There was an interesting interview with Desmet recently on Brett Weinstein's Dark Horse podcast. They disagreed on the reductionist/materialist aspect, but in a productive way. Worth listening to.
One of the things they touched on was precisely the formation of an 'anti-group', and the danger of mass formation happening there, also. The key to avoiding that trap, according to Desmet, is to ensure strong interpersonal bonds in order to provide stability against the personal-group bonds. Horizontal connectivity preventing the purely vertical connectivity that characterizes a ponerpgenic mass, in other words. It seems to me that this contains much of the answer to the key question - how to effectively combat this situation. Simply speaking out calmly and rationally is surely important, but much more important I think is participating in and providing fora for the development of organic societal bonds, since it is the latter that will actually solve the underlying issue that led to mass formation in the first place.
Another thing he touched on, which is very similar to Gurdjieff's concept of conscious suffering, was that by enduring these difficulties and holding to our principles, our souls and even our bodies actually become stronger. Statements like that, along with other remarks eg the assault on crude materialism, make me suspect that Desmet understands far more than he states directly in public.
Desmet certainly has a lot of worthy things to say. Ultimately, though, he comes down on the side of "there was no conspiracy during Covid to induce fear, which in turn induced mass formation. This fear arose naturally from our own propensity for mechanistic thinking." I firmly believe that was indeed a conspiracy to induce fear, with the probable hope of getting us to world-wide vaccine passports.
Desmet also says things like, "the belief in the human intellect is the basis of totalitarianism." I don't have the page number but trust me, it's there and I can get it. That makes no sense.
When Malone introduced his readers to Chris Langan, I was a bit shocked. The guy is a eugenicist and full of himself and would like to rule the world. He posits this "better world" that's non-rational. Desmet also posits this non-rational "better world" even as he argues that we have to use our reason. Yet Enlightenment reason is the source of our psychological problems. So which is it? To me, something funny is going on with this "better world" talk. Let's just fix the one we have.
That Desmet does, indeed, serve as an apologist for the conspirators-- telling us that they didn't even exist, and to think they did is dangerous-- negates everything he says for me. Why does he do that? Couldn't he simply explain the mechanisms of the psychological effects of fear as it leads to mass formation, and point out how we abandoned "stay calm and carry on" and instead went hysterical? We did that because we were fed 24/7, unrelenting fear porn concerning Covid-19. Desmet could have profitably noted the "single idea" carried to irrational extremes that Arendt explicated, which is what Arendt meant by "ideology"-- literally the logic of a single idea. What was that idea during Covid? It was "stay safe." Desmet missed the boat on that completely. Why? Arendt gave it to him, that idea was there for the taking and explained so much, as a singular focus on it led to irrationality and yes, mass formation. Yet now, when in my state Covid cases and deaths are as high as they were in 2020 (and we are one of the most highly vaccinated) there's virtual silence around "stay safe." And people are back to normal. So we, the people, did not "ask" for it due to our mechanistic thinking, or we'd still be in a state of fear.
I appreciate the author tackling this. And yes, I do get carried away a bit about Desmet.
As long as the ruling elites and oligarchies are allowed to remain in power - or near it - the situation will not change, the structures will continue on, but with different names. Thus, in Russia, the nomenklatura became the oligarchs, and an old KGB apparatchik, Putin, has turned into the new dictator, with the prospect and intent of re-creating Stalinism and the USSR. Contrast that with Czechia and Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where the old elite were driven out of power and had no place in the creation of the new system.
And, repeating a previous comment - ""There’s a scientific consensus, after all." The trouble is that most of what is purported to be science is junk science, especially in the "social sciences" which have attained an entirely undeserved respectability. A lot of the "numbers" come from those fields, in which cases the conclusions are often assumed and then "numbers" are cooked up to back those conclusions. Thus you get critical race theory and wokeism - go back in time and you get the Frankfort School and "scientific socialism", all of them games to demonstrate the desirability of one totalitarian system or another. The conclusion that individual freedom must be subsumed to the "needs of the collective" - usually determined by a very small group, an oligarchy or "leadership vanguard" - is the driving force behind the creation of these "numbers", and the "research" is paid for by the beneficiaries. And people are trained to accept and back this by systems of public education - government schooling - the basis for mass formation in every society in which this has occurred since the 1880s:
"Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.
Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers." http://wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
People coming out of such a system are ripe targets for mass formation. In the US, forty and fifty years ago, they were targets for authoritarian cults, many of which used the same Thought Reform techniques as seen today. I don't recall seeing references to Singer, Lifton, or Gatto in Desmet's work, and their work in explaining this phenomenon and the propensity for people to get caught up in it would be of great explanatory use.
