thus a testing ground for the larger US agenda of imperial expansion.
00:36:01.000The current proxy war between Ukraine and Russia is obviously a testing ground for weapons as we have shown you, opportunity to introduce surveillance models and CBDCs, an opportunity to destabilize Russia, an opportunity to demonize a potential opponent in this potential bipolar world.
00:36:17.000So you can see how Henry Kissinger's model is playing out there.
00:36:20.000One of the things that fascinates me is if you look hard enough or just remember or watch news archive, you know, take the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
00:36:26.000You can see people saying there won't be a Nord Stream gas pipeline.
00:36:29.000They won't be able to get away with that if that were ever to happen.
00:36:31.000Our agenda is to make sure that America can meet Europe's energy needs.
00:36:34.000All of these things are available to you if you want to put together the research and news as our team have done here.
00:36:41.000That's why of course independent journalism has to be ultimately demonised, smeared, brought
00:36:46.000down and the problems that online media bring about to these kind of centralised narratives
00:36:50.000and the interests that they coalesce around is it gives us the ability to go, hey wait
00:36:53.000a minute, couldn't this also be as well as humanitarianism which it doesn't seem from
00:36:56.000history you give a shit about, could it be these interests that are being pursued?
00:37:00.000So they obviously have to shut down that side of the conversation.
00:37:04.000You call people conspiracy theorists, you shut down debate.
00:37:06.000We're seeing all of this play out in real time.
00:37:09.000It's just interesting isn't it to expand out and look at what the macro threat might be.
00:37:13.000The long game here is a potential deal between China and Russia and other large nations that could ultimately destabilise the petrodollar, destabilise American centralist corporate interests and the kind of stuff that we generally talk about here.
00:37:26.000There is, it seems, a realistic external threat, at least outside of their narrative and their hegemony, presented by Russia and China.
00:37:34.000So who are we having a war with now and who are we having a war with next?
00:37:37.000And whatever they tell you, the reason is obviously they have to give you a reason that will mobilise you and prevent meaningful opposition.
00:37:43.000And if, by the way, you can make it taboo to even criticise that war, all the better.
00:37:47.000It's not easy to come out and say, hey, this conflict with Ukraine, because people are like, don't you care about Ukrainian people and Ukrainian children?
00:40:14.000I will respond to this decision, explaining crystal clear why I think The book shouldn't be banned, of course.
00:40:25.000Pius, they'll probably ban your reply.
00:40:27.000Now, before we get into this book banning, let's work out what the book is, in fact, about.
00:40:33.000Can you tell us, first of all, what is meant by the phrase mass formation?
00:40:37.000Give us a few examples of how mass formation could be understood in the last century under old forms of totalitarianism, Stalinism, fascism, etc., and how totalitarianism has altered In accordance with the rise of cybernetics, AI and new ways of corralling and managing data.
00:41:00.000The title of the book, of course, is The Psychology of Totalitarianism.
00:41:05.000Totalitarianism is a typical kind of state which is different from a classical dictatorship.
00:41:11.000Many people confuse totalitarian states with classical dictatorships, but they are completely different.
00:41:20.000A classical dictatorship is based on a very elementary, very primitive psychological mechanism, namely the population that is scared of a small group of people, the dictatorial regime, who has a huge aggressive potential and in this way can impose unilaterally its social contract to the population.
00:41:39.000But the totalitarian state is based on a completely different psychological mechanism.
00:41:43.000It is based on the psychological mechanism of mass formation.
00:41:48.000Mass formation is a very specific group formation which has a very specific effect at the level of individual mental functioning.
00:41:56.000When people are in the grip of a mass formation, they typically lose all capacity to take a critical distance of what the group believes in.
00:42:08.000When the group believes in the most absurd things, more blatantly wrong, they will continue to go along with the narrative that led to the group formation.
00:42:16.000The second thing is that when someone is in the grip of a mass formation, he typically becomes willing to sacrifice everything.
00:42:24.000His own health, wealth, the future of his children, and so on and so on.
