Transcription
Welcome back everybody to Neutrality Studies. I am Pascal Lotar and I'm joined today by Dr. Matias Desmmet, a professor of clinical psychology at Kent University in Belgium, a practicing psychotherapist and one of the world's leading scholars on the theory of mass formation, um, as well as the author of the wonderful book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Matias, welcome.
>> Uh, thank you for having me, Bas.
>> It's great having you. You are one of the voices that was very, very important during the COVID-19 mass formation. Uh, you were the person who championed that, uh, kind of interpretation and you wrote this very important book of trying to make sense psychologically of some of the tendencies that we've been seeing going on in, uh, in society. Can we maybe talk a little bit about this? Can you, can we start with the concept of mass formation and, um, how it links up with totalitarianism?
>> Yes.
>> Yeah, that's a good point to start. Um, well, you know, uh, I started doing a PhD at Gent University in Belgium back in 2003. And, uh, uh, I, I was supposed to, to, to do a classical research in psychology. Uh, I, I, where I would investigate, um, the associations between certain personality traits and depressive symptoms. You know, it might seem like a strange point to start, uh, going into the topic of totalitarianism, but you will see it is related. It's, it's like it's, it's, um, so I, I, I, I started to do a classical research in psychology and like after a few months, I had a feeling that like these research methods that I was supposed to use, like where I would measure, uh, the psychological characteristics and then compute statistical correlations between them, that these research methods, methods actually, uh, uh, impossibly fully could lead to valid results. And, and, uh, because I, when, when I measured the same psychological characteristic, for instance, a personality trait, in three different ways, the results were often completely different. And, and I, I, uh, I, I asked my promoter of my PhD, uh, whether rather than doing this classical research, research in psychology, whether, um, I could just, uh, investigate the validity of research methods in psychology. And, uh, I was granted permission to do so. And then, like, when I, when I was, uh, investigating these research methods in psychology, like after two years, the, the, the replication crisis started, uh, in, in the sciences, which, which actually showed that, like, the vast majority of, uh, published research papers, uh, are false. And there was this famous paper, of course, by John Ioannidis, which was titled, "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False." So this problem I stumbled upon in psychology turned out to be quite widespread in the sciences, like more than 85% of the papers, uh, uh, cannot be, cannot be reproduced, which is like, which means that, uh, they actually have no scientific validity at all. And the strange thing was, like, um, on the basis of the, of the, of the results of my PhD, I published my first book, a very small book. I don't have a copy with me here now, but, but, uh, it's a very small book, um, uh, which was titled, "The Pursuit of Objectivity in Psychology." And, and I, I made it clear, I think, in a very clear way, in such a way that, well, like even a child, maybe, could understand when it sees certain examples, that the research methods in psychology cannot possibly lead to valid conclusions. And, and the strange thing was, at that moment, that every time when I gave a presentation or a lecture about this phenomenon, where I really presented the audience with these very simple, uh, examples showing that, for instance, the measurement methods in psychology, uh, are not reliable and are not valid, and that they are, they contain too much measurement error to, to do meaningful statistical inference. And, like, every time I presented this, I could see the same thing, like a few people in the audience, like maybe a few percent, like two, 3% of the people, were very enthusiastic and they wanted to know more. But, like, more than 90% or at least many of them got angry with me. And when I asked them, when I asked them, like, "Okay, but, but tell me, what, what, what would, could I be wrong? Can you show me, you know, I have a master, I have a PhD in psychology, but also a master's degree in, in statistics. So I'm a statistician as well." And, and every time I asked them, like, "Show me where is my statistical mistake? Where is the mathematical mistake in my line of reasoning?" Like, nobody ever, nobody ever gave me an answer. Because, because it, I think it was clear that my, that that, uh, that that, uh, from a mathematical point of view, I was right. And, and, uh, at that, at that moment, I just started to, to be, to become fascinated, fascinated by something very strange, like that under certain conditions, very intelligent people, because, like, my colleagues at university are very intelligent people. They are highly intelligent people, but under, under some, under certain conditions, highly intelligent people can buy into a narrative that is actually absurd. And no matter what you do, they will refuse to drop the narrative. They will continue to buy into it. So, and, and, like, somewhere, I think it was around 2013 or something, um, I, I started to, to, to, to go into mass psychology because I started to become aware of the fact that this strange expert blindness, as I sometimes call it, this strange expert blindness, this strange blindness of people under certain conditions, like cannot be explained on the basis of individual psychology alone. You, you, you need to, to, to understand how people, and people's identity, people's cognitive functioning, um, is in the grip of, of, of, uh, psychological processes at the level of the group to which they belong. That's so that's where I got interested. And after a few, few years, maybe I started to become aware that, so I, I started to, to, to, to, to read about, uh, uh, mass psychology, um, and after a while, after a few years, I started to become aware of the fact that actually, um, this phenomenon for which I coined the term mass formation, the term was used by Gustave Le Bon as well, sometimes a few times, and Sigmund Freud as well, I think, used it a, a few times, but then I, I use it as the, the major term to indicate the strange phenomenon of group formation which has this very strange effects at the level of individual psychological functioning. So, like, like mass formation, when people are in the grip of a mass formation, they will typically, um, uh, be incapable of taking a critical distance of everything the group believes in. When the group believes in the most absurd things, the people will buy into it, no matter how intelligent they are. Uh, they will become willing to radically self-sacrifice. That is, that's another very strange characteristic of mass, people in the grip of a mass formation, or, or willing to radically self-sacrifice. And then the most dangerous thing, of course, is that they will typically become radically intolerant for, uh, dissonant voices, for everyone who thinks differently. And, like, this strange phenomenon, I started to become aware of the fact that actually, uh, this phenomenon of mass is the basis, uh, of, of, of, uh, totalitarianism. Like, it's, that's the phenomenon of mass is what makes, uh, totalitarian states such as, uh, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, which are, of course, the most, uh, famous examples. So the phenomenon of mass formation is what makes totalitarian states completely different from classical dictatorships. And most people mix up the two. Most people think like that Nazi Germany was a dictatorship. Not at all. And, or that the Soviet Union was a classical dictatorship. That's not true at all. It's completely different. And then the difference is that in a totalitarian state, uh, a totalitarian state, at the psychological level, is based on, um, on a mass formation, and, uh, a classical dictatorship isn't.
>> Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this can happen anytime again. So please consider subscribing not only here but to my mailing list on Substack. That's pascalota.substack.com. The link's going to be in the description below. And now back to the video.
So you're viewing then the totalitarian state as something that goes psychologically much, much deeper than just the power structures, right, of the, that the political power structures that are built. They, they essentially include this fanatical belief by, by a large number of the group into the core tenets of the group. That, that's about it, right? And it's not just that, that the guy on the top has all the weapons and then he's able to coerce everybody into into submission.
>> No, exactly. That, that would be a classical dictatorship. Like in a classical dictatorship, there is this dictatorial regime.
>> Mhm.
>> Which, indeed, as you said, like, uh, has all the weapons and, and people, people are, are scared of the, the aggressive potential of the, of the regime, and so they, they just accept that, that, uh, the dictatorial regime unilaterally imposes its social contract to them. That's a classical dictatorship. But a totalitarian state is, is something, um, uh, much, much, much more, uh, powerful at a psychological level. In a, in a totalitarian state, uh, a totalitarian state starts usually in the population. That means that a part of the population starts to believe fanatically in a, in a certain ideology. For instance, the race theories, uh, which were popular before the, the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany, or, um, historical materialism, Marxism, which, which became very popular, um, in, um, in the Soviet, in, in, in Russia by the end of the 19th century. So first, in a, in a, the beginning of a totalitarian state is, um, a process, a psychological process where a certain part of the population, usually not much more than 20 to 30%. So it's not, not everyone, definitely not. So, like, 20 to 30% of the population starts to believe fanatically in a certain ideology, and, um, and, uh, because of the emotional function this ideology has in this part of the population, uh, it'll, uh, uh, uh, a mass formation will emerge where people so fanatically believe in the ideology that, uh, they are incapable of seeing, uh, everything in reality which is in contrast or in conflict with that ideology, and where, where, where they start to believe so fanatically in it that they are willing to self-sacrifice, to sacrifice their lives for it, and where they start to feel very aggressive against everyone who doesn't buy into the ideology. So that's what's happening in, in a totalitarian state. And, and once this part of mass formation, uh, emerges in society, uh, uh, there is a chance that there are certain rhetorically gifted people who use it, uh, to seize control of the state apparatus. So they, they present themselves as Hitler did, as, uh, Lenin did. They present themselves as those who, who, uh, um, uh, incarnate, like, all the, the virtues of this ideology, and they, they, they use the masses to, to seize control. And that then, that then, like, a, then a state system emerges, um, which, as Hannah Arendt, uh, very eloquently said in, in her *Origins of Totalitarianism*, she said, like, a, a state system emerges in that case, um, which, which has a huge secret police, namely, namely this part of the population which blindly fanatically buys into the state ideology, and which, and who are willing, who are willing to, to, uh, to report everyone to the state who doesn't buy fanatically into this ideology. That's, that's what happens. Like, 20 to 30% of the people buy fanatical beliefs in the ideology, and they are willing to report their fathers, their mothers, their children, everyone to the state who doesn't follow the narrative. So that means that almost in every sleeping room, every kitchen, every house, there is someone who actually will report everyone of their family members to the state if they are not, uh, not, uh, not loyal enough to the state narrative. That's what happened in Iran, for instance, and, uh, 1978 revolution, for instance. Uh, I know a woman who lived there, and, uh, she, uh, witnessed, she, she was the daughter of a mayor of one of the major cities of Iran, and she, she, she witnessed how a mother who reported her son to the state, put the news around his neck, uh, when he was on the scaffold, and when he was dead, she was very proud to accept a medal for her martyrdom. So that was back in 1978. There's so many examples like of, in every process of mass formation, people after a while, very strange, like in Eastern Europe, after the Second World War, 20 to 30% of the people belong to the secret police, literally, literally they joined the secret police. And when, when after the collapse of, um, of East Germany, when, when people went to the archives and tried to find out who reported them to the state, almost everyone was reported by a family member. Yeah. Right. So, so that's what happens, and, and, and that, that's, that's what makes a totalitarian state so extremely suffocating and powerful at a psychological level. And that, that's, that's why it is so extremely important to understand what happens at the psychological level in a mass formation. And, uh, I'll add one more thing to it, if, if I may. You know, from the moment I started to, to be inter, to investigate the phenomenon of totalitarianism, I had two questions. Like, what makes it different from a classical dictatorship? And the second question was, like, why did totalitarianism emerge for the first time in the 20th century? Because before the 20th century, there were no totalitarian states. And the answer to both questions, after a while, I found out, was just that, um, the phenomenon of mass formation. Like, it's mass formation which makes totalitarianism different from classical dictatorships. And the reason why totalitarian states emerged for the first time in the 20th century is that the phenomenon of mass formation, for certain reasons, which I go into in my book, for certain reasons, the phenomenon of mass formation has always existed, has always existed, but, uh, it became stronger throughout the last centuries. It became stronger and stronger and stronger, just as a consequence of another process, namely the fact that society is atomizing. It's falling apart. More and more people feel lonely, isolated. And that's why mass formations become strong. As we see it now, like, for instance, the way in which what happens at the geopolitical level now, like so many people just buy into all these narratives, uh, uh, which are used now to, to, to go to war, while, um, everyone who, who, who would like to think for one moment seriously, could see that most of these narratives, well, I won't say that they are complete lies, but, uh, a lot of it is inaccurate, and, and, uh, and more propaganda than, uh, than, uh, than truth.
