The Highwire with Del Bigtree - MATTIAS DESMET & THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALITARIANISM

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

Mattias Desmet, Professor of Clinical Psychology and author of the newly released, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, joins Del for an enthralling look at Mass Formation Psychology, the conditions that create, the threat it poses to society, and the key to breaking it.#PsychologyOfTotalitarianism #MattiasDesmet #MassFormationBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

This is a guest that I have been so excited to have the opportunity to speak with for a very long time. We talked about mass formation psychosis before. We talked to Dr. Mark McDonald. But Matthias Desmit is behind the mass formation discussion out of Belgium. He is written the psychology of totalitarianism, which comes out today actually. So it is my honor and privilege to have him coming up for a sense of what we're talking about. Here is what it's looked like in your news. Well, the term mass formation psychosis trended over the weekend with so many searches, it broke the internet.

When people went to search for the term on Google, a couple of strange things happened. Some people saw this odd disclaimer from Google saying the results were changing quickly and that it would take time for results to be added by reliable sources. What does this even mean? I thought when you Googled something, it would bring up sites relating to the topic. Sounds like they're censoring search results. Well, a few hours later, when people searched for the term, a bunch of sites began to pop up, it was a new far-right buzzword, or one attributed to anti-vaxxers. So what is mass formation psychosis?

Well, the term came recently from the Joe Rogan Dr. Robert Malone interview that aired this past Friday. And this leads into this whole issue of mass formation psychosis. There's good modeling studies that probably half a million excess deaths have happened in the United States through the intentional blockade of early treatment by the U.S. government. was also heard and explained in more detail during Dr. Peter McCullough's interview with Rogan. We're in what's called a mass formation psychosis. This is very important. I give credit to Dr. Matthias Desmet in the University of Ghent in Belgium.

Mass psychosis is when there is a group think that develops that so strong that it leads to something horrific. If all the people who want to speak out against the mainstream narrative, if they would unify and become one group, It would be powerful enough to change the direction of the middle group. We should continue to speak out. That's the most important thing we can do. For any of you out there in the world that have been saying, I feel like I'm walking around an insane asylum or, you know what I mean, the lunatics have taken over the insane asylum, I'm there with you.

Matthias Desmond has done some incredible work on the concept of mass formation. It is my honor and privilege. to be joined by him now. So to begin with, there's been some confusion the term, I don't want to get buried here, mass formation psychosis, but you just call it mass formation. Is that correct? Yes, I prefer to call it mass formation.

Yes, I never use the term mass formation psychosis, because in my opinion, both from a netical and from an intellectual point of view, it's better to use the term mass formation. Okay. Now, you know, one of my questions is, Is mass formation in a term you've come up with or is this an older term in psychology? That's something I haven't understood yet. Is this been around for some time?

The term was used from the 19th century onwards by such authors as Gustav LeBond. Freud also used it one time. Elias Kennedy used it. It was definitely used before I used it. But maybe not in such a systematic way. That's possible. Okay. Now, for my audience,

out there. I know you've told this story many, many times, but there's so many people that still have not really heard what mass formation is and how it comes about. Obviously, we're talking about this pandemic in many ways, which is why we're having this conversation. But take me through, what are the elements, you know, what is, is there a state that a population, obviously this isn't always the world, it can be a continent, it can be, you know, a smaller group of people, but there has to be a set of things taking place, like a climate that makes us vulnerable to this. Is that correct? Yes, exactly, exactly.

Mass formation is a specific kind of group formation, which has very specific effects at the level of individual mental functioning. For instance, it tends to make people completely incapable of taking a critical distance of what the group believes in. And in the end, the group starts to believe in the most absurd things, such as, to give one concrete example, during the revolution in Iran, the revolution of 1979, which was the beginning of a large-scale process of mass formation in Iran, people started to believe that the portrait, the picture of the Ayatollah, the leader of the mass, you could say, was printed on the surface of the moon. And when there was a full moon in the sky, people typically stood out in the streets pointing at the moon, showing where exactly they could see the portrait of the Ayatollah.

That's one historical example of how absurd the beliefs of a mass can come. So that's one typical characteristic of the phenomenon of mass formation, one typical effect of mass formation on individual mental functioning, but there is more. For instance, people who are in the grip of a mass formation typically become willing to self-sacrifice. It is as if they are no longer aware of their own personal egoistic interests. And this goes very far as well. People become radically aware to sacrifice everything that was important to them before the mass formation started. And a third

characteristic that is that extremely important is that people who are in the grip of mass formation typically become radically intolerant for dissonant voices. And in the end, they tend to stigmatize the people that do not go along with them, give them a sign, and then start to commit cruelties towards them, and in the end, try to eliminate or destroy them. And even more important or more characteristic, they do so as if it is an ethical duty to do that, to destroy these other people. And they even become radically aggressive and intolerant towards the people. They used to love very much before the mass, I will give a concrete example again. Two months ago I was talking to this woman of Iran,

Shoray Fishtali, this conversation is available on the internet, who lived in Iran during the revolution and she has seen with her own eyes how a mother reported her son to the state and hung the rope around his neck just before he was hung and how she claimed to be a heroine for doing so. That's one concrete example, but it's typical

For all mass formations, whether we are talking about the Crusades, or about the witch hunts, or about the French Revolution, or about the rise of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, all typical examples, historical examples of mass formation. Every time we see this very typical characteristic that in the end, people start to commit cruelties to everyone, even the people they loved very much before the mass formation, and they do so as if it is. an ethical duty to do so. That's the last stage of mass formation and it is extremely important to understand the mechanism the psychological mechanism of mass formation because if you understand it you know what we have to do to avoid the process of mass formation going to this ultimate terrible stage and that's well of course I've been explaining this mechanism of mass formation It's indeed, as you already suggested, the population has to be in a specific psychological state.