00:42:29.000When someone is in the grip of a mass formation, he's willing to radically self-sacrifice.
00:42:36.000A third very specific effect at the level of individual mental functioning is that people who are in the grip of a mass formation become radically intolerant for dissonant voices.
00:42:46.000And in the end, when the mass formation continues until the last stage, the masses typically start to commit atrocities, start to destroy each and everyone who doesn't go along with the masses.
00:42:59.000And they do so as if it is their ethical duty to do so.
00:43:03.000And the better you understand the mechanism of mass formation, the more you see what we can do against it.
00:43:14.000I describe how Throughout the last 200 centuries, very specific psychological conditions emerged in the population.
00:43:24.000And how these conditions led to larger and larger and stronger and stronger mass formations, and eventually led to the emergence of totalitarian states, which are always based on mass formation.
00:43:37.000So it's crucial to understand how this mechanism works.
00:44:14.000First, many people have to feel lonely.
00:44:16.000Second condition, many people have to be confronted with lack of meaning-making in life.
00:44:21.000Third, very important, many people have to feel so-called free-floating anxiety, frustration and aggression.
00:44:32.000That means anxiety, frustration and aggression that cannot be coupled to a mental representation.
00:44:39.000That means that people feel anxious, frustrated and aggressive without knowing what they feel anxious, frustrated and aggressive for.
00:44:49.000And when these conditions are met, Something very specific might happen in society.
00:44:55.000Free-floating anxiety is extremely aversive, because when you don't know what you feel anxious for, you cannot control your anxiety.
00:45:05.000And in these conditions, something very specific might happen.
00:45:09.000If, under these conditions, a narrative is distributed through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety and the strategy to deal with that object of anxiety, Then all this free-floating anxiety might suddenly couple to this object of anxiety.
00:45:28.000And there might be a huge willingness in the population to participate in the strategy, to deal with the object of anxiety, even when this strategy is utterly absurd.
00:45:38.000So the object of anxiety, for instance, in the corona crisis, was the coronavirus.
00:45:43.000The strategy was the lockdowns, the vaccination campaigns, and so on.
00:45:47.000But exactly the same things happened in the past.
00:45:52.000The Soviet Union, we had the aristocracy that was the object of anxiety and the gulags that were a way to deal with it.
00:45:59.000We had the witches in the 17th, 16th century.
00:46:02.000We had the Muslims during the Crusades and so on.
00:46:07.000Every large-scale mass formation starts in the same way.
00:46:09.000The free-floating anxiety is all coupled to an object of anxiety and then someone proposes a strategy to deal with that object of anxiety.
00:46:20.000There is a huge willingness in the population to participate in this strategy.
00:46:24.000The psychological advantage, of course, is that from then on, people have the feeling that they can control their anxiety and that they have an object at which they can direct all their frustration and aggression, which gives a huge satisfaction.
00:46:40.000And then in a second step, something even more important happens.
00:47:34.000Because a mass is always a group that is formed, not because individuals connect to each other, A mass is a group that is formed because individuals all connect to the same collective ideal.
00:47:48.000And in the end, when the mass formation continues for a long time, all solidarity and all love is sucked away from the bond between individuals and it's all injected in the bond between the individual and the collective.
00:48:04.000Meaning that After a while, everyone expects from everyone else that everyone sacrifices everything for the collective, and there is no solidarity at all anymore between individuals.
00:48:17.000So that's a strange effect that the mass formation creates.
00:48:20.000It focuses all the attention on one small aspect of reality, for instance, the corona crisis.
00:48:28.000It connects the group in a heroic battle with this object of anxiety, And it leads to a mental state that is typically the same as hypnosis.
00:48:36.000Mass formation, technically speaking, is the same as mass hypnosis.
00:48:40.000Also in a hypnotic procedure, all your attention is focused on one small aspect of reality, and the rest of reality seems to disappear.
00:48:47.000That was exactly what happened in the corona crisis.