>> This is my main concern. You know, this is why I think your theory is so absolutely important in order to understand what's happening to Europe at the moment. Because the question we, we need to answer is, how is it that so many very intelligent people, extremely intelligent people, and people who are in the same circles as we are, buy into the war narratives? Why is Europe marching toward a war with Russia? And it is absolutely clear, especially if you're looking what's happening in Germany, how the Europeans are gearing up. They're saying so. They're not even hiding it, for a war with Russia, which is a very, is a suicidal endeavor. Um, and we've seen before, I mean, you were one of the main, uh, critics, of course, of the way that the, uh, that that COVID was approached with, with measures that were, were really like extremely harmful and so on. And I mean, the, the mass formation issue then tries, if I understand it correctly, you're trying to understand how the, how on the, um, on the level of the, of the group, how the level of the group interacts with the, with individual psychology of, of, of each person, right? And how certain things then start overriding even rational thinking. Um, so one more question here, like, is it, is it also the, the availability of the medium? You know, the fact that for the first time in the 20th century, we have mass media, right? We have TV and radio, and this ability of large groups to be, to be, to hear the same narratives at the same time, and that apart from the atomization of the, of society, that you have suddenly, um, possibilities of talking to millions or tens of millions of people? Um, is that, does that flow into it as well? And where do you think that the current state then is, with the ability of, on social media, of a whole new level of, of, of mass communication?
>> Yes. Let me, let me first go into for one minute into something you said in the beginning. Um, namely that you could see how highly intelligent people just buy into the war narratives in Europe. Exactly. Exactly. And, and the strange, the strangest thing is that, or one of the, the very remarkable things in a phenomenon of mass is that the higher the level of education, the more vulnerable people become for mass. So this is a very strange thing. You would, you would usually think that highly educated people would, uh, be resilient, that they, they are, they, they have this skilled critical thinking ability, which is not true. Like Gustav Le Bon in the 19th century already wrote in his book, *The Psychology of the Masses*, of the crowd, *The Psychology of the Crowd*, he said like, uh, the higher the level of education, the more people will fall prey to mass. Something that was echoed by, um, Jacques Ellul in his book, *Propaganda*, the best book about propaganda that has ever been written, I think. He said exactly the same. He said, uh, uh, the longer people go to school, the more easily they will fall prey for propaganda. So just be, he said, like Gustav, Jacques Ellul said that this had to do with the fact that education and our school system actually is a kind of indoctrination.
>> Unconsciously.
>> That's not that teachers know consciously that they are indoctrinating children. No, it's just their, the, the educational system learns people not to think for themselves. It learns them to think all in the same way. Which means it learns them to think according to the mainstream view on man and the world. And in this way, uh, education becomes a psychological preparation, um, um, which makes people vulnerable for, for the propaganda that will be used later on in their lives. So that's one thing. So the higher level of education, the more easily they fall prey to it. And you can see it indeed in the example of the, the war in Ukraine. Uh, the war with Russia is an excellent example. I wrote two articles about it. I published them on my, on my Substack page. One article where I, where I, uh, go into, uh, uh, the structure of Putin's Russia, which exactly. Putin is not a saint. We know that. We know, we know he's not a saint. I mean, I mean, uh, and there are many problems in Russia also at the level of free speech. But if you look from the other perspective, like what NATO did, then one thing for sure, NATO is also not a saint. And, and they, they have this expansionist politics in which, which actually goes so far that I think, in my humble opinion, that there is no other choice for Putin and Russia, uh, than to go to war. Because if they don't, uh, uh, they will lose, uh, their, their, they won't be a, a superpower anymore. So, and, and, and, and I, I, it's so strange, like, like that an entire population really believes that Putin is this devil which has to be destroyed, or which threatens to, to destroy Europe, uh, without ever being able to take the other perspective, uh, and to see what happened in, in Ukraine, to see how American companies purchased, like, 30% of all the, the, the, the, the country, and so on, and so on. It was a, so, so, um, so that's, that's what mass formation does. And no number of counterarguments will ever help. You know, the first person I interviewed on my channel four years ago was Jack Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, and he kept saying, like, "This is our mistake. We should never have done that." And he's like, just one in a long line of people who said, like, "We must not push this war on the Russians." It was pushed, and it became a war, and it has been a war for four years. And even though all of these, all of these revelations came out, including the way in which the CIA had been infiltrating, you know, according to this New York Times, not some conspiracy theorist, uh, uh, magazine, the New York Times, how the CIA after 2014 had been infiltrating Ukraine and been starting to build up, uh, Ukraine as, as, as a bastion against, against the Russians and forward capabilities. Um, how, uh, the, the, it was the, the UK and the United States that sabotaged the Minsk II agreement. All of this is out, confirmed from several sides. Yet, if you bring it up, the people who are under the grip of mass formation, they will get angry. Can you explain to me why it is that anger is the reaction that, that is then, that, that the individual produces instead of a, of a, of a rational conversation?
