There are two types of people. Those that are easily influenced to irrational fear, anger and hate, and those that tend toward independent rational thought. Females are more likely the former, and males more likely the latter.
I don't know why, but assume it is evolutionary. Females being more vulnerable would need a quicker trigger to alert them of danger, and would likely even except a lot of false flag warnings due to the high risk factors for getting it wrong. Since males were stronger, the hunter-gatherers and warriors, engaging a mistaken enemy could easily result in harm or death. So the assessment of things that might cause fear, anger and hate would tend to be much more contemplative.
Here is where we are all fucked up. The power regime that includes the corporatist oligarchy... the globalist managerial and administrative class if you will... along with the standard social malcontents that stew collectivist radical... and tend to be feminists... they caught control of the media matrix and started pumping fear, anger and hate propaganda into the heads of the public 24x7. Tech algorithms amplified it.
Instead of the media performing the calming influence for this easily emotionally disordered part of the population, it was like pulling in electric wires to constantly jolt them into even stronger emotional disorder.
It got rolling right before Trump was elected to his first term, and the pandemic (plandemic?) was fortuitist in support of the power regime.
The last piece of this puzzle is the American deep state national security apparatus... the Obama admin broke down the old firewall of American hegemonial soft power actions to cause instability in other countries to influence the election. They discarded the rules and turned the same tactics on the US internally... to help foment social instability to influence the election.
They failed because America is filled with enough voters that are the hunger-gather, warrior model that can still think critically and rationally.
The terrible results and outcomes from the power regime's actions during the pandemic certainly contributed to this 2024 election result. However, the still missing need is that the other half get cut off from their propaganda feeds and get cognitive behavior therapy to help them heal from the last 8-10 years of insanity-causing brainwashing.
I haven’t read Dr Desmet’s book, but I’ve read a lot about it. It certainly seems to be the best explanation of a bewildering phenomenon that has erupted in civilized societies. Maybe it was fortunate that our own brush with MFP seems to have been stopped before we fully descended into the depths, as happened in Germany. At least I hope it’s been stopped.
But we need to figure out why it happened, and we have a lot of work to do there. And how the whole Western world basically followed the same madness. Otherwise we will be vulnerable to the next panic that can be foisted on us.
Is it coincidental that the first modern example (not rooted in a religious belief) erupted in Germany? An advanced society, but also the first country to implement a modern compulsory education system? I firmly believe the root of the problem is in the education system.
I believe that they said society is divided into thirds - 1/3 are true believers of the nonsense, 1/3 that just goes along for fear of social stigma, 1/3 that defies. If the defying 1/3 is vocal/speaks up then the other 1/3 that don’t believe will follow them. The defiant need to be bold to stop the madness.
One of the soloists at our church wears a mask sitting by herself. She walks to the podium masked, pulls the band off one side & sings with the mask dangling from her ear. She masks back up after singing, but frequently takes it down to drink from her water bottle. Hello McFly?!
A few of my favorite comments to try to punch through the psychosis with humor...
Social distancing - "Please advance to the previously infected bubble."
"If this pandemic keeps up, soon only 98.8% of us will remain."
"My mask protects you" - The only source of covid is from healthy people with masks? If you are sick with anything, stay home. If you are concerned with getting covid, you do you, don't expect me to join in your psychosis.
Love the Fauci Big Brother telescreen image, perfect!.....also the whole mass psychosis phenomenon is a bit like Rene Girard 'scapegoating' thing perhaps.....
One of my favorite memories of the Plandemic is driving through the hospital district in Boston during rush hour, watching solo drivers wearing masks, sailing through red lights.
