You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 56: Prof. Mattias Desmet - From Shadows to Light

Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay. My friend, Matias, I am so happy to be speaking to you. And I'm so excited that we are meeting very, very soon. I don't think you understand what it means for me. Like, this is really a dream coming true. And not just for me. For many people that are waiting to see you in person in Israel, there is such excitement. People don't believe that this is going to happen. And they're like talking about it in the WhatsApp groups and on Facebook and everywhere.

Starting point is 00:00:32 It's like it's insane that you're actually coming to Israel. I'm happy to hear that, Efrat. And likewise, I'm really looking forward to be in Israel and also to see you there and to have time to catch up and to talk about a lot of things about what's going on in the world right now, because there is so much going on. And there's a good chance, I think, that next year a lot of things will happen, I guess, at the level of our monetary system, at the level of geopolitics. Nobody can really predict. I think the world is a system, a complex system that is going into the chaotic phase. And in such a phase, we know that nobody can predict what will happen, at least not on rational grounds or in a logical way.

Starting point is 00:01:48 That's what systems theory learned at the end. Well, it will be chaotic, I guess. a good chance that it will be chaotic and the only thing, I always remind myself that when everything is shaking and when the world is going

Starting point is 00:02:06 through a going into chaos then I think the most important thing is just to stay loyal to your most inner

Starting point is 00:02:22 most sincere truths and to stick to to live up to ethical principles I think that's the most important thing for me to try to live up to ethical principles in a world that loses all humanity

Starting point is 00:02:37 and all ethical awareness exactly that's what I try to do it's not always easy I think you are one of the pure examples of it because no matter what is being thrown at us in the past few years, it feels like you always have this moral compass that hardly ever changes.

Starting point is 00:03:04 You stay very consistent with your messaging. And even if it may be not popular, you always try to bring the humane side of you and stay true to the ethics, the morals, the values that guide you. And when I was reading your book and one of your articles about tyranny in the backdrop of the US elections, it's as if you manage to find comfort or stability when you tune back into your values in those little mundane daily relationships with people

Starting point is 00:03:46 or with things that are happening around you. For me, this is very inspirational because it reminds me then to pay attention to my center. What is guiding me? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is my mission? Why do I do what I do?

Starting point is 00:04:01 And do I take a minute to just observe how I was behaving or what has just happened and how I react to it rather than being activated or triggered by it? And I think that just by virtue of you speaking out, continuing to speak about your views about your your beliefs i think that gives a lot of people a lot of guidance even if you don't tell them explicitly what to do in their lives you are an example a living example of what it means to live by your values and by your beliefs Yes, and I'm probably also a living example in this respect that I show how difficult it is to live up to ethical principles, because it's also for me, it's extremely difficult.

Starting point is 00:04:50 I know, for me too. People forget that part. Yes, you know, yes, I give all these workshops and sincere speech, but then again, like at university, when, well, let's say you have the feeling that you're treated unfair and that you're being stigmatized for the choices you make or the words you speak. um it's very difficult to to continue to to talk with these people who have uh this different opinion about you or just have a different opinion and still every time i noticed like yesterday i had this conversation with some people at uh at university and uh i was really very happy that i that i had been talking with with with uh with those colleagues of mine because it was a very good conversation i think that's so so important like uh that's exactly what happens as i i say this as i described in my uh for example in my book uh on totalitarianism that's

Starting point is 00:06:09 exactly what happens in a totalitarian state like one group of people starts to become convinced that another group of people are not human beings they are not humane anymore and we shouldn't buy into this this these dynamics we should try to be those people who who do exactly the opposite when other people say that we are anti-vaxxers conspiracy theorists or no matter what But we should just be the people who answer and say, like, okay, you can, that's your opinion, that's okay, let's talk. For me, you're a human being. And, you know, time and time again, when I try to do that, I see that, for instance, my colleagues at university, that somewhere there are human beings and good people as well. and that if you really try to talk that not always but often uh you rediscover that actually

Starting point is 00:07:19 you can talk with each other and and uh not in every respect i know i'm always like flabbergasted or baffled a little bit that they don't seem to be really interested for instance now and all these things that are revealed about what happened in the corona crisis okay that's a pity i hope one day they will really uh together with me consider the the facts that surfaced that are starting to surface now and try to construct a meaningful narrative about what happened there so in a certain way i i would love them to be more open to to what i think uh the facts about for instance a corona crisis or all kind of other phenomena but even then maybe i'm blind in another respect and uh and um i i think it's so important that we