>> Yes. That, that's, that's, that's, I, exactly, that's why it's so important, I think, to understand what happens in a mass at the emotional level. You know, there's something very interesting, and I will just first take a helicopter view, zoom out a little bit. Like, like, somewhere in the, let's say, 17th century or something, um, we, like, uh, there was a huge, what I call, metaphysical revolution. Um, before the 17th century, the dominant view on man and the world was the religious worldview. And then, like, in the 17th century, that changed. Changed. The religious worldview was replaced by, slowly, step by step, by the, by a, by a rationalist materialist worldview, which, which started to believe that the real world is the world you could, you can see with your eyes and understand with your brain. And, and, and from then on, um, well, that, I, I think that's what you have to understand. Like, from, from then on, we started to believe that the human being, in the first place, um, is a rational being, that he, and also that we should be rational beings. Like, that when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you should wonder about is, like, "How will I be as smart as possible today?" That's, that's, that's what the rationalist worldview believes. It's no longer. Yeah. Like when, when people, uh, before the 17th century woke up, they used to think, or at least that was, they were what they were expected to do by the, by the dominant worldview, like, "How can I live a good life today?" So good and bad were the most important things. Uh, uh, the first question you should, should ask was an ethical question, not, not a rational question. And so, like, from the 17th century onwards, we start to believe that human beings should live its life, uh, uh, uh, starting from the question, like, "How can, how can we be as smart as possible? How can we live a life that is as rational as possible?" And, um, it, it, like, like, um, uh, the major goal of life in this respect is, uh, to be the smartest and the strongest in the struggle to survive, something like that. Um, and the strange thing was, like, if you look at modern democracy, how it started somewhere back in, uh, in, in the, in the 18th century, when after the American Revolution, you could say that the founding fathers, for instance, of, of a, of a American democracy, they all really believed that the human being is a rational being. They believed that people, when, when they were free, would think rationally and choose for politicians who were, uh, from a rational point of view, the best leaders. That, that was people like Thomas Jefferson and stuff. If you read their works, they all believe that. They believe like, and, and even all the, the, the Enlightenment thinkers really believe that the human being is a rational being. Now, the strange thing was, like, after, after a few decades, like, I think, I think by the, by the beginning of the 19th century, 1810 or something, like 20 years later, after the, the, uh, American Revolution, or 30 years after the, the American Revolution, all the founding fathers of, uh, of modern democracy, they knew already that they made a fatal mistake. That, that they, they knew already that the human being is not a rational being, not at all. And that was the beginning, like, at almost at the same time, the phenomenon of modern propaganda emerged. Modern propaganda, which means a kind of practice, like, you know, propaganda is the most important organizing principle of modern democracy. If you read the work of the beginning of, of democracy, if you read all these, all these people who, who, uh, who witnessed, uh, the problems of, of early democracy, they all said, "We have no other option than manipulating the population." If you read, there is no other option. Without manipulation, it's impossible to organize society. And because by that time, after 20 or 30 years, they knew already that citizens and the people that they absolutely wouldn't behave rationally. So modern propaganda is like the return of something that was repressed in the beginning of modern democracy. Modern democracy started from the belief that a human being is a rational being, >> and propaganda starts from exactly the opposite. You can make people believe the most irrational things, no matter what, when you just confront them time and time again with irrational emotional messages. So that's the point. You have these two things. On the one hand, the belief, so, so typical for Enlightenment culture, that human beings are rational beings. And then, on the other hand, exactly the opposite, like, human beings are completely irrational. And with propaganda, which always goes to the emotions of people, which manipulates the emotions, with propaganda, you can make them believe everything you want. So that's the point. Modern democracy, actually, is essentially, is exactly the opposite of what it pretends to be. It pretends to be a system where people are free and can choose rationally for what is good for them. But essentially, everyone who really studies modern democracy in an open-minded way will conclude that it is a system where people are fooled every day by propaganda, and where they, where the population starts to believe the most absurd and irrational things because propaganda manipulates them.