00:48:49.000Everybody was focused on the victims of the coronavirus, and it seemed that nobody noticed anymore that there was a huge collateral damage, and that every proper cost-benefit analysis might conclude that the remedy was worse than the cure.
00:49:09.000So that's the effect of a large-scale mass emission.
00:49:16.000I like the way that it is tied to individual psyches and states that are identifiable and empirical, such as loneliness.
00:49:25.000I like the way that it is connected to the inherent nihilism and loss of meaning that many people are experiencing as many of the ideas of the last century and the religious ideas that preceded them are starting to collapse into ideas of commerce, and pleasure and distraction as opposed to meaning and
00:50:23.000Now, I noted that you talked about that there are several phases and stages.
00:50:27.000Are you suggesting that a natural and indeed necessary progression of this early stage Mass formation that we're currently experiencing that was inculcated and practiced during the pandemic and you can see examples of even in the reporting of an attitudes towards the current UK and Russia conflict will at some point lead to comparable violence.
00:50:50.000If you're making the point that This has the characteristics of 20th century totalitarianism in some form.
00:50:57.000Are you similarly making the case that there will be a corollary of violence or will it be neutered and a different type of violence?
00:51:05.000Is that kind of violence no longer necessary when control can be asserted through freezing of assets, manipulation of behavior, etc.? ?
00:51:16.000Yes, every mass, every crowd or every mass, if it continues for a long time, is at risk of committing atrocities and is at risk of Committing atrocities towards the people who do not go along with them.
00:51:30.000The most important, the crucial thing is whether or not there will be dissident voices, whether or not there will be people who continue to speak out against the narrative the masses follow.
00:51:43.000That's something that was described by Gustave Le Bon already in the 19th century.
00:51:47.000He said every time a mass emerges in a society, there's a group of people who is not sensitive to this mass formation, but a rather large group.
00:51:55.000And then of this group who doesn't fall prey to the hypnosis or to the mass formation, there is a very small group who decides to speak out.
00:52:04.000And in first place, initially, these people will be disappointed because they will notice that they cannot Wake up the people who are in the mass formation, that they cannot show the people in the mass formation, that the narrative they follow is absurd in many respects.
00:52:21.000So they'll be disappointed, but they should never forget that something that was described already by Gustave Le Bon, they should never forget that even when they do not succeed in waking up the masses, they have an extremely important effect.
00:52:34.000And that effect is that they constantly disturb the mass formation.
00:52:39.000And in this way, make sure that the mass formation doesn't go to the last and ultimate stage where they start to be really destructive, where they start to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with them.
00:52:51.000So what is crucial is the question whether or not there will be a group who will continue to speak out.
00:52:58.000History has shown us what happens when the opposition decides to become silent, decides to go underground completely.
00:53:08.000That happened in 1930, I think, in the Soviet Union, 1935 in Nazi Germany, and within one year, the masses started to commit atrocities.
00:53:19.000At that moment, the opposition decided that it became too dangerous to speak out, and it decided to shut up.
00:54:48.000And everyone in the masses and the leaders start to be convinced that it is their holy duty to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with their system, with their ideology, with their totalitarian ideology, of which they always believe that it will create an artificial paradise.
00:55:07.000Hitler had such a theory, his race theory.
00:55:09.000Stalin had his historical materialist theory.
00:55:12.000And now we are at risk of a more transhumanist technocratic idea.
00:55:18.000Matthijs, Matthijs, I've got some questions that have built up over the time we've been talking.
00:55:24.000The first one is Martin Goury in his book The Revolt of the Public talks about the impossibility of the type of totalitarianism of the last century because of the Capacity for dissenting voices and counter narratives continually that technology has presented us with.
00:55:41.000And I know that Brad Evans, friend of the show, could offer a frequent guest on the show and professor of violence would say that we're always or the state is always looking for who it is permitted to enact violence against.
00:55:55.000And when I was trying to discern whether this is a classical dictatorship or totalitarianism, and I know that the argument you're making is this is totalitarianism, I was thinking, who is it already permitted to enact violence against?