Yeah, tell me about that. Tell me about what makes us vulnerable as a society, you know, to this type. And you're talking about this isn't just, this transcends education levels, right? You're talking about essentially, you know, the majority of humanity are vulnerable to taking part in this. I mean, I used to always argue with my friends growing up that anybody, could be a Nazi if you were in the right circumstances and socialized correctly. I think for the most part, most of us, it's very rare that we have some sort of moral code or super critical thinking that breaks us apart from it. But before we get into what makes it, what is the, what has to be the climate?

What has to, what makes us vulnerable to this type of movement? Yes. Well, first and for all, some people are resilient. Some people do not fall prey to mass formation, but it's very hard to know why and which people do not fall prey to it. But as you said, intelligence doesn't protect you from mass formation, not at all. And the level of education is even a counterindication. The higher the level of education, the more vulnerable for mass formation.

That has been observed in the 19th century and 10th century, and we see it again now. So, but indeed, the most important thing is that, well, A population has to be in a very specific mental state in order for large-scale mass formation to emerge. And the most crucial condition for large-scale mass formation is that many people have to be disconnected from their natural and their social environment. So many people have to feel lonely, have to feel atomized, as Hannah Arendt called it. And what you could see, for instance, was that just before the corona crisis, The number of lonely people really peaked in Western society and even worldwide. Over 30% of the people worldwide reported in a Gallup World Poll

that they didn't have one meaningful relationship and that they only connected to others through the internet. That gives you an ID of the extent of the problem. In the UK, Theresa May appointed a Minister of Loneliness. And in the US, the US Surgeon General concluded that there was a loneliness epidemic that was around 2017 and the problem only became worse since then. So that's the most crucial condition is this social isolation of a substantial part of the population. And then the second condition actually follows from the first one. Once people feel disconnected,

they will typically start to be confronted with a lack of purpose and meaning in life. And that's just because human beings are social beings and they have the feeling that their life makes sense if they see that they have an effect on the other. So if the relationship with the other impoverishes, if it if it's if there is no strong social bond anymore, people will typically start to suffer or to be confronted with lack of meaning making in life. So that's a second condition and also that condition was really fulfilled just before the corona crisis. Over 60% of the people worldwide claimed that they considered their own job to be a bullshit job. That means a job which they couldn't think of for whom it might mean something or to what it could so that's that's

there were extremely high figures only 15% of the people worldwide consider their own job to be meaningful wow wow so they're living and they're feeling lonely they're living what they consider to be a meaningless life and so those are two of the conditions right what else is exactly and the third condition the third and the fourth condition are or are also crucial the third condition is that when people or in the state of disconnectedness and lack of meaning making, they will typically be confronted with so-called free-floating or freely floating anxiety, frustration and aggression. That means that a kind of anxiety, a kind of frustration and aggression that is not connected to a mental representation or to put it in plain terms,

a kind of anxiety in which people don't know what they feel anxious for. a kind of frustration and aggression in which people don't know what they feel frustrated and aggressive for. And this is an extremely aversive mental state because if you feel anxious and you don't know what you feel anxious for, you feel completely out of control. You feel as if you cannot control your anxiety just because you don't know what you're anxious for. And under these conditions, if a population, if these conditions are fulfilled in a population, something very typical might happen. If under these conditions a narrative is distributed through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety and at the same time providing a strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, then all this free-floating anxiety in society might connect to the object of anxiety provided in the narrative, and there might be a huge willingness to participate in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety.

The reason why is clear. If people can connect their anxiety to an object and participate in a strategy to deal with this object, they feel in control again. And it doesn't matter then whether this object of anxiety is the true object of their anxiety or not. That is the first step of every major phenomenon of mass formation. In the Crusades, the object of anxiety was the Muslims. And the witch hunts, the object of anxiety was the witches. And during the French Revolution, it was the Ancien regime. In the Soviet Union, it was the aristocracy.

In the Nazi Germany, it was the Jews. And now in the Corona crisis, it was the coronavirus. And all the people that refused to go along with the battle to fight the coronavirus. So the first step of mass formation is always the coupling, the connection of the free-floating anxiety to one object, which makes that people become very focused, all the attention is directed at one very small aspect of reality from then on. And the rest of a reality disappears into darkness.