There was an interesting interview with Desmet recently on Brett Weinstein's Dark Horse podcast. They disagreed on the reductionist/materialist aspect, but in a productive way. Worth listening to.
One of the things they touched on was precisely the formation of an 'anti-group', and the danger of mass formation happening there, also. The key to avoiding that trap, according to Desmet, is to ensure strong interpersonal bonds in order to provide stability against the personal-group bonds. Horizontal connectivity preventing the purely vertical connectivity that characterizes a ponerpgenic mass, in other words. It seems to me that this contains much of the answer to the key question - how to effectively combat this situation. Simply speaking out calmly and rationally is surely important, but much more important I think is participating in and providing fora for the development of organic societal bonds, since it is the latter that will actually solve the underlying issue that led to mass formation in the first place.
Another thing he touched on, which is very similar to Gurdjieff's concept of conscious suffering, was that by enduring these difficulties and holding to our principles, our souls and even our bodies actually become stronger. Statements like that, along with other remarks eg the assault on crude materialism, make me suspect that Desmet understands far more than he states directly in public.
Desmet certainly has a lot of worthy things to say. Ultimately, though, he comes down on the side of "there was no conspiracy during Covid to induce fear, which in turn induced mass formation. This fear arose naturally from our own propensity for mechanistic thinking." I firmly believe that was indeed a conspiracy to induce fear, with the probable hope of getting us to world-wide vaccine passports.
Desmet also says things like, "the belief in the human intellect is the basis of totalitarianism." I don't have the page number but trust me, it's there and I can get it. That makes no sense.
When Malone introduced his readers to Chris Langan, I was a bit shocked. The guy is a eugenicist and full of himself and would like to rule the world. He posits this "better world" that's non-rational. Desmet also posits this non-rational "better world" even as he argues that we have to use our reason. Yet Enlightenment reason is the source of our psychological problems. So which is it? To me, something funny is going on with this "better world" talk. Let's just fix the one we have.
That Desmet does, indeed, serve as an apologist for the conspirators-- telling us that they didn't even exist, and to think they did is dangerous-- negates everything he says for me. Why does he do that? Couldn't he simply explain the mechanisms of the psychological effects of fear as it leads to mass formation, and point out how we abandoned "stay calm and carry on" and instead went hysterical? We did that because we were fed 24/7, unrelenting fear porn concerning Covid-19. Desmet could have profitably noted the "single idea" carried to irrational extremes that Arendt explicated, which is what Arendt meant by "ideology"-- literally the logic of a single idea. What was that idea during Covid? It was "stay safe." Desmet missed the boat on that completely. Why? Arendt gave it to him, that idea was there for the taking and explained so much, as a singular focus on it led to irrationality and yes, mass formation. Yet now, when in my state Covid cases and deaths are as high as they were in 2020 (and we are one of the most highly vaccinated) there's virtual silence around "stay safe." And people are back to normal. So we, the people, did not "ask" for it due to our mechanistic thinking, or we'd still be in a state of fear.
I appreciate the author tackling this. And yes, I do get carried away a bit about Desmet.
As long as the ruling elites and oligarchies are allowed to remain in power - or near it - the situation will not change, the structures will continue on, but with different names. Thus, in Russia, the nomenklatura became the oligarchs, and an old KGB apparatchik, Putin, has turned into the new dictator, with the prospect and intent of re-creating Stalinism and the USSR. Contrast that with Czechia and Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where the old elite were driven out of power and had no place in the creation of the new system.
And, repeating a previous comment - ""There’s a scientific consensus, after all." The trouble is that most of what is purported to be science is junk science, especially in the "social sciences" which have attained an entirely undeserved respectability. A lot of the "numbers" come from those fields, in which cases the conclusions are often assumed and then "numbers" are cooked up to back those conclusions. Thus you get critical race theory and wokeism - go back in time and you get the Frankfort School and "scientific socialism", all of them games to demonstrate the desirability of one totalitarian system or another. The conclusion that individual freedom must be subsumed to the "needs of the collective" - usually determined by a very small group, an oligarchy or "leadership vanguard" - is the driving force behind the creation of these "numbers", and the "research" is paid for by the beneficiaries. And people are trained to accept and back this by systems of public education - government schooling - the basis for mass formation in every society in which this has occurred since the 1880s:
"Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.
Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers." http://wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
People coming out of such a system are ripe targets for mass formation. In the US, forty and fifty years ago, they were targets for authoritarian cults, many of which used the same Thought Reform techniques as seen today. I don't recall seeing references to Singer, Lifton, or Gatto in Desmet's work, and their work in explaining this phenomenon and the propensity for people to get caught up in it would be of great explanatory use.