The Totalitarianism of “mass panic”, and how it leads to mass formation ideology
https://brownstone.org/articles/mattias-desmet-on-totalitarianism-of-mass-panic/
When I started this substack, I discussed early on the “mass formation psychosis” that has led to the fear our world is living in. If you haven’t read that post, go back to March and definitely read it. It is pretty eye-opening when you read that post, plus the trusted news initiative post.
Anywho.
Dr. Mattias Desmet is the originator of the idea of mass formation panic/psychosis.
He formed his theory back in 2017 when he saw the culture shifts surrounding terrorism and climate change. He began to see how “overwhelming ideological control seeps into every fabric of society. It’s the fervor with which neighbor turns on neighbor, and friends and family members happily denounce each other in support of this new ideological dogma”. Everyone in the liberal mindset is enchanted by the ideological spell under which they all operate. Once an avalanche has begun tumbling down the mountain, it exerts the most unstoppable of forces. “The collective bands together and upholds the rules, no matter how insane or ineffective at achieving their goal. Totalitarianism is the blurring of fact and fiction, yet with an aggressive intolerance for diverging opinions. One must toe the line. Wow. How many of us are seeing this? Covid vaccines? Masks? Look at how the narrative spread simply by instilling FEAR and PANIC into people.
Covid shone a bright light on many things that, beyond a doubt, had gone wrong with modern society. Here was mass formation, on full display; totalitarian behavior, suddenly lived and experienced by all of us. Mass formation is a sort of group-level hypnosis “that destroys individuals’ ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically.” Labor camps and mass extermination, previously unfathomable, don’t come out of nowhere but “are merely the final, bewildering stage of a long process.”
Desmet describes how we got where we are today:
He traces the inevitability of knee-jerk totalitarian reactions all the way to Enlightenment attachment to rationality and control – with totalitarianism being “the defining feature of the Enlightenment tradition.” The other key ingredients to unravel the mysteries of the last two years are:
Generalized loneliness, social isolation, or a lack of social bonds. Hannah Arendt wrote that “the chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships.”
Lack of meaning in life, best illustrated by the insane rise of bullshit jobs, per David Graeber: plenty of people devote their everyday lives to doing things that, by their own accord, are useless, wasteful, or pointless. Social alienation of the creator from both his product and his customer.
Free-floating anxiety: a society with lots of anxiety that isn’t bound up with specific objects, like fear of snakes or war (or perhaps anxiety before invisible enemies – like climate change or the patriarchy). The WHO repeatedly says that something like one in five adults have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder; antidepressants consumed like they’re chewing gum.
Frustration and aggression: there’s a clear link between people who are lonely, lack meaning in life, suffer from anxiety and the tendency to lash out at others – irritation, insults, and the blame game played in full purview.
How was all of this accomplished? Easy. You lock everyone down at home, and spew nothing but fear on television. People become detached and isolated from REALITY, or their old lives. People who formerly went to their office each day, happy hour with their friends, concerts and movies. Suddenly, you are told NO NO NO you CANNOT DO THESE THINGS! If you leave your house someone might asymptomatic spread covid and YOU MIGHT KILL YOUR GRANDMOTHER!!! OR YOUR PARENTS!!!! Stay home. Stay safe. We are all in this together. What did that do? It severed the bonds of our social lives. We became house bound like an ill person would be. We relied on media to inform us what was going on. We made every person a secluded scared person. Which detaches people from reality. When you feed constant fear into people, they become desperate. They will do ANYTHING to make things OK again. You start to plant the seed of “we have the cure” and people who crave the feeling of security and safety again will do ANYTHING to have that back. “I want things to go back to normal” is what they say.
“Left or right, rich or poor, Black or white, Asian or Latino, in the spring of 2020 we were all suddenly in it together. What was on our minds before March 2020 was swept out of our minds and there was one thing that dominated EVERYONE’S ATTENTION: a trigger for mass formations, merging every disparaging conflict into a mesmerizing unity.
Mass formation is the highest form of collectivism, a sense of mythical belonging that those fascinated by groups rather than individuals have routinely(?) labeled “society,” “solidarity” or “democracy.” “What one thinks does not matter; what counts is that people think it together. In this way, the masses come to accept even the most absurd ideas as true, or at least to act as if they were true. ”If, at the same time, a “suggestive” story “offers a strategy to deal with that object of anxiety, there is a real chance that all the free-flowing anxiety will attach itself to that object and there will be broad social support for the implementation of the strategy to control that object of anxiety […] The fight against the object of anxiety then becomes a mission, laden with pathos and group heroism.”
“In this fight all latent brewing frustration and aggression is taken out, especially on the group that refuses to go along with the story and the mass formation.”
We can all think of events in the past two years that fit these descriptions. People in our midst who became mesmerized by the covid outbreak to the point of obsession: they followed the CNN death count diligently, upheld the stated rules religiously, and punished any deviants or critics. The anger with which individuals acted seemed wholly at odds with any interpretation of the facts: What is driving this compulsive behavior?
“The covid pandemonium was a reminder that even rich, sensible, well-mannered, and well-educated societies can descend into the pits of hell faster than you can cry “emergency.” Society always balances on the edge of an unspeakably horrific abyss.”
The problem is, after what has been done to our country, there IS no normal again. We will NEVER EVER be 2019 again. Because even if we take the blinders off and realize we have been duped with fear into mass panic to follow the narrative, we cannot undo the trauma that has been done. There is no magic wand to make the last 2.5 years go away. Because those who fell into the mass formation diligence of totalitarianism DO NOT REALIZE IT. They still believe all of this is normal and ok. Do any of you remember the last “normal” day you had before this mass formation panic took over? The last truly “normal” day I can remember was Super Bowl Sunday 2020. The chiefs won with Mahomes magic. Kansas City went WILD. That day was Harley riding, ground breaking with our shovels and our realtor on the plot for our new home, BBQ, burning a “bad luck hat” in the fire pit because the Chiefs lost their lead while that hat was worn during the game. The fireworks going off everywhere and the entire city celebrating. That week became “chiefs week” with parades, a lot of beer drinking and very little work being done. Everyone was having fun!!! 3 weeks later, we all entered lockdown. Chiefs Super Bowl 2020 feels more like 20 years ago than 2 years ago. People I was very good friends with that day……long lost and have no contact with. Family members I haven’t spoken to for 18 months. The great siege that took all of it away and to think it was done so effectively by a television set, social media, and the internet. And a virus that I am pretty sure we funded the creation of in a lab.
The sad reality is that those who did NOT fall victim to the mass formation panic are just as much victims as those who did. We all feel the consequences of this. The wake up is just going to be more painful for those that succumbed to the media narrative than those of us who realized this was propaganda warfare. There are relationships, careers, educations, and lives that we cannot bring back no matter what we do.
We have to make sure this never happens EVER again.