And the second step is even more important. Because so many people at the same time participate in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, people have the feeling that they are connected again. They don't feel lonely anymore. They fight a collective heroic battle with an enemy, feel connected again, and we could say, okay, and what's the problem then? People felt lonely, now they feel connected again. Well, there is a huge problem because this new connection, this new group, this mass that emerges in the society is not formed because individuals connect

to each other. It's formed because every individual separately connects to the collective. That means that in a mass people are typically very enthusiastic and full of solidarity but the solidarity is not a solidarity with other individuals it's a solidarity between an individual and the collective and even the longer the mass formation lasts the more all the psychological energy all the love and solidarity is sucked away from the bonds between individuals and all injected and invested in the bond between the individual and the collective. And that explains, of course, why in the end people show a radical lack of solidarity with each other and a huge solidarity with the collective. And as a consequence, they are willing to report everyone, even their loved ones, to the collective. Wow.

And that's typically what happened during the corona crisis. We were all full of solid, or most people were full of solidarity. And at the same time, they accepted that when someone got an accident on the street, they were no longer allowed to help that person. It was stipulated like that on the websites of the Dutch, the Holland government, the European government, and probably also on the website of the US government. In the same vein, people accepted that if their parents were dying, if their father and mother was dying,

they were no longer allowed to visit them anymore. That was the kind of solidarity that emerged in the corona crisis and that emerges in every mass formation and in every totalitarian state, which is usually a consequence of mass, always a consequence of mass formation. That's what I describe in my book, the psychology of totalitarianism.

The consequence of mass formation is that in the end, people end up in a radically paranoid atmosphere. Wow. I mean, when I think about the cycle of that, when you really aren't connecting, you are fulfilling what you think is a connection, but has no connection to somebody. It's actually robbing you of that.

It's the antithesis of that. You sit more and more isolated, but a part of, you know, a connected ideal and ideology, it's robbing you of that connection, which seems like it would make you even more desperately involved, you know, sort of like a drug that you're trying to get fulfilled by, but that whole, that chasm just gets deeper and deeper and deeper and you get more, I would guess, you know, ferociously involved with this mission. So quickly, when you look at mass formations, I mean, I've been saying we've seen world wars. We call world wars one nation against another, things like that.

In this scenario, mass media and government regulatory agencies in almost every nation of the world took part in this. Is this the largest mass formation event in the history of the world? That's how I see it. Is there another example you can give where this collectively, we all, jumped on, you know, at least those that believed in it, got involved with a singular thought all the way around the world, a singular ideology to stop this virus. Does that happen before? Never.

This is, this mass formation cannot be compared to any mass formation before for several reasons. The size, it's a worldwide mass formation and also maybe even more important. The modern masses are different from all from ancient masses because of one very important factor. Modern masses are so-called lonely masses. That's something that I learned from Jacques Elou, who wrote a wonderful book on propaganda. And he said that the most important difference between the modern masses and the ancient masses is exactly that the modern masses are lonely masses. That means masses that form without the people, the individuals who are in the mass, without these individuals don't physically meet. They are all isolated in their own homes.

They all share the same narratives, they all share the same beliefs, they all share the same myths, because these myths, narratives, beliefs are distributed through the mass media. So the modern masses can only exist through the mass media. Mass media are crucial. And the modern masses, these lonely masses, are much, much more vulnerable for propaganda and indoctrination of the ancient masses. just because in an isolated state, people are less resilient to the infusion of IDs from outside. So the lonely masses, it's crucial. You understand what's happening.

So normally, normally I imagine, and I think about this, there was never a stadium filled with people going, stop the virus, stop the virus like we would see around Hitler, the giant masses that were involved, coming together, you know, pamphlets being handed out. an interaction is what you're saying in those masses. In this we all sat by ourselves in our homes being fed information either via social media or our television set coming to our conclusions but never having the moment to say, John, do you think this is crazy? Like there was no, no physical connection in it. It's totally lonely. That's really interesting. Indeed. It was a lonely mass and that makes the effect of the mass

even more powerful. Mass formation is identical to hypnosis. It's actually the same process. In hypnosis and a classical hypnosis, there is someone who withdraws the attention of someone else from the environment and focuses all the attention on one small aspect of reality. For instance, you often see the hypnotist moving with his hands like this and then focusing all the attention on one small point of reality. And once the attention is coupled to this, one small aspect of reality, all the rest of reality disappears in the darkness, it seems as if it doesn't exist anymore. And this mechanism is extremely powerful. For instance, a simple, elementary, hypnotic procedure is sufficient to focus the attention of someone. So in one aspect

of reality that the person doesn't notice anymore that a surgeon is cutting in his flesh. I've seen this with my own eyes, how a professor hypnotized someone in a hospital, and how a surgeon, a simple hypnotic procedure, and how a surgeon could cut through the skin, through the flesh, even cut straight through the breastbone to perform an open heart operation. That's the strength of the phenomenon of hypnosis, the strength of this mechanism of the focusing of attention on one point. And that's exactly what happens in a mass formation. In a mass formation, there is first this stage.

of disconnection from the environment, which can take a few decades, a few years, it doesn't matter. And once all the psychological energy is freely floating in the mental atmosphere, once we have this free-floating anxiety, frustration and aggression, there's suddenly, there is this narrative distributed through the mass media, focusing all the anxiety, all the frustration, all the aggression, on this one point, the virus, the antifaxes, the Jews, the aristocracy. It doesn't matter whom. And then once all the attention is focused at that point, people are not aware anymore of all the rest of Rwialapi. And you can literally take everything away of them. They won't notice it.