Starting point is 00:08:16 we just never refrain of articulating our own truth but we're always willing at the same time to listen in a respectful and open way to what other people think is true uh so that's those two things are for me are really crucial uh and also very difficult for me as well it's extremely difficult to live up to this principle but i i do my best to uh yeah and i think that the more uh divisiveness and polarization is being uh encouraged by the media and by you know states these days the harder it is to actually be in an open empathetic caring discussion or dialogue with others i admit for me it's becoming harder as well and sometimes i try to prevent from being in those situations just to prevent the confrontation

Starting point is 00:09:17 because I know that once my opinion or my view is different to others, I may have to be dragged into the conversation of explaining why my view is the way it is, and that will create confrontation, and I try to not have it if I don't have to. And in some places, a confrontation could be what is needed, could be a way to have a meaningful debate and debate is so much missing these days especially in light of all the stupid misinformation disinformation bills that they're trying to put everywhere thinking that they can stop free ideas and free speech which is completely ridiculous in my opinion maybe the next level is to find where i don't confront but i debate

Starting point is 00:10:09 absolutely for me as well I always have to remind myself that it's not a good idea to try to convince someone else but just continue to testify to what you feel is sincere and true, that's the point

Starting point is 00:10:28 testify to what you think to your own opinion, to what you feel don't try to convince too much because if you try to convince too much the other will always be drowning his own ego to protect themselves and it will it won't work and then you know you just referred to the state systems i really believe that the major organizing principle of our contemporary society is propaganda so i i truly believe that you might be familiar with authors like edward bernays and walter

Starting point is 00:11:01 Lippmann and several others, like Trotter and Kudat, numerous others to it, they really somewhere in the middle of the 20th century decided, and I can understand them to a certain extent, I really can understand them, I understand their line of reasoning, but nevertheless, I think it's up to no good, that line of reasoning. So they really developed this idea that in order for democracy to work, we need to manipulate a major part of the population because these people are not capable of thinking in a rational

Starting point is 00:11:36 way according to them they are not they will always lapse into destructiveness and aggression and of course to a certain extent they can understand that people have this feeling and that they conclude from that

Starting point is 00:11:52 that those people need to be manipulated and that their opinion needs to be shaped in the right way and that you have to manufacture their consent to do the good things but the strange thing is and maybe we

Starting point is 00:12:09 can go into that when I come to Israel but so like the strange thing is that if that's if you start from this created from this

Starting point is 00:12:24 principle to organize society to organize to create a really humane society you actually throw away from the beginning the essence of a really humane society which is a sincere and open and honest public discourse that's the problem if you if you believe that the only way to create a humane society is manipulating people that's the paradox is that from the beginning you throw away the essence of a humane society And so I think that that is really the challenge we face as a society, to find an alternative, a true alternative to propaganda as the organizing principle of human living together, which people like Hannah Arendt, which is one of my major sources of inspiration, really anticipated. They also knew that there is something, that this propaganda is so fundamental to our society and that we need to find an alternative to that. And, you know, as you know, Hannah Arendt, she became famous for her work on totalitarianism, the origins of totalitarianism, for instance.

Starting point is 00:13:49 And, you know, she was one of the few people who anticipated the emergence of this technocratic totalitarianism, which we witness today in the world in which we are bound to, we need to think about this phenomenon. Like, what is the essence of totalitarianism? And how can we, as a humanity, resist it and find another way, other organizing principles, to live together? Yeah, she's an inspiring person. I've watched an interview with her, and she was a hell of a woman. So powerful, and pushing back on the interviewer on so many things. smoking in front of him and it's like she didn't give a fuck huh she was so i like her she's very ruthless so smart and inspirational and i've read your book and how

Starting point is 00:14:59 her ideas are manifested in your work where the layer that you bring is to actually tie it into the current state of events, how actually the technocratic state is manifesting in front of our eyes today, how we have apparatus in place to ensure the foundations, but also the maintenance of a surveillance technocratic state, a very mechanistic worldview, and your ideas of how the human becomes disconnected from oneself and how we are becoming creatures that are losing touch with the soul, losing touch with oneself and the whole idea of separation and disconnectedness from who we are as human, as a collective, but also as individuals. That is so powerful because it ties in the physical reality with the spiritual reality,

Starting point is 00:15:57 with giving a possible or potential pathway to look into the future and imagine how life could be or can be if we don't follow the predictable, probable path of a technocratic, mechanistic ideology and reality. I would really love to get your take on this. We could do it in an interview format if you want, as you wish.