Yep, "Ethical awareness isn’t inhibited by MFP." Their true colors (hidden agenda?) emerged. Think about that for a minute, how many were willing to say that people should be killed or shunned for not taking the vaccine. At the time, I didn't understand the rage many felt that others weren't vaccinated. I took the vaccine, but never thought that others should be coerced into taking it. The premise? If indeed it was a vaccine, why would I care that others didn't take it? It should be their choice. The issue that really bothered me was the government mandating that religious gatherings be stopped; the freedom to assemble was taken away. That was a huge red flag that no one seemed to care about. Reading this essay, two analogs from sci fi came to mind, the Borg and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. "We are the vaccinated. Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated."
Christopher Browning's book Ordinary Men is a good perspective in conjunction with the idea of MFP. The gist is: people will cooperate with extraordinary evil if it's what their social group is doing. This isn't quite in accord with Desmet's analogy that people won't cross ethical boundaries under hypnosis. Browning details that non-indoctrinated soldiers (reserve policemen in the German army in WW2) followed along as their orders became more and more brutal and murderous. Likewise historically only a quite small percentage of civilians risked themselves to hide Jews in Nazi occupied territories. As social creatures humans are extremely sensitive to the cost of flouting the norms / rules / values of their social circles.
Moreover, as you note, with MFP there is an individual affective motivation (sense of meaning and purpose) along with the social conformity motivation. My point isn't to defend any of the abuses from the covid era, but rather to point out that it is a very very stubborn problem in human social psychology, not a specific pathology of the modern technocrats and fauci acolytes.
Potential practical steps that come to mind: mandatory sunset clauses for all emergency legislation/regulation. Review and publication of maximum and minimum estimates of all the numbers under discussion--e.g. deaths, infections, and all of the costs attributable to lockdowns, to try to start parameterizing what *really* went on those few years. Perhaps most difficult, on a personal level a component of grace is required: it hard to countenance abandoning the covid narrative when you're faced with a gleeful and vicious "I told you so!"
There are two types of people. Those that are easily influenced to irrational fear, anger and hate, and those that tend toward independent rational thought. Females are more likely the former, and males more likely the latter.
I don't know why, but assume it is evolutionary. Females being more vulnerable would need a quicker trigger to alert them of danger, and would likely even except a lot of false flag warnings due to the high risk factors for getting it wrong. Since males were stronger, the hunter-gatherers and warriors, engaging a mistaken enemy could easily result in harm or death. So the assessment of things that might cause fear, anger and hate would tend to be much more contemplative.
Here is where we are all fucked up. The power regime that includes the corporatist oligarchy... the globalist managerial and administrative class if you will... along with the standard social malcontents that stew collectivist radical... and tend to be feminists... they caught control of the media matrix and started pumping fear, anger and hate propaganda into the heads of the public 24x7. Tech algorithms amplified it.
Instead of the media performing the calming influence for this easily emotionally disordered part of the population, it was like pulling in electric wires to constantly jolt them into even stronger emotional disorder.
It got rolling right before Trump was elected to his first term, and the pandemic (plandemic?) was fortuitist in support of the power regime.
The last piece of this puzzle is the American deep state national security apparatus... the Obama admin broke down the old firewall of American hegemonial soft power actions to cause instability in other countries to influence the election. They discarded the rules and turned the same tactics on the US internally... to help foment social instability to influence the election.
They failed because America is filled with enough voters that are the hunger-gather, warrior model that can still think critically and rationally.
The terrible results and outcomes from the power regime's actions during the pandemic certainly contributed to this 2024 election result. However, the still missing need is that the other half get cut off from their propaganda feeds and get cognitive behavior therapy to help them heal from the last 8-10 years of insanity-causing brainwashing.
In other words we have become a nation of pussy's.
Yes. And they grab themselves frequently!
You always know just what to say. ^_^
I haven’t read Dr Desmet’s book, but I’ve read a lot about it. It certainly seems to be the best explanation of a bewildering phenomenon that has erupted in civilized societies. Maybe it was fortunate that our own brush with MFP seems to have been stopped before we fully descended into the depths, as happened in Germany. At least I hope it’s been stopped.
