[Rockstar]

Mass Formation and Consequent Totalitarian Behavior in Homo Sapiens

https://larryturner.substack.com/p/m...t-totalitarian

“There’s a load lifted from his shoulders with the discovery of his disease.” (from Jethro Tull, "Thick as a Brick")

Aug 24

Introduction

While writing my April 27th posting regarding the disturbing apparent increase in frequency of individual adult-age immaturity within the US over the last 60 years or so, I kept wondering if the science of psychology has examined changes in group behavior consequent of such a shift in background (‘new normal’) human nature. I could find references discussing matters related to normal and abnormal individual psychology everywhere but nothing much to speak of concerning consequent group psychology and group behavior of homo sapiens.

A recently posted video link on Norman Pilon’s blog showed me that the science of psychology has not, after all, neglected group psychology. The video-taped interview of Dr. Mattias Desmet,1 a Belgian clinical psychology professor working at the University of Ghent,2 provides a description of an established predictive psychological model explaining the rapid emergence of rather odd and extreme behaviors in a wide variety of governments and their host populations coincident with the COVID19 virus pandemic.

Individual Ailments Beget Group Ailments

According to the group psychological model Desmet explains and describes,3 four different predisposing factors hosted by many individuals can emerge and combine at the group level to abruptly produce, and then unreflectingly and energetically support, totalitarian government actions.

You might recall that totalitarian states, when they have reached full-monty expansion, are characterized by political repression, very strong control of the economy, large-scale censorship and mass surveillance, limited freedom of movement, and the use of state terrorism. To varying degrees, all of these governmental characteristics have indeed been, and are being, exhibited in many Western nations and in some US states in response to the ongoing COVID19 pandemic.4

According to Desmet’s video taped presentation, the simultaneous existence of four factors in many members of a population prime a society for exhibition of the overly-focused (“tunneling”5) group and individual behavior that supports totalitarianism:

Social isolation;
A lack of sensemaking in individual lives;
Abundant presence of free-floating anxiety; and,
Similar (consequent) abundance of free-floating psychological discontent.
If these four factors are present in enough members of any given society, Desmet says the society in question is at risk for the ‘crystallizing’ action of “mass formation” where large numbers of discontented, anxious, confused, and isolated people simultaneously and suddenly seize upon some single apparent threat and give it their entire attention and energy. The basic reason for this attention and energy seizure, according to Desmet, is that putting focus on a single apparent threat provides immediate and palpable relief from a constellation of the longstanding chronic pressures of social isolation, lack of sensemaking, and free-floating anxiety and discontent. This mobilization of individual attention and energy against some single perceived threat unfortunately, according to Desmet’s explanation of the phenomena, segues easily into increasingly totalitarian government behavior….

https://larryturner.substack.com/p/m...t-totalitarian