>> Or they can, they can start believing the most absurd of things, right? It's not, it's not necessary that they do, but it is, it is possible. Which is why the question, "Oh, how do democracies produce totalitarian states?" is kind of the wrong question. It's, it's more like, "How is it that some democratic systems do not fall prey to totalitarianism and mass formation, whereas others do?" Um, what, what is it that is so, um, what is it that then, that then informs this mass formation phenomenon, though? You know, that, that sometimes you have this, this movement. And I, I don't recall if it was a metaphor that came to mind when I was listening to one of your podcasts or, or, or in somebody else when, you know, how do you have this, um, the physical phenomenon that if you're on a bridge that is wobbly, and a lot of people walk over that thing, then people naturally have to start walking in lockstep because they try to counteract the, uh, the swinging of the bridge, and that itself then makes the swinging of the bridge worse, to the point where a bridge can collapse that starts wobbling, right? And is mass formation, in, in a sense, that kind of phenomenon where each individual is kind of forced to react to the, uh, to the movements of the other one, and that then causes lockstep and, in the end, a totalitarian state?
>> To a certain extent, it is. You know, maybe, maybe it would be good to, to go into the, the mechanism of mass formation, like, in a few minutes, we can, we can, we can walk through it. Like, I, I think, in my opinion, like, I, I, uh, I think, like, like one of the major questions when you're studying the phenomenon of mass psychology or, uh, mass formation, one of the major questions always is, like, "Why did it get stronger?" Like, okay, there were always mass formations, like there were the Crusades, there were the witch hunts in the 17th century, and so on, and so on. There were always mass formations, but the, the strange thing is, like, that this phenomenon became stronger and stronger and stronger through last, throughout the last few centuries. And, you know, I believe that, uh, uh, uh, uh, the reason why it became stronger in the first place was that the level of loneliness emerged. Like, um, I, I, I studied the phenomenon of mass formation for a few years, and in my opinion, the starting point is always loneliness. Like, like, so many scholars have remarked that, like, something like propaganda cannot work, uh, in, uh, in, uh, in, uh, in a population with good social bonds. Like, you need disconnected, lonely people for propaganda to be very, uh, efficacious. So, what happened in the first place was this, like, our rationalist materialist worldview, for many reasons, I described them in my book, disconnected people. It made them feel lonely, and it made more and more, more and more people feel lonely. And that's the first step, as the first very important step at the psychological level: loneliness. Hegel, the German philosopher Hegel, was the first who, who, uh, uh, used the term atomization to, in the beginning of the 19th century already, to refer to the fact that in modern societies, people, more and more people started to feel lonely. And then, like, if you look, like, now in the 20th century, 21st century, like, I think it's up to 40 to 60% of the people who report to feel lonely. Like, Theresa May in Great Britain, uh, uh, appointed a minister of loneliness, just because she acknowledged how much lonely people there were. And like, in, in the States, the US Surgeon General in 2017, I think, said that there was a loneliness epidemic. So, so many people feel lonely, disconnected. As a first step, and then, once people feel lonely, they will typically, um, start to struggle with lack of meaning-making. Like, like, a dis, an isolated human being, to an isolated human being, it always seems that life is, uh, without purpose, without meaning, just because, because human beings have a spontaneous feeling of purpose and meaning in life when they feel that their existence has an effect on other human beings. So lonely people don't have that anymore, and they will typically be confronted with lack of meaning-making. Like, it's unbelievable, like, almost 50% of the world population believes that his or her job is without purpose, that it is a so-called job. So, it's, it's the percentages are staggering. And, like, and then, then something extremely important happens at the emotional level. Once people feel lonely, disconnected, isolated, and struggle with lack of meaning-making, something very typical will happen at the emotional, at the affective level. And that's, uh, that's what in my theory is, uh, is, uh, is just quintessential to understand mass formation. Like, once people feel isolated, struggle with lack of meaning-making, they will be confronted at the emotional level with what I call free-floating frustration, aggression, and anxiety. That means a kind of frustration, aggression, and anxiety which people cannot connect to an object, to, to, so they, meaning in plain words, that, uh, they feel frustrated, aggressive, and anxious without knowing what they feel frustrated, aggressive, and anxious for. And that's an extremely, >> painful state. It's extremely, like, like when you feel anxious, but you think that you know why you feel anxious, you feel a little bit in control. If you feel anxious of a dog, you know, you can run from the dog. But if you feel anxious without knowing what you feel anxious for, um, the, at the psychological level, it's an extremely painful mental state. And when people, when many people are in this state, which was definitely the case, for instance, before the Corona crisis, when many people in a population are in this state, when there are very high levels of free-floating anxiety, something very typical might happen. If, under these conditions, someone distributes a narrative through the mass, through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety, for instance, a virus, and at the same time providing a strategy to deal with that object of anxiety, for instance, the lockdowns.
>> Yeah.