00:56:07.000I suppose you'd say domestically, people that are in prison, people that are homeless and destitute, abroad, there are certain countries that is permissible and
00:56:16.000certain populations and ethnic groups that even the neoliberal states sanctions violence
00:56:22.000against. So I'm just looking at whether or like I'm looking for the symptoms of the potential
00:56:28.000exacerbation of this condition because I imagine that what you're arguing is that we are in the ascent
00:56:36.000of this phenomena and that without organized opposition which is possible as Martin Goury has
00:56:43.000posits in his book Dissent of the Revolt of the Public that it is possible now for dissenting
00:56:48.000voices to maintain counter narratives to organize even in the face of considerable opposition
00:56:54.000that sort of Throughout the pandemic, let's take an example, there were
00:56:57.000Continuing counter narrative voices, there were continual studies about vaccine efficacy, adverse reactions, efficacy of lockdown, questioning the profits of big pharma, the regulatory actions of the government.
00:57:14.000So And now, of course, what's I suppose concerning is the way that there is a sort of a collective amnesia and a willingness to continue the kind of trust and relationship that you describe between the mass formation and the centralized leadership elites.
00:57:33.000So what I suppose what I'm asking you, Matthias, is What do you think is the requirement for meaningful opposition to this attempt at globalist totalitarianism?
00:57:46.000And given your diagnosis that there's a point where violence starts being enacted, where do you think we are on that trajectory currently?
00:57:58.000Well, we are definitely not at the end stage yet of the mass formation.
00:58:04.000So the crucial question will be whether there are people who are very decided just to continue to speak out, no matter what happens.
00:58:50.000And even in that case, we will have to continue to speak out.
00:58:54.000So, no matter what happens, If we can't speak out on social media, then we just speak out on the streets and in the shops and in the pubs.
00:59:04.000That's also a good place to speak out.
00:59:07.000But that's always a decisive question, because mass formation is identical to a kind of group formation, mass hypnosis.
00:59:17.000And hypnosis is always induced by the voice, the voice of a leader.
00:59:21.000That's exactly why totalitarian leaders use so much indoctrination and propaganda rather than terror, as a classical dictatorship does.
00:59:30.000The classical dictatorship uses terror in the first place.
00:59:35.000Indoctrination and propaganda can only be countered by truth speech.
00:59:41.000People who speak in a sincere and honest way what they think is true, not because they are convinced that they are the only ones who know everything, no, just because they say, it's my ethical duty as a human being to articulate the words of which I think they are sincere and honest.
00:59:59.000If we do it in this way, not so much trying to convince other people, but just Trying to articulate the words that we think are sincere and honest, then we will have a maximal effect.
01:00:15.000Not so much trying to convince, trying to, in a quiet and peaceful way, articulate what we think is true.
01:00:22.000And that's where our voice will have a maximum resonating capacity.
01:00:30.000And it is this resonating capacity that is capable of disturbing the mass formation.
01:00:39.000The mass formation of which, in the end, only about 20-30% of the people are in the grip of.
01:00:45.000So, usually, not much more than 20-30% of the people are in the grip of the mass formation, but there is like 60-65%, maybe even more, it's hard to say exactly, but who always follows the masses because they have the loudest voice in society and because they are never used to go against the loudest voice.
01:01:04.000So it's just crucial that the people who have the courage to speak out continue to do so, and continue to do so in the right way.
01:01:14.000Matthias Desmet, thank you so much for joining us, for introducing us to some new terminology and some very exciting, if terrifying, new information.
01:01:24.000I'd love you to join us for our whole episode in the next few weeks, so that we can spend an hour talking through these ideas.
01:01:33.000at more length. Thank you so much for joining us. Matthias Desmet is the author of The Psychology
01:01:38.000of Totalitarianism and you can of course follow his work on Substack before he's banned. Matthias,
01:01:43.000thank you so much for joining us, mate. Thank you for inviting me. It's great to talk to you. Thank
01:01:48.000you very much. Thanks Lexi for the hookup. I appreciate it.