Starting point is 00:16:21 It would also be nice. We will do both. I'm going to give you a stage to just go and do your own presentation for like however long you need I'll do a short intro presentation and then I'm going to do an interview with you on stage so I'm going to ask

Starting point is 00:16:35 you a lot of tough questions watch out if you watch out if you tell me whatever long you need because three days ago I gave a lecture of four hours wow I liked it all for a long time

Starting point is 00:16:51 but one hour you have you always you never have presentation you never have slides right it's just whatever comes oh i won't use slides i think uh but uh i never do usually unless i sometimes i show a small movie or something of a propaganda movie or somewhere but i i don't think i will do it uh yes yes but exactly and that for me the most important thing is like to to really on the one hand provide theoretical analysis of the psychological dynamics that are going on in our society and then and that were involved in this emergence of this technocratic system and then to show how this entire

Starting point is 00:17:42 dynamic that makes people feel so powerless actually tells us that there is only one thing to do about it or one thing that the most important thing is always the act of speech and we all as as baklav havel said the powerless do have power they have the power to live in truth and and he didn't underpin that in a psychological way but But once you start to see it, it's so clear. It's so clear that sincere speech is what really is efficacious in dealing with technocracy and with totalitarianism in general. Every time you speak, you succeed in speaking in a sincere way

Starting point is 00:18:34 with someone you meet on the street, in a shop. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to go about totalitarianism or technocracy or corona. No, no. Every time you create a true human connection with another human being through sincere speech, you make someone immune to propaganda for a certain time. And if we are really getting into this flow of sincerity with enough people, and I feel like everywhere in the world people are rediscovering the importance of sincerity and truth in a world that is sick of propaganda and manipulation. Well, it's that what, in the end, it's that what will end the era of totalitarianism, I think. Amen. Yes. The idea of tyranny, which you brought up in your recent article, I love the way you laid it out, because you talked about three levels of tyranny. You talked about the tyranny of globalists in the States, the tyranny of bureaucracy, and the tyranny of the ego. and if you can say a bit more about that because that was so powerful for me to read that distinction especially the last part about the tyranny of the ego because and i think this is going to be very powerful when you talk about these ideas in israel it happens everywhere in

Starting point is 00:20:07 the world of course but in israel we are experiencing like a vortex of really low frequency energy right now with a lot of violence with a lot of hatred with a lot of of enemies everywhere, right? Some of them are invented by the media and the propaganda, and some of them are real, but the lines are so blurred that people live almost in a delusional stage where they are constantly anxious. They don't even know what is a real threat to a fake threat anymore.

Starting point is 00:20:41 They find it very hard to protect themselves. and i think that this tyranny of the ego is the source of starting to get out of it yeah it may be easier to distinguish the tyranny of the state the tyranny of the globalists because it's outside of you and it may be quite difficult to distinguish the tyranny of your own ego and start doing something about that to actually be humble enough to lower your guard and admit that you may be a slave to your own ideas and your own limiting beliefs etc so can you give us a bit about that yes it's it's it's quite a complicated topic but it's it's very essential i think like if you look at the collective crisis our society finds itself in then you can see that

Starting point is 00:21:35 it has exactly the same structure as the majority of the individual crisis people find themselves in. And individuals resonate with the collective crisis because something in themselves has the same structure. And yeah, I truly believe, like if you look at the essence of this technocratic totalitarianism is emerging and all the conflicts that it provokes or installs in the world and then you you that that's that's where the interesting part begins i think like like this this this totalitarianism is is is the ultimate consequence of a certain world view which emerged during the enlightenment tradition which of course had a lot of good things like the enlightenment tradition was something we needed to go through definitely and and um but uh it also