>> Something very typical might happen. All that free-floating anxiety might at once connect to the object of anxiety. And people might be willing to buy into the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, no matter how absurd it is. Because the reason why they buy into their narrative is not because they believe that it's a rational, uh, effective strategy to deal with the object of. No, it's just psychologically. It's because the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety functions as a kind of a ritual that allows them to have control over their anxiety. That's a first step. That's a first step. It's like a collective symptom. Something like that happens all the time at the individual level. Like when people have a phobia or one or another compulsive symptom, exactly the same process happens. But in a mass formation, it happens at the collective level. So all these people buy into the narrative because it makes them feel in control again. And then, at second, in a second step, something even much more important happens. Because so many people at the same time participate in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, it makes them feel connected again. They have the feeling that they fight a collective battle with the object of anxiety, makes them feel connected again. It makes them, the strategy, the object of anxiety, the mask-wearing, the lockdowns, functions as a collective ritual which makes them feel united again, which, which makes them feel as if they can escape the most painful condition a human being can be in: complete isolation. It feels that they can escape their isolation and their loneliness, and that they can form a community again. I see. It feels as if, or it seems, because they are not really connected again. That's what makes mass formation so dramatic and so destructive. Because when people form a mass with a mass formation, a mass formation is a kind of group formation which has a very specific characteristic. Like in a healthy group formation, individuals connect to each other, and the group is based on connections between individuals. But in a mass, something completely different happens. Like in a mass formation, a mass is a group that emerges not because individuals connect with each other, but because they all connect to the same collective ideal.
>> Meaning, after a while, like, uh, all the energy, all the love between people is sucked away, and it's all injected into the bond between the individual and the collective. Meaning that after a while, people love the collective ideal as it is usually incarnated in one or another leader, like Stalin or Hitler, for instance. People love the collective ideal much more than other individuals. And that explains, of course, why after a while, in a mass, mothers start to report their children to the state when they cheat their children or not loyal enough to the state. So that's what happens in the mass. It's an extremely destructive, powerful mechanism where people seem to escape, uh, loneliness, where they seem to find a way to take out their frustration, aggression, uh, on a scapegoat, where they seem to be in control of their anxiety, but where, in reality, they feel more and more anxious, frustrated, and aggressive, and feel more and more lonely, and be in this way, become even more vulnerable to a new mass formation. So that was what happened in, uh, when the Corona narrative ended, immediately, almost day by day, after the Corona narrative lost its grip on society, the Ukraine narrative emerged.
>> Yeah.
>> Because Corona was not ended by any kind of lockdown mechanism. Corona was ended by Ukraine, >> because you could, you could needlessly shift into the next one, and you could even, you could even reuse the same kind of jargon. Um, the, what, how, how do we break through that? If, and I buy into what you're saying, and I do think you, you, you got the analysis of how this works, right? What do we do against it? How do we break the grip of mass formation? And, like, on the realistic level, and the unrealistic level. I mean, like, unrealistically, just like, ideally, I've had a talk with, uh, Dr. Neil McLaren, who wrote about, you know, narcissism and the connection to fascism, and he pitched the idea, just on passing, you know, because the system is such that then these narcissists necessarily end up on the top. What we would need is a mechanism to prevent that. So let's say 50% of parliament should be elected, not, not elected by people, but purely randomly decided. Pure randomness. 50% go to parliament, and then that would be a counter-mechanism. You know, that's, of course, unrealistic. But on the level of such things, and in the realm of the, of the, of realistic things that can be done, what are things that would, that work against this mass formation, in which we actually are, and in Europe, we are walking toward a war with Russia, if we do not break?
>> Yes. Uh, yes, that's the most important question, of course. And, and, uh, and, uh, like, from my analysis, you can very easily say, uh, what the solution might be, and what, uh, the solution won't be. Because, and to understand that, I think we need to go one level deeper, like, like, um, um, and, and, and wonder, like, what, what the psychological reasons are for this loneliness that got stronger and stronger. You know, there are 100 reasons why people in modernity, during the Enlightenment culture, got more and more lonely. There are 100 reasons, but there is one more very fundamental reason, which is the most important one, and which is always forgotten. I know nobody, I, who who really, uh, focused on that, on, on, on what I believe to be the most important, the most fundamental, the root cause of loneliness. The root cause of loneliness, I think, is the fact that in modernity, and during the Enlightenment culture, people lost touch with truth. Very strange. Very strange. Like, when, uh, the Enlightenment tradition started, when the rationalist and materialist worldview started, um, people started to believe that, like, the entire universe is a kind of a machine, uh, and that the human being is a small machine, a cog in the, in the, in the big machine of the universe, and that the human being is a purely biological being. Uh, and that the ultimate goal of life is biological survival, or enjoying as much as possible, or avoiding pain, doesn't matter, but the ultimate goal of life has to be understood in materialist terms, according to this new materialist worldview. And, and from there on, something very strange happened. Uh, during the Enlightenment culture, humanity believed to have found the royal road, the highway to truth. Like, people started to believe that we can find truth.
>> Mhm.