But we need to figure out why it happened, and we have a lot of work to do there. And how the whole Western world basically followed the same madness. Otherwise we will be vulnerable to the next panic that can be foisted on us.
Is it coincidental that the first modern example (not rooted in a religious belief) erupted in Germany? An advanced society, but also the first country to implement a modern compulsory education system? I firmly believe the root of the problem is in the education system.
I believe that they said society is divided into thirds - 1/3 are true believers of the nonsense, 1/3 that just goes along for fear of social stigma, 1/3 that defies. If the defying 1/3 is vocal/speaks up then the other 1/3 that don’t believe will follow them. The defiant need to be bold to stop the madness.
It was no more than 1 in a thousand people who resisted in any meaningful way.
Peter Hotez with those graphics makes CNN look like a deranged telethon.
One of the soloists at our church wears a mask sitting by herself. She walks to the podium masked, pulls the band off one side & sings with the mask dangling from her ear. She masks back up after singing, but frequently takes it down to drink from her water bottle. Hello McFly?!
A few of my favorite comments to try to punch through the psychosis with humor...
Social distancing - "Please advance to the previously infected bubble."
"If this pandemic keeps up, soon only 98.8% of us will remain."
"My mask protects you" - The only source of covid is from healthy people with masks? If you are sick with anything, stay home. If you are concerned with getting covid, you do you, don't expect me to join in your psychosis.
fear. herd. stampede.
Love the Fauci Big Brother telescreen image, perfect!.....also the whole mass psychosis phenomenon is a bit like Rene Girard 'scapegoating' thing perhaps.....
Well done, very well done!
One of my favorite memories of the Plandemic is driving through the hospital district in Boston during rush hour, watching solo drivers wearing masks, sailing through red lights.
Yep, "Ethical awareness isn’t inhibited by MFP." Their true colors (hidden agenda?) emerged. Think about that for a minute, how many were willing to say that people should be killed or shunned for not taking the vaccine. At the time, I didn't understand the rage many felt that others weren't vaccinated. I took the vaccine, but never thought that others should be coerced into taking it. The premise? If indeed it was a vaccine, why would I care that others didn't take it? It should be their choice. The issue that really bothered me was the government mandating that religious gatherings be stopped; the freedom to assemble was taken away. That was a huge red flag that no one seemed to care about. Reading this essay, two analogs from sci fi came to mind, the Borg and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. "We are the vaccinated. Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated."
Some misc. thoughts:
Christopher Browning's book Ordinary Men is a good perspective in conjunction with the idea of MFP. The gist is: people will cooperate with extraordinary evil if it's what their social group is doing. This isn't quite in accord with Desmet's analogy that people won't cross ethical boundaries under hypnosis. Browning details that non-indoctrinated soldiers (reserve policemen in the German army in WW2) followed along as their orders became more and more brutal and murderous. Likewise historically only a quite small percentage of civilians risked themselves to hide Jews in Nazi occupied territories. As social creatures humans are extremely sensitive to the cost of flouting the norms / rules / values of their social circles.
Moreover, as you note, with MFP there is an individual affective motivation (sense of meaning and purpose) along with the social conformity motivation. My point isn't to defend any of the abuses from the covid era, but rather to point out that it is a very very stubborn problem in human social psychology, not a specific pathology of the modern technocrats and fauci acolytes.
Potential practical steps that come to mind: mandatory sunset clauses for all emergency legislation/regulation. Review and publication of maximum and minimum estimates of all the numbers under discussion--e.g. deaths, infections, and all of the costs attributable to lockdowns, to try to start parameterizing what *really* went on those few years. Perhaps most difficult, on a personal level a component of grace is required: it hard to countenance abandoning the covid narrative when you're faced with a gleeful and vicious "I told you so!"
(PS should be "loath" not "loathe")
Excellent essay.
I appreciated the hypnosis / ethics connection and the tie to fascism.
The craziest was the masks. They do work, but they became virtue signals. And still are.
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/masks-do-work