You can literally, the corona measures can claim as many victims as they want. People will only see the victims of the virus in the beginning of the corona crisis. I try to tell people time and time again, okay, the virus might claim a certain number of virus. victims, but the corona measures probably will claim much more victims. And no matter how much I try to show people papers all calculating that the number of victims of the measures would probably be higher than the number of victims claimed by the virus. They didn't want to see. They just told me things like, okay, and what will you do then?

You will just let these people die who suffer from Corona. I said, no, what will you do? But you let all these children starve in developing countries as a consequence of the long and people stopped talking to me, they didn't want to hear it, then they manifested something that is typical for mass formation, a radical intolerance for dissonant voices. And that's the exact, that's a problem. There are several aspects I explained them in detail in my book,

which make that people in the mass formation are just not sensitive anymore to rational counter-argumentations, no matter how well, how good they are these counter-rational argumentations, argumentations, people in a mass won't listen. They usually won't wake up, even not when confronted with the most solid arguments against their narrative. But, and that's important, that doesn't mean that we are, that there's nothing we can do. We definitely can do something. When we look at that, you know, when I look at, you know, these measures, first of all, you know, We've had so many discussions on our show.

You know, you had ivermectin. You had hydroxychloroquine. You had studies showing that these products look like they were working. You're having success. Yet the narrative where these things don't work, the vaccine is going to be our only way through. The only way we can get to the vaccine, we've got to make sure that enough of us don't die. You all have to wear a mask. And as you pointed out, it really didn't matter how many mask studies you showed.

I brought on specialists from OSHA who fit masks on people saying the mask is not designed to stop. this virus, it never will, it never can, and there's detrimental effects. Now, our audience did grow, but obviously the mask chose a different perspective. My question is, how much does it work better if it's sensible? Because this all seemed so great, like it's, there was no sense to it. You had Fauci saying the mask didn't work, and then he said they did, and we all forgot that he said they didn't. And that didn't seem to matter. We studies that we said, we said, we said, said that the mat, you know, wearing it around like I'm afraid of the air. It just seems so unreasonable. Does, does reasonability get in the way of mass formation or is it part of it? Is it part of it

just the most ridiculous thing they can ask you? You'll do it? It just doesn't matter to someone in mass formation, whether the narrative that leads to the mass formation is correct or blatantly wrong or utterly absurd that doesn't matter. People buy into the narrative, not because they think it's right or correct or something. They buy into the because it leads to this new social bond. That's why they buy into the narrative. For the same reason, as supporters in a football stadium, all sing the same song, not because they think this is the most beautiful song in the world

or because the song is right or correct or something. They sing it because it connects them to each other. And that's why people go along with the narrative of a transformation. And you could even say more. And this was observed by most people, most founding fathers, of propaganda, you could even see more. It's a very good thing if propaganda is not consistent, if it's inconsistent. You can perfectly also Hannah Arendt, I don't know if you're familiar with her work, she wrote this wonderful book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, totalitarianism,

which is a kind of state which is based on mass formation and which also is the is what my book is all about because I think we are witnessing the emergence of a new totalitarianism, a technocratic totalitarianism. But Hannah Arendt also. observed already that she said the leaders of the masses based their propaganda on the very correct psychological assumption that it is perfectly possible to lie to the population time and time again and it might perfectly be the case that every day it becomes clear that what you said the day before was a lie people will still believe the lie of today and they will go along with it and

as if it is the truth. So, and I could give you several other examples, people, that's something that is very striking and very, very remarkable that people in the mass formation just don't care whether it is true or not what they believe in. And even more, the more absurd the narrative is that leads to the mass formation,

the more absurd the narrative is that is articulated by the readers of the masses, the more enthusiastic they will be. And it is just the simple reason is, it's that what the reason is that what I explained in chapter 9 of my book, the simple reason is that the narrative and the measures, for instance the corona measures, because all narratives that lead to mass formation has to be associated with a certain action, certain behavior, concrete behavior. Well, the measures, the more the measures become absurd, the more they fulfill their function as a ritual.

And the ritual is exactly a kind of behavior that is absurd, from a pragmatic point of view, and that demands a sacrifice of the individual. A sacrifice through which the individual shows that its own individual interests are less important than the collective interest. That's ritualistic behavior, and that's why people in a mass are really in need of ritualistic behavior. They felt disconnected, they felt lonely, they felt this extreme lack of meaning-making. They felt that their life was without sense and now they found this new purpose. They found something that is worth living for and that is worth dying for. And through the participation in absurd rituals, unconsciously, they satisfy this enormous need that all human beings have

to transcend their own individual lives. But the problem of mass formation is that it is so extreme. is an extreme collectivism. Life is good and a society is fruitful if there is a balance between individualism and collectivism. And that's what is completely disturbed in a process of mass formation. We see this extreme collectivism in which people participate in rituals without being aware that they participate in rituals and with an absurd willingness to sacrifice everything, their wealth, their health, the future of their children, the lives of their children, everything in order to belong to that mentally intoxicating collective experience that

mass formation is. I mean, it's so fascinating when you say it. I just think about, you know, ritual. When I think about, you know, people that lash themselves, you know, as that's getting them closer to God, you know, the more, you know, intense it is, the more I'm committing to my goal to deliver this connection, to deliver my focus. And, you know, when you think about, when you say hypnosis, I think it really, I mean, I've been throwing that term away like everyone's hypnotized. But if you really take that on, that the hypnosis is the singular thought of stopping the virus.