Starting point is 00:22:39 it it also created uh a strengthening of the ego structure and a sharp increase of narcissism and rationalism parallel with each other simultaneously and uh and it it it like narcissism we we can go into that i think if we have more time but not narcissism always isolates people and and and it's this it's this this like it's this uh psychological process this this this simultaneous emergence of rationalism and narcissism in our society which is responsible i think for uh for a phenomenon that was first described by a hegel uh the german philosopher hegel and which he called the atomization of society like our society is falling apart in elementary particles it's like humans are less and less connected to each other and and that's in itself as a consequence i believe of

Starting point is 00:23:42 our i could really describe it in detail at the psychological level as a consequence of our rationalist view men in the world i don't say a rational view of men on the man in the world that's something else rationalist and rationalism being is something completely different than being rational so but it's it's it's but but it's this rationalist view men of the world that creates this narcissism this atomization which creates these lonely masses as jacques call them like like once people are in an isolated state they are very sensitive to propaganda they very easily fuse together as as a mass as a lonely mass which can be perfectly controlled and steered by propaganda and so on and so on and um and and the individual crisis actually

Starting point is 00:24:29 usually is situated at the same level as a human being we go into crisis when you are isolated from each other so so it's the ego that isolates us the ego which usually not always but usually is a Narcissistic structure is the ego which isolates us, which makes us incapable of distinguishing between what is true and what is fiction, between illusions and reality, and so on. Which also makes us very, which always makes us lapse into aggression and so on. So the most fundamental slavery, the most fundamental tyranny is the tyranny of the ego. yes i really believe so like like we as long we are we can we are in the end what what what truly makes us unfree makes us a slave is our own ego and and outer tyranny uh and only has a grip on us because we are already in the grip of our own narcissism and our own ego uh yeah you know it's

Starting point is 00:25:38 too much to to go into or to to to to put into an in a nutshell but but but we will have more time so let's talk about it of course of course and what i do from now till till the event is i keep dripping some of those great articles or quotes of yours to the people that are coming so that they can read a bit more and and be more prepared so we may take some questions from the great beautiful people of Israel that really want to continue shining the light in a place that is quite dark these days. And I think that by you accepting my invitation to come and do this with me, you may really help me to forward that mission of seeing people for who they are, humans, souls in a physical body that have a mission and purpose on this earth

Starting point is 00:26:34 and not and not be bound to all of our labels and identities yes yes i'm honored to come i'm looking i'm looking forward very much uh and um i i don't know if you if you have read my uh sub stack on israel i published it five or six months ago i'm really looking forward looking forward to be there to meet you there and uh to have these wonderful conversations and indeed the end goal is always to to develop a kind of speech which makes people see each other as human beings which makes people see that they are actually one with the other the separation between people only exists in the world of appearances there is like a veil of appearances which which separates us from each other and that's exactly

Starting point is 00:27:36 the definition of truth for me truth or sincere speech refers to words that penetrate through the veil of appearances and that make a hole in this veil of appearances this fake perception of each other which isolates us from each other that's what sincerity does it punches holes in the vein of appearances and it makes people resonate again with each other makes them feel that actually they are one i hope we can talk a lot about that because that's for me the essence not so much the analysis in itself of totalitarianism but the awareness of the necessity of truth and sincere speech for a humane society and if i can contribute only a little bit to raising the awareness about that then i'm already very satisfied and happy with what i do

Starting point is 00:28:39 you can and you are and you will and thank you so much for coming and accepting our invitation and we look forward to hosting you and it's very very soon so it's on the 22nd of december at 7 p.m. at night in Herzliya in Israel. So if any of you listening have this urge of jumping on a plane and joining us in Israel, you're more than welcome. I'll put the link to the event in the show notes, so you're welcome to come and join us if you want. But we're almost sold out, so this is great.

Starting point is 00:29:16 So people are really excited to see you, and I am too. one likewise effort i'm i'm very happy that you invited me and i'm looking forward very much excellent so stay on the line for one more minute i am closing the recording thank you matthias you're the voice is brought to you by trezor the original bitcoin hardware wallet company pioneering the development of self-custody for crypto assets since 2013 empowering individuals with an open source device enabling beginners and experts to easily and securely hold their coins i find my treasure super easy to use and recommend it to my friends and family enjoy my five percent discount on treasure product by clicking the link in the show notes and using the code a flat

You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 56: Prof. Mattias Desmet - From Shadows to Light

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