>> Just by observing the world with our eyes, and then, uh, determining, determining the exact ratio between all the facts that are observed with our eyes. So that was how we believed to find the truth in Enlightenment culture. And strangely enough, um, uh, while we believed to be on the highway to truth, in a strange way, we completely lost touch with it. And I believe, just because of the following reason. Even antique Greek culture knew already, every, all the old traditions knew it, that speaking the truth is always dangerous. Because speaking the truth, by definition, means articulating words that destroy illusions. And everyone who tries to find its stability in all kinds of common sense, socially shared, uh, uh, uh, illusions and in the world of appearances will get angry when someone speaks the truth. So, you know, everyone could feel that speaking the truth is always risky. And when you really look at life, uh, as a game in which the ultimate goal is to be the strongest, to survive, speaking the truth is extremely stupid, just because it puts you at risk. When you really look at the world from a materialist point of view, you have to manipulate other people, and definitely don't try to speak the truth, because truth speech is always dangerous. It's always risky. It makes you weaker in the world of appearances. You know, I can recommend everyone who's watching this podcast to, uh, watch the 1978 speech of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at Harvard. Because that's exactly what he's saying there. I, I watched it for the first time, like, one week ago. That's exactly what he is saying there. He said, like, uh, you know, everyone expected Solzhenitsyn to be very critical of communism, uh, at Harvard, and of course, he was very critical of communism, but at that speech, he, he, he was in the first place very critical of Western society. He said, "Western society lost touch with truth because," he said, "they start from a materialist worldview." He, he almost said literally what I, what I mentioned in my book, and then I never heard a speech before, so I definitely didn't hear it when I wrote my book, but he's along the same lines. He says, like, "Western culture is lost just because, in, in Western philosophy and in Western materialism, there is no reason whatsoever to be found to speak the truth, because speaking the truth always makes you lose something." So anyway, speaking the truth, when, when in a society, a material society, people lose touch with truth, and people find no reason anymore to speak sincerely, something very strange happens. Connection gets lost. Because, because speaking the truth is what makes people feel connected. Speaking the truth. You speak the truth when you articulate something that you usually hide behind your narcissistic ideal image. People constantly keep up an ideal image, a narcissistic image, and that's what isolates them from other people. And the act of sincere speech, of truth speech, is what destroys these narcissistic ideal images and connects people again with each other. So a society in which there is less and less free speech is doomed to end in isolation and disconnectedness. Yeah.
>> One question here, because like the, the other very, um, typical rationalist thing to assume is, of course, an truth and reality that, um, met, like, actually metaphysically exist and that they are part of an observer-independent reality. And this idea of an observer-independent reality, to me, is probably one of the most damaging ones. I, I don't think it is. The, even within physics, we've learned that the observer actually is crucial in order to determine the reality of the quantum world. Um, and I view that as well, like, as in, also within the psychological frameworks of people, right? Truth is observer-dependent. That's why, you know, the evilness of Vladimir Putin is an absolute truth within the, uh, the framework of, of, of that this group of people. And the, no, the, you know, the relational, um, the relational reality of the Russian political system, where things move each other and then react to things that were, were imposed externally. That is part of the truth of, of, of people, maybe like you and I. But it is, it is observer-dependent. How do you, and your framework, account for that, or, or can it be discounted? The, the observer question.
>> Yes. Well, the example of, uh, of quantum mechanics is, of course, a very good example. And, um, uh, I'm writing two books at the moment. Um, and, uh, one of them, uh, goes into the history of science of the last five centuries, and, uh, of the way in which science actually constantly stumbled upon, uh, this strange phenomenon of consciousness, even the strange phenomenon of the soul, and, but constantly also, uh, walked away from it again. Like the,
>> The religious. We're gonna go away.
>> Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yes. The, the, the seminal scientists, the founding fathers of science, none of them was a materialist. And, and I, even, like, last year, I, uh, visited CERN for one week, because one of the physicists there had read my book, *The Psychology of Totalitarianism*, and he was very fond of it, and he said, like, "Look, maybe, uh, you would be happy to be here for a week and to see all these experiments, uh, to observe them, and to, and." So I went, went there. I, I wrote, I even once wrote, like, an article which is also on my
substack about the on the mathematical basis of um of uh uh Bell's theorem. So I I I really I'm I'm into it and I and I and I always I was always fascinated by what you what you mentioned of course that uh that um uh like even in at the level of our material reality there is an observer effect like there is no there is no such thing as an observation which is not influenced uh or even constructed by the observing entity by the human being that that observes it. So that's true, but but I'm not sure I'm not quite sure that I that I agree with you when when when when you say that like there is no truth independent of the observer. At least I think you said that. But >> you know, yes. >> Yes. You know, I believe that I I would rather say like reality is always uh constructed by the observer and you can see that very easily at the level of elementary particles like uh when when before a particle an elementary particle is observed uh it's a sea of potentialities. It's a it's it's it's a wave uh probability wave they say in um in physics. Uh of course they don't know what they say there. Nobody knows what really what a particle is before it is observed like from a physical perspective. Okay. It's probably something like a a probability wave which is situated in a Hberg space in mathematical terms. So uh uh and and at the moment of the observation suddenly uh this this probability wave collapses and and a particle appears that is located somewhere in space and time and that has certain physical characteristics which uh or like a very small part of all these potentialities all these characteristics it possessed before the observation. So, so like the moment we observe we create reality a reality which is like one minor aspect of a material reality which is like one very small part of what uh everything that constitutes this reality was before the observation. So but I I think like I think that we create reality there is no reality independent of us as an observer. >> Yeah. >> But in my opinion that doesn't mean that there is no truth independent of the observer. Like >> in that case truth must be shared reality. The realities the realities of different individuals that accept the same reality and that is then truth. Sorry we're going into a very abstract. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. No, for me when we are talking about quantum mechanics, truth would be the probability wave which we don't really know which is so much more which is so much more than we can observe but but it is out there to a certain extent. It is out there and and and at the moment of observation we reduce truth to this small thing we see with our eyes and understand with our brain. So that's more or less how I think at this moment about it. Uh there is truth but we can never fully articulate it know it. Um >> yeah it lands us in the problem that truth is actually the the cab being dead and alive at the same time and that's a problem which verer hated that that's why he did the experiment but but in that case truth will be reduced to this kind of dissat satisfactory state. It's got them both. um which took us very far away from the original question is can you think of an um things to do against mass formation because we really really need to get out of it in Europe although otherwise it's going to be millions of people who will die. >> Yeah, exactly. Uh and and of course like like um like the problem started when modernity um uh uh got alienated from the act of sincere speech. Meaning that uh as a human being we constantly are confronted with a choice like will we take the easy way and buy into all these narratives that everyone shares? Will we go will we take the easy way and buy into all these social illusions and shared narratives? Will we just uh or will we take a difficult road and say like look okay this doesn't feel good to me and I will try to articulate why I feel uh uh uh this isn't right. So the act of sincere speech at all levels from the lowest to the highest level always boil boils down to this. It means that you decide to articulate words that go against certain ideal images that are projected onto us. Like most people even never realize that they buy into all these social norms and ideal images. They just constantly do. They never think for themselves. They always thinks think as others um uh uh want uh them to think. They speak the words that other people want them to speak and they never speak their own words. That's what happens in a mass formation. Suddenly the mass emerges. there is this huge pressure to conform to go into it and then there is like a few percentage of the people who decide to say that they do not agree and Gustaf labon in the 19th century already mentioned he said like every time a massformation emerge emerges you have three groups first 20 to 30% of the people who buy into the massformation they just are completely hypnotized literally hypnotized it's hypn it's it's hypnosis mass Transformation is mass hypnosis. And then you have a large group 60% maybe 65% who uh knows that there is something wrong but who who who who who chooses to remain silent because they feel the tremendous pressure of the massation. And then there is a few percent of the people sometimes up to 10% sometimes even 20% who doesn't go along with it and who who decides to speak out to try to to say like look there is something wrong with this narrative here uh of the Ukraine war of the corona uh crisis and so on and Gustaf Leon in the 19th century already observed like he said like this small group of dissident People when they speak out, they will almost always be very disappointed because they will feel that the people in the masses refuse to wake up because like one once someone is in a mass formation is hypnotized and no matter what you say uh no matter how clear your arguments are against the narrative, they will have no psychological impact because because they refer to But they refer to a part of reality to which no emotions are attached anymore. Meaning that at a psychological level all these arguments have not the least no impact at all. So, and Gustav Ramon said already like okay so when these dissident people speak out, they were very disappointed because they see that the masses refuse to wake up but he so and that's crucial. He said like but that doesn't mean that their words have no impact. When there are people who continue to speak out in a quiet and sincere way not claiming that they know everything but just saying like look I do not agree there is something wrong according to me. When these people continue to speak out, they will not be able to wake up the masses, but usually they will prevent the masses from going to the last stage of the mass formation where they typically will try to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with the masses. So, and that's what we need. When the masses do not go to the last stage, they will destroy themselves before they destroy everyone who doesn't go along with them. And to the contrary, when the people who do not fall prey to the massformation choose to be to remain silent, the masses will first destroy the people who do not go along with the masses and then they will destroy themselves as happened in the Soviet Union for instance. Doesn't doesn't matter. We could go give a lot of historical examples. >> Yeah, >> it's a very good point. So the act of resistance is actually also the the act of of uh of helping the mass is actually of of preventing at work just just through resistance and through uh through saying like no no um there's something wrong here even if you don't go along with it I want it to be registered. >> Okay. Um, exactly. You know, the the only cure I I could I could analyze this from 20 perspectives and you would see it's always the same conclusion. The only cure, the only remedy for a society sick of lies and manipulation, sick of propaganda is sincerity. That's the only cure. It's it's it's uh we have to rediscover the psychological value of truth for a human being. Truth is fundamental for a human being. It's fundamental. It's fundamental for every human being, every individual and it's fundamental for human living together. There can be no society truly humane which is alienated from the act of sincere speech. >> I I like that one. Sincerity. the the idea of sincerity and that it that it registers. Um, because it's very I mean yeah once you once you then get the emotional reaction of the other one that's when you know that you've that you've touched something right that they would prefer not to be touched and that's probably where to go. Um, Matias, people who want to read more about your analysis and um and and your insights um of there's of course your books, but is there you've said there's also a Substack. Where else should people find you? >> Um, oh yes, there is my book which is translated now I think in 25 languages. So it's uh also in Japanese it's uh and in Chinese and in most major languages it's a um and there's my substack my substack page uh where I publish short essays uh from time to time uh sometimes I don't publish anything for two or three months I because I just I only write when I feel that uh there are certain things that uh want to be articulated otherwise I want to write. Um, yeah. So, my Substack page and my book uh is is the most two the two most important things. I think I also publish from time to time something on the social media but not too much because um uh I I think uh like like on Substack you can publish like these longer essays uh which I prefer. So that's probably the most two important ways to to to learn about matter. >> Okay. I will link to both to your book as well as to your substack in the description be box below and then I hope to talk to you soon again in order to continue this conversation and also the idea the the the ways of getting out of the mess we've maneuvered ourselves into. Matias Desmet, thank you so much for your time today. >> Thank you very much.