So it doesn't matter if yesterday the terms change or every day the vaccine. Now it's now take three shots, five shots, two masks, whatever it is. We'll keep doing it because to stop doing it would mean to go back to that space of being meaningless, which has got to be a horrifying place to be. right? We don't want to go back there. So we'll do anything to hold on to what we think is giving us connection. That's what's taking place, right? So it doesn't matter. We're not going to be derailed from our goal. Exactly. That's what happens. But that is true for a rather small part of the population. Only 20 or 30% of the population is really into the process of mass formation,

is really in the process of hypnosis, you could say. Okay. Okay. The rest of the population, 60 or 70, 75%, knows that there is something wrong with the narrative, feels that there is something wrong. But they just don't go against the masses because they prefer the comfort of remaining silent and they think that everybody will, everything will change if they just remain silent. And there is only a small minority of the people who knows that there is something wrong with the narrative, who really sees what is happening and who also decides to, speak out and to go against the masses. And it's this group that is crucial. This group is crucial. This group should know that, one, they won't succeed in waking up the masses through rational

argumentation. That's impossible. The mechanism is just too strong. But, and that's crucial, it's not because this group does not succeed through speaking out and waking up the masses, that speech has no effect. Their speech has a huge effect. It constantly disturbs the process of mass formation, constantly disrupts it, and it makes sure the speech of the disillant voice, the sound of dissonant voice, make sure that the process of mass formation is constantly disturbed. And Gustav Lebon, one of the most famous mass psychologists in the world, or he wrote his books in the 19th century, mentioned already. that if there are people who continue to speak out in a quiet way, without really trying to convince the other people, but just fulfilling the ethical duty to speak out as a human being, that they will make sure that the mass formation does not reach this level

in which the masses and their leaders become convinced that it is justified to eliminate and destroy everyone who doesn't go alone with them. out by speaking our truth, we have got to hold on to that because if we don't, there's the potential that that mass could just say, let's just get rid of that group of people. There's still a humanity in them that we can key into. Now, when you say it's a small group of people that in the opposition side, roughly it was 30% you said are just dedicated to the mass. Then are we talking 15, 20% tend to just rebel against the, or, it's.

or be critical things or is it less than that it depends on the stage of the process of mass formation but very often it's only 5% or something okay but that's enough that's enough if these people succeed in forming a group a group that is not a mass that's extremely important because that's that's the entire challenge that this small group is also experiencing a lot of anxiety a lot of frustration a lot of aggression it feels threatened and it might become a mass itself And in that case, there is a strong polarization, polarization in society, and the small group usually is destroyed in the end. Just because you have two groups, two masses, functioning according to the same destructive principles. And usually the small group is destroyed. And after the small group is destroyed, the masses will start to destroy themselves.

But this small group should be coming. I'll be honest with you. That was the question I was going to have in all the work I've been watching you do is, you just answered. but I was going to ask you, is there a benefit to start using some of these tactics from the other side, saying, why don't we create ritual? Why don't we use things to start enrolling people in a mass? Is it just one mass against another? So you're saying if that's attempted, that that just ends up, you won't get the critical mass side, you'll be outnumbered,

and you'll create a friction that will end up getting the smaller group eradicated. Yes, we should not form a mass. We should form a group, a healthy group of people, and which means that a group that is formed because people connect to each other. People develop strong connections with each other in several ways. It can be realized in several ways. And also one major difference between a mass and fruitful group, a humane group, is that this last group, a nobly. and accepts that everybody has his own opinion. So in the small group that doesn't go along with the mass, we should avoid to impose one opinion to everyone. Everyone should be capable of looking at things in his own way,

of having his own opinion, everybody should speak in his own way. And that will be very effective in the end. That will be very effective. That's so important, yeah. I have this conversation all the time when there's arguments from our side, whether you call it vaccine risk awareness or these movements for health freedom, let's call it, health freedom, they're always getting together and saying we've got to come up with a common

slogan, a singular idea, a statement, something we all stand behind. I've kind of been, you know, not as well educated on the matter, but saying I think it's better that we have different thoughts about why we're having an issue here. You sort of just gave me a deeper understanding of that because what it is that makes us who we are, that makes us critical thinkers, and makes us appealing to those that are maybe in that larger group that are still feeling, I feel like there's something wrong, maybe I really want to involve my critical thinking more. If we stop critically thinking and all become some homogenized, pasteurized, you know, singular perspective, then there's no appeal there anymore to even be a part of that.