01:01:51.000On the show tomorrow Satish Kumar, activist and the author of Radical Love. That's a pivot.
01:01:56.000That's the kind of thing we offer on this show. Analysis of mass formations from a kind of radical
01:02:03.000academic and then Satish Kumar whose historic walk from India to the United States set the tone
01:02:09.000for new spirituality, new pilgrimages.
01:02:12.000He met Martin Luther King, he met Bertrand Russell, talked about CND.
01:02:16.000He's a brilliant elder and great leader and you'll love learning from him tomorrow.
01:02:22.000Gareth, what did you think about Matthias Desmet there?
01:02:27.000Obviously, you know, pretty terrifying.
01:02:29.000I thought, you know, when you were asking about where we were on the kind of trajectory, it felt like, to me, there were moments during the pandemic, certainly in ways that we heard from politicians and the media, where there was a kind of two-tier society being formed.
01:02:44.000Yeah, that unvaccinated stuff, they were talking about shaming, blaming, that was borderline, wasn't it?
01:02:50.000Yeah, and so when you were kind of saying where are we and where are the atrocities, it felt like, to me, we were heading in a direction that was pretty scary.
01:02:58.000Yeah, they were looking at justifying it and in a sense it was only because of the demonstrable hypocrisy that many people that are unvaccinated are also drawn from communities that part of their stated ideology is supposed to be conserving or protective of, I'm speaking specifically of people from non-white or non-dominant cultures in those particular nations.
01:03:22.000Perhaps arrested or at least provided a counter narrative, but it wouldn't have been enough.
01:03:26.000Ultimately, people lost their jobs, people lost economic opportunities.
01:03:30.000I believe there's been some movement in that New York City case, Gareth, where all those 34,000 nurses lost their job.
01:03:35.000I think there's going to be more cases because isn't there been a precedent set?
01:03:38.000I think that's the other side of it, Ross, is that when we're talking about atrocities, it might not be in the form that we're used to seeing in the history books.
01:03:46.000You know, people wiped out in that sense.
01:03:48.000But when you hear that, you know, 30 or 40% of small businesses have not reopened after the pandemic, when you hear that this amount of people are suffering through depression, suicide, cancer, all these kind of things, there are atrocities.
01:04:02.000It's just that exactly like he was saying at the start of it, at the start of it, only one narrative was being focused on.
01:04:09.000And that was what everyone could kind of get behind.
01:04:11.000Particularly when you consider that the victims of those atrocities were ultimately sanctioned, what you know I've raised rather well, that point about there are certain communities that you're permitted to commit violence against.
01:04:23.000Well, you know, over the time that energy giants have been getting record profits, big pharma record profits, big tech record profits, small businesses annihilated.
01:04:32.000That's how the wealth transfer that's often discussed took place.
01:04:37.000And so, yeah, I think there's a, I suppose that is evidence both the treatment of the unvaccinated and as you say, mate, the more diffuse economic impugning of small businesses and the increase in mental health.
01:04:55.000But in a more, if not more anodyne form, because it's incredible suffering, it's not as vivid and as obvious as the kind of internment and genocide that we're Familiar with and I certainly wouldn't want to make any comparisons because I'm not mad.
01:05:07.000All right, then so Should we go then because yeah, I've done this for a while now.
01:05:12.000Yeah, we're good I guess the other part of it that I was thinking about is with the Ukraine situation at the moment we've got also got a situation going on in Yemen where You know, far more people have died and are dying and yet the kind of framing of the United States involvement in both those wars is completely different.
01:05:28.000And that again goes back to what he's saying about, it's about the narrative and the framing that's being created here.
01:05:34.000You know, no one's talking about, what about Yemen?
01:05:36.000You know, no one's talking about... Should we do that tomorrow?
01:05:39.000Because there is that ongoing conflict in Yemen and like the framing of particular deaths and particular wars is an interesting thing.
01:05:55.000Well, thank you very much for joining us for our show, Stay Free with Russell Brand.
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