John Waters

 

Facts are as nothing to crowds, which function via a kind of collectivised imagination, operating off images and the slogans which evoke themBy offering a strategy to deal with the anxieties imposed by the crisis, the would-be totalitarians are able to create a bogus solidarity in a society that has destroyed true solidarityAccording to Desmet, the key root mechanism of mass formfation, free-floating anxiety, is the most painful psychological phenomenon a human being can experience. It refers to anxieties that have no clear focus: The sufferer does not know why he feels anxious.‘Free-floating anxiety is very serious. It leads to panic. When a society is saturated with it, sufferers are desperate to connect it to a representation, and if someone presents a narrative in the mainstream media that offers an object of anxiety, and at the same time presents a strategy to deal with this anxiety, there is a good chance that all this free-floating anxiety in the society will connect to this object of anxiety indicated by this narrative presented by the mainstream media, and that there will be a huge willingness to go along with the strategy.This is where the ‘narrowing of the field of attention’ enters in. The members of the hypnotised mass are enabled to close out everything but that which the hypnotist tells them is important. They acquire not just an indifference to the losses of others, but an insensitivity to losses of their own. They become willing to sacrifice everything under the attrition of the collective injunction — in this case, at least initially, the project of ‘saving lives’. People do not see the consequences of the lockdown, nor feel empathy for the victims.  Their relief at being relieved of their free-floating anxieties is enough to have them cleave to the newly-formed mob. It’s similar, he says, to when a person is under hypnosis: It is possible to use the hypnosis as an anaesthetic to cut into the person’s flesh, having thus made the patient completely insensitive to painThere are, in situations of mass formation, says Desmet, three distinct groups that manifest themselves. Only 30 per cent, he says, are really hypnotised, and cannot be reached in any way. In addition, however, there are about 40 per cent who usually follow the crowd, and from the outset go along with that 30 per cent of total believers. There is another cohort of about 30 per cent who are not hypnotised, who try to speak out and resist. This group, he says, is extremely heterogeneous and disunited. If these people could unite, he says, they could bring the whole thing quickly to an end, but this seldom proves possibleThere are, in situations of mass formation, says Desmet, three distinct groups that manifest themselves. Only 30 per cent, he says, are really hypnotised, and cannot be reached in any way. In addition, however, there are about 40 per cent who usually follow the crowd, and from the outset go along with that 30 per cent of total believers. There is another cohort of about 30 per cent who are not hypnotised, who try to speak out and resist. This group, he says, is extremely heterogeneous and disunited. If these people could unite, he says, they could bring the whole thing quickly to an end, but this seldom proves possibleIntelligence, he says, is no guarantee of resistance to the hypnoidal attack. ‘In mass formation, highly intelligent, highly educated people become exactly as intelligent as everybody else in the masses — everybody becomes equally intelligent, which usually means extremely stupid, in the masses.’  At the start of the lockdown, many people said to him, ‘Yes, it is terrible, but we can stop the rat-race for a while.’ This was mainly the well-off, who had less concerns about the economic destruction threatened by the lockdowns. The anxiety of the educated become fixated on different things, perhaps on the possibility of ‘populists’ taking advantage of the crisis. This is how the ludicrous ‘far right’ trope, stoked by cynical media, gained grounIn a totalitarian state, a large part of the population believes in the narrative and is psychologically convinced that the proffered object of anxiety is the cause of all their concerns.These beliefs, he says, are related to the penetrative effects of mass media but also the image of man as a machine — in part a consequence of industrialism, in part due to an ‘obsession with science’, another core theme of Arendt’s, who emphasises also the key role of ideology as a nutrient of totalitarianism. Everything follows comprehensibly and even compulsorily once the first premise is accepted. The insanity of such systems lies not only in their first premise but in the very logicality with which they are constructed. The curious logicality of all isms, their simple-minded trust in the salvation value of stubborn devotion without regard for specific, varying factors, already harbors the first germs of totalitarian contempt for reality and factuality. 

The danger lies in the very creativity of the human, which may seek to introduce something that is not foreseen in the ideology, and therefore likely to undermine it. Thus, totalitarianism requires the complete transformation of the individual and the collective, so as to align the minds of men with the perspectives and objectives set down in the ideology. Once the supersense is installed, men will think only what the ideology allows. 

Gustave Le Bon, he points out, said that ‘the hypnosis is even deeper in the leaders of the masses than in the masses themselves. They are more convinced of the ideology than the population. They have the feeling that in the end when they have reshaped society according to their ideal image, they will end up in a technological transhumanistic paradise, almost without human suffering, and that is why they feel it is justified to inflict a lot of damage and a lot of suffering, because in the end the result of this revolution will be so marvellous that it justifies everything they do now. Under mass formation, people become ‘radically intolerant of dissonant voices’, while at the same time being ‘radically tolerant’ of their lying leaders.  Imagination, again, is the key — the process of engaging with reality through a gauze of fantasy. It is important that we grasp this: In the average victim of Covid propaganda, we are not dealing with the same person in the way we have known him or her hitherto. We encounter someone who has been fed with, and swallowed, a grotesquely distorted view of reality. She does not see what we see, or know what we know. And, on detecting this dissonance, she becomes, as she has been programmed to become, highly alert and intensely suspicious. Our disbelief in the things she cleaves to is connected in her mind with a danger to herself. We ought not to underestimate the dangers of this, or its potential for leading rapidly to confrontation and even violence. We are not dealing with people in control of themselves; we are not dealing even with people who remain themselves. The word ‘hypnosis’ must here be treated with the utmost respect and literalism The most important thing, Desmet says, is to continue speaking out, to keep saying that we do not agree with the mainstream narrative, to interrupt the constant flow of lies (propaganda) with the truth. This unsettles the hypnosis, causing the mesmermised to turn in their sleep. Desmet says we have to continue to share rational counter-arguments, in the hope of breaking the link of free-floating anxiety to the virus, which he describes as a kind of welded joint created at the highest level of anxiety. Warning people of the dangers of a totalitarian state — itself a possible new object of anxiety — might cause this joint to be broken and a new one formed Mass formation gets deeper as the narrative is repeated and as other narratives disappear. The only way to prevent it becoming deeper and more intense is to make sure there is another narrative that leads to a certain cognitive dissonance that at least means that people will be a little confused while following the mainstream narrative.’ And, yes, he agrees, the short-to-medium-term outlook is bleak. When a society reaches the point of transgressing all ethical limits, there are no longer any guarantees. We must not be in any doubt as to the suggestibility of our neighbours. If we doubt that it could go much further,  he warns, we should consider how far it has gone already. He ironically asks of people who are prepared to vaccinate children, to force pregnant women to wear face masks, to allow old people die alone, ‘Why don’t we move to the next step and build concentration camps for people who test positive for Covid?’ Their answer? — ‘Why not?

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