So we lose the individual nature and then all is lost. Exactly, exactly. And we don't have to form a group who has the same opinion. We have to form a group who sticks to the same common principles of humanity. That's the point. We have to, what got lost throughout the last few hundred years was that we started to believe that the human rational mind, rational understanding, should be the cornerstone and the basis of society and of living together. And that's not true. The entire history of science actually showed us that rational knowledge is very limited. And that what we need, that only principles, principles of ethical principles and the principles of humanity, which can never be articulated in a definitive way, we always have to reinvent them and to re-articulate them. But only these principles can be the real basis. of a human living together. And that's what this group, this group that doesn't go along with the masses,

will reinvent in the years to come. They will reinvent, they will see, they will, they will probably be excommunicated to a certain extent, and they will have to stick to their principles, to the principles of humanity in a world that is becoming increasingly inhumane. I explained that in a much more elaborate way in my book, but that's exactly what the, new kind of society, the new kind of living together should move to. We should establish a society which recognizes again the central importance of the principles of humanity for human living together. Rational knowledge in the end is always extremely irrational, irrational. And it can never be, it is important to be rational, but it can never be the cornerstone and the basis of human living together.

Let's look at where we're at now then. I mean, I think I know that we could go on and on in all the details of what puts this together. But I want to talk about the moment we find ourselves in now. You know, much of your work has been made famous by great experts like Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Robert Malone, and others around the world. But that was in the middle of this pandemic. We were locked down in many ways. Now some things have happened that I want to ask you about.

because, you know, I'm a, you know, a pathological optimist, if you will, you know, I am always fighting a good fight. I will no matter what. I always believe there's a, the possibility that we're winning. I keep saying we're winning. I feel like we're winning. Our perspective is growing, you know, all around the world, you know, we may be the 5%, but we really seem to be growing. And I think there's proof of that. There's a couple of things that have happened here in America.

Just, you know, I don't know if it was a month or two ago. I lose track of time. But when they lifted the mask mandate, when the judge in a, in a courtroom said, you know, the masks, you know, it was not legal to be mandated mask on airplanes. And so they broke that mandate. Immediately, it felt like 70% of the country took their masks off, right? And certainly on airplanes, now I would say one in 10 maybe is masking. And so in some ways that fits your model that there was that sort of 60 or 70% that were only going along with it because it was what they were told to do but had a bad feeling about it. They immediately ripped their masks off. But what happens to that group?

You know, we can say that that group is there. But what happens the moment they are told it was a falsehood? It was not real. Doesn't that have the ability to shift the power of the mass? if all of a sudden, you know, the curtain is pulled back and you realize it really is just a four and a half foot tall wizard that's been doing this whole thing, does it make it harder for that group of people to be taken back into a mass formation if they had this moment where that sinking feeling inside of them, which was, you know, I feel wrong about this, this doesn't feel right,

and then a court decides it and the country goes along with it, is it possible that that shifts the numbers perhaps in another direction. I have another example for you. I've been saying that, you know, one of the issues I've dealt with is vaccination long before COVID, that we need to be doing more, you know, proper safety studies and more transparency around this entire idea. And one of the things Bill Gates was really worried about, I consider him to be one of the architects of the insanity we find ourselves in the middle of. I could be right, maybe, I could be wrong, maybe it's someone bigger than him, but that's not the point. He's been worried that the sort of as he said, the collapse of the confidence in the COVID vaccine,

he's concerned it will collapse the confidence in the vaccine program. We have a poll out of Iowa, which is a state that we tend to look at to how the country is going to vote on things when we have political decisions to be made. So the poll says Iowa in support for non-COVID vaccine requirements in school erodes. Just 34% of Iowa adults now say all children should be required. to receive standard shots unless they have a doctor-signed statement showing they have a medical reason not to be vaccinated. The poll shows that's down from 59% who supported such a requirement in 2015 when the Iowa poll asked a similar question about childhood vaccinations. And here's the chart you know 34% require all children the rest represent all these different

perspectives not sure there's no laws you know on and on. So at 34% now of iowans actually believe in a mandated vaccine program where prior to COVID, that was 69%. So that shows me that in some ways, the minority has now become the majority in the perspective around one of these ritualistic tools that was used. Doesn't that give you some hope that there is a shift that's happening, maybe a shift that's possible? Yes, I definitely do believe that a shift is possible. But maybe not immediately.

because i think that it's not because people give a certain answer in a poll that they will also start to speak out and that's what we need more people have to speak out so i think that there is one problem with mass formation i'm also very optimistic in the long term in the longer term in the short term i think we'll face several difficult and tough years but um you know there is one problem with once a large-scale mass formation emerged in a society they usually follows a second a third and a fourth one and so on. Just because of this, I just, I, a few minutes ago, I explained that the most crucial condition for mass formation is the state of disconnectiveness and loneliness. And then I said that this mass formation seems to reconnect people to each other, to recreate a social bond,

but it doesn't. It actually only creates a bond between the individual and the collective. And it destroys the bonds further between the individuals, meaning that after a mass formation, there is even more people in a disconnected state, in an isolated state, than before. And that's what we see now. People are allowed, students are allowed to come back to university now, but they don't show up anymore. Only 5% shows up anymore. People are allowed to go back to their company, to their work, but they don't show up anymore at their work. They prefer to stay home and work online.

