Propaganda
can be attracted by the
momentum of totalitarianism itself.
The masses have to be
won by propaganda."
~ Hannah Arendt
Mass Formation (Herd Mentality) in brief
In his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Prof. Desmet outlines the four preconditions that must be in place before a totalitarian leader or message can captivate the masses: (1) a lack of social bonds; (2) a lack of meaning in life; (3) free-floating anxiety; and (4) free-floating aggression. Atomized into alienated, lonely, and frustrated individuals, the masses are then ready to hear the unifying message of an ascendant totalitarian, who is practically summoned into existence by the miserable masses. The leader, through a voice amplified by mass media, transmits to the crowd the galvanizing message it had been yearning to hear: (a) an identification of the source of its discontent (i.e., the enemy, or scapegoat); and (b) a strategy for dealing with that enemy or problem.
At that point, when the roiling masses snap into some sort of coherent whole, "mass formation" occurs, and in its more extreme expressions, it can become a truly hypnotic state. Up to a third of the population might be mesmerized and unreachable by any logic or argument, another third spans the middle watching and waiting, and a final third is awake; some portion of this last group speaks up and continues to speak up, and this vocal fraction is the only hope for a society to not destroy itself in the atrocities invariably accompanying totalitarian madness when it grips a society completely. The voices of dissidents break the hypnotic spell and make possible a return to consciousness and sanity.
Historically, such mind-capture is typical of societies as they are alienated from themselves and at the cusp of totalitarian despotism, but unlike the worlds of Hitler and Stalin of the 1930s and 40s, or of Mao in the 1950s and 60s, there is no charismatic single leader at the head of today's authoritarian regimes; rather there's an alliance of elites, bureaucrats, scientists, and media employed by government, universities, and corporations, including Big Pharma - all insisting upon the same unprecedented coercive strategies.
As Desmet has done in his research, Truman Verdun also draws upon authors including Gustav Le Bon, George Orwell, Eric Hoffer, Joost Meerloo, Jacques Ellul, and Hannah Arendt to help frame and interpret Desmet's message.
Source: the Amazon description of Truman Verdun's book Mass Formation (Psychosis): In Brief: Gustave Le Bon to Mattias Desmet.
~ Edward Bernays, Propaganda
isn't only to misinform
or push an agenda.
It is to exhaust
your critical thinking,
to annihilate truth."
~ Garry Kasparov
In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet deconstructs the societal conditions that allow this collective psychosis to take hold. By looking at our current situation and identifying the phenomenon of "mass formation" - a type of collective hypnosis - he clearly illustrates how close we are to surrendering to totalitarian regimes.
With detailed analyses, examples, and results from years of research, Desmet lays out the steps that lead toward mass formation, including:
- An overall sense of loneliness and lack of social connections and bonds;
- A lack of meaning - unsatisfying "bullshit jobs" that don't offer purpose;
- Free-floating anxiety and discontent that arise from loneliness and lack of meaning;
- Manifestation of frustration and aggression from anxiety;
- Emergence of a consistent narrative from government officials, mass media, etc., that exploits and channels frustration and anxiety.
"We can honor the right to freedom of expression and the right to self-determination without feeling threatened by each other," Desmet writes. "But there is a point where we must stop losing ourselves in the crowd to experience meaning and connection. That is the point where the winter of totalitarianism gives way to a spring of life."
If you can relate to this, continue reading! This mind game is more common and more dangerous than you think.
You see, our intuition never lies. If something about a person's words or actions feels "off", they may very well be a toxic personality who's manipulating you into guilt and obedience.
The smartest manipulators are good at choosing manipulation techniques that are very, very subtle so that you won't recognize them as abuse. For example, they might argue with you whether something actually happened until you start doubting your memory. Or they say something definitely offensive and pretend it was a joke when you try to defend yourself. These are examples of gaslighting.
In the first volume, Antisemitism, Dr. Hannah Arendt traces the rise of antisemitism to Central and Western European Jewish history during the 19th century. With the appearance of the first political activity by antisemitic parties in the 1870s and 1880s, Arendt states, the machinery that led to the horrors of the Holocaust was set in motion. The Dreyfus Affair, in Arendt's view, was "a kind of dress rehearsal" - the first modern use of antisemitism as an instrument of public policy and of hysteria as a political weapon.
In the second volume, Imperialism, Dr. Hannah Arendt examines the cruel epoch of declining European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of the First World War. Through portraits of Disraili, Cecil Rhodes, Gobineau, Proust, and T.E. Lawrence, Arendt illustrates how this era ended with the decline of the nation-state and the disintegration of Europe's class society. These two events, Arendt argues, generated totalitarianism, which in turn produced the Holocaust.
In the final volume of her classic work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt focuses on the two genuine forms of the totalitarian state in modern history: the dictatorships of Bolshevism after 1930 and of National Socialism after 1938. Identifying terror as the very essence of this form of government, she discusses the transformation of classes into masses and the use of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world - and in her brilliant concluding chapter, she analyzes the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination."
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you don't have to defend it.
Let it loose;
it will defend itself."
~ Saint Augustine
(philosopher, theologian, and bishop)
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