That's why even Musk said that everybody should come or that you would fire them. So around the world we see the same phenomenon. People are allowed to leave their houses again, to go back to work, to go back to university, to go back to social meetings, and they don't do so anymore. That shows the dramatic psychological impact of this first, this large-scale mass formation. And it is exactly this mass formation. That's so dramatic. It creates the conditions for mass formation even more.

And once a first mass formation disappears a little bit in a background, usually a second one, emerges immediately, and that's probably what we have seen with the war in Ukraine. We saw exactly the same phenomenon. We saw this fanatic black, white thinking, this common enemy, this willingness to self-sacrifice, this intolerance for dissent voices. We noticed all these same characteristics. And now we will probably see that in a few months, maybe even in a few weeks we don't know, this corona narrative might lead again to a mass formation. And then the real question is, what will the people?

Yes, well, what the real question is then what will the people of the middle group do? I also think that a part of the middle group will switch to our position and we'll start to speak out and say like, look, we don't tolerate us anymore. But I think that at the same time, while the critical group, the critical group grows, increases, we will all probably see that the system or those who identify with mainstream discourse become more repressive and more intolerant and more aggressive. That usually is the case. But that's, that's of in the end, in the end, they will exhaust themselves and destroy themselves. but we just have to make sure that they destroy themselves before they destroy us. And that's why it is so crucial that we continue to speak out because we can see time and time again in history

that these mass formations that ultimately lead to a totalitarian state, which always emerges as a kind of diabolic pact between the masses and their leaders and an elite, We see that these systems typically start their destruction campaigns shortly after the dissonant voice stopped to speak out. That happened in 1930 in the Soviet Union and around 1935 in Germany. The resistance chose to go underground to stop speaking out and a few months later within a period of six months the destruction campaign started. And in other countries, there were numerous mass formations in other countries, numerous totalitarian system that started to emerge in other countries, but the resistance refused to shut up, and the mass formation didn't go on until the last stage.

So I cannot repeat that enough. It's the central message of my book as well. And on the short term, we should continue to speak out. On the long term, we have to do something more profound. We have to move on to a different, a new view on men in the world, our rationalist view on men in the world. is outdated and it should be replaced by a truly enlightened view on man in the world, which is based on another kind of knowledge than rational knowledge.

It's all really important. It's something that I keep saying. We've got to talk to each other. It's been my simple message here from the beginning. The reason we're in this situation is they let us believe that, you know, we should be afraid to talk politics, we should be afraid to talk religion, don't have those conversations at the dinner table, slowly but surely we've been isolated so that we don't, We don't share our perspective even if we disagree. It's so important to have the conversation. I think that, you know, I hope my audience just heard what you said that even though we're seeing polls, polls don't change anything if the people stay silent about it.

It only changes something if it gets people to start talking. If that group in the middle that is once silent starts to talk, then you really see a change. Otherwise, all it is is just another intellectual experience feeding into. the psychosis or the formation on some level and we're still back to trying to find meaning. My last question to you and I could ask you questions all day, but it comes to in some ways, you know, we get very scientific about this. I'm not going to ask you about your personal spiritual life, but in many ways I wonder there seems to be a death of churches, a death of religion, a death of, you know, these experiences, at least in America, in our society, prayer is

disappearing, all these things. Now, whether or not, I'm not going to ask you about whether you believe God exists, but people who believe in God that go to church, that have religions, get meaning from those things. Do they not? Do we, and I guess my question is, do we, do we become more vulnerable when we let go of these things, that perhaps have some of their own rituals to it, but they do give us meaning, and they do bring us together to community. Do, you know, and I know that In Nazi Germany, you shut down the church. I mean, is all of that, how much does a spiritual life matter when we think to moving into an evolved society? It depends what you're talking about.

It depends what you're talking about dogmatic institutionalized religion or about the seminal religious experience. I believe that the first one, dogmatic and institutionalized religion, can be a mass formation in itself. It's not the type of mass formation that we see now. But the seminal religious experience definitely protects against mass formation. And you can ask me about my personal opinion about that or about my personal position. I have no problem answering that. You know, in my book I explained that the root cause of mass formation and of authoritarianism, this kind of state that is based on mass formation, ultimately is situated at the level of our rationalist,

mechanist, materialist view on man in the world. Since the beginning of the tradition of enlightenment, the beginning of the 16th century, let's say, we started to believe, or a major part of population, started to believe that the universe is a material system, a dead mechanic, a dead machine that function, a set of elementary particles that behaves according to the laws of mechanics, and that can be perfectly described,

described in rationalist terms, that can be perfectly, rationally understood. And it is this kind of thinking that is the first step to disconnect people from their environment. And I've experienced that in my own life in a very concrete and tangible way. I was really convinced when I was in between 16 and my 35 years old, or maybe, well, I was convinced that reality could be understood.

in a strictly rational way. And it took me until I was 35 years old to start to understand, just by starting to understand the mathematical basis of systems theory, actually. I started to understand that this simply wasn't true. It was a revelation for me. It was like I suddenly started to understand

that the reality and that what we call the facts, nature around us, that it behaves intrinsically irrational. And systems theory shows us in a very nice way. And that made me, it made it really changed the way in which I existed. Because I think if we are convinced that logical understanding can explain everything, then what we actually do is like we connect the one logical ID to the other. It is as if we built a closed wall of logical argumentations around us. And in this way, we truly disconnect from the world around us.

and as soon as soon we try to force everything in the categories of our own logical understanding and in this way we don't really see the mystery around us anymore the mystery of life and as soon as you start to become aware of the fact that your logical understanding is very limited and all major scientists concluded that i could give endless examples as soon as you start to understand that It is as if all these building blocks slide away from each other a little bit, there are holes in the wall and the vibration, the eternal music of life around you, can go through the wall, through the holes, and make the strings in yourself resonate.

I literally describe it like that in my book and I'm sure that quite literally the human being is a kind of string instrument. It's a kind of string instrument that can resonate with the things around us. And that is this kind of knowledge that all scientists or major scientists I'm referring to, whether we are talking about Schrodinger, Bohr, Heisenberg, Max Planck, Lawrence, Mandelbrot, Janos Bolliye, or René Tom, all these scientists concluded that it is this resonating knowledge, this empathically resonating knowledge that is the knowledge that connects us to the essence of life. And it is the that knowledge that also brings us in touch with what I always refer to as the eternal principles,

the ethical principles of life, the principles of humanity, and it are these principles, what is crucial for a human being is not in the end, not its rational understanding, what is crucial to a human being, is that it has the courage and to stick to these principles of humanity, even when it means that we will lose a lot. I think that is what is crucial to a human being. We might lose a lot. And if we stick to these principles in the years to come, but at the same time, we will win the only thing that is truly important. Our existence as a human being, and we will prevent in this way that we fall prey to this dehumanizing process that is so typical, for every kind of mass formation, for every kind of totalitarianism,

and in the end, for the entire tradition of enlightenment, which believed that rational understanding should be the cornerstone of life. Matthias Desmit, you know, so incredible. I knew I would dig this interview. I want to do this again. We're going to have to, I want to get together, I want to have tea, I want to get deeper on this, but of course there's not enough time in a day. So I want to thank you for taking time, folks. This is the book. It comes out today. The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Matthias Desmit. Obviously, you've just got a sense of what it is like to talk to him.

This is a must-read book. I'm sure you're going to make it run off the shelves. Matthias, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. And I want to thank you for your work and your optimism. It can be difficult to have optimism, but you are truly an important voice in this world right now. And I want to thank you for continuing to speak and inspire us all to do the same. Likewise, though. It was a pleasure to hear, truly, and I really appreciate it that you invited me. Thanks. Absolutely. Take care.

Well, you know, there's so many examples we run into all the time of this sort of mass formation. What if you're caught right in the middle of it? What happens when one is that we imagine if you could catch on video right when somebody that believes, you know, that they're connecting, they have a connection, they have a group, they figured it out. And then you ask them a question that actually might just break through. Here is a man on the street interview we saw. Just look at these people's eyes as they battle with the reality and the truth that goes against their mass formation. What's important is bodily autonomy. The same right men have always had.

We just want equal rights. The right to govern our own bodies, just like men have always had. It's that simple. Do you support the right for people to not get the COVID vaccine? It's irrelevant. Right? My body, my choice. You're right. It's not irrelevant. Yeah, but one saves lives. You're right. It's not irrelevant.

One of them is going to be in a pandemic state, right? A state of emergency, which we all know laws change during a state of emergency. Do you agree with the statement or the principle of my body, my choice? Yes, absolutely. Bodily autonomy is a human right. Health care is a human right. Access to health care should not be something that is dictated by the Supreme Court. During the pandemic, did you support people's right to not get the COVID vaccine? It's a difficult conversation. Do you support bodily autonomy in other situations? For example, the COVID vaccine mandates.

We've been mandated to get vaccines for years and years and years and year. So you do support in that situation people not having control of their bodies. That's not having not control of your bodies. Like, I don't understand. Do you think it is important for people to have medical and health control? of their own body? Yeah, it's good for them. It's good for everybody.

You didn't support the mandates? I do support the mandates, yeah. Isn't that mandate that people have to get the vaccine so they don't have control over their own body? Vaccinations are good for people. But in that case, you don't have control, right? If there's a mandate? No, they don't have to get it.

Just can't go anywhere or do anything, right? They just can't have a job. You don't have a right to a job. Everybody should have a right to do what they want with their bodies? Do you support the people's right to choose not to get the COVID vaccine? It's really amazing. I mean, I have to tell you after speaking with Mateas, when you look at it as though everyone is hypnotized, it makes so much more sense.

Like, if you walk up to a hypnotized person, someone you could chop off their arm in a surgery and they wouldn't feel it, and you hit them with a direct question. Like, do you not see that this is in diametric opposition to what you just said? My body, my choice. But you're down with the government forcibly injecting you with a product. Thank you.