Thinking about our current covid totalitarianism, columnist Roger Simon recently wrote:
What we have witnessed throughout the world [today] is millions, really billions, of people taking orders without thinking or, in the majority of cases, even seriously investigating what they have been told.Simon states that witnessing this has helped him answer his long-held question (also held by many, including me): how could educated people in World War II Germany do what the Nazis did to Jews?
The best he could come up with:
We live in a culture of pervasive obedience….It’s everywhere—people giving up their personal agency, even their ability to reason, out of fear and willingly adhering to the mass.
A generation of conformists has been created as never before in our history.Which certainly is true, but leaves the question “why?” unanswered. The best I can come up with is “mass psychological conformity,” or to elaborate, “mass psychologically-generated callous conformity, indifferent to harm caused to others.” The harm can range from “lockdowns” to mass extermination. In the case of the latter, “inhumanity” may be substituted for callous conformity.
Which still leaves the questions: “Why?” and “How?”
Various attempts to name this syndrome have been made: group psychology, groupthink, the madness of crowds, or true believers in a mass movement. Tulip mania, the current situation is not, though “herd conformity” is a phrase I have used before to describe it. Most recently, the terms “mass delusional psychosis” or “mass formation psychosis” have been offered.
“Delusion” is correct because in its simplest definition delusion means belief in something that is false, whether it’s “I’m probably going to die if you breathe anywhere near me” or “I’m Jesus Christ.”
And the syndrome is “mass” because so many people worldwide have gone along with their authoritarian public health and political leaders.
But these followers are not psychotic in the sense that they completely withdraw from reality, suspending conscious control over life and allowing the subconscious to take over.* Because thinking errors are the cause of neuroses, all psychological problems can be said to some extent to be delusional.
“Inhumanity,” according to Merriam-Webster means “being cruel or barbarous” and “the absence of warmth or geniality.” The past two years have certainly seemed inhumane, at least to those who have been harmed the most: children, small businesses that have closed and workers, if they still have a job, many of them single moms, who have to mask up to serve the laptop elite while the latter dine and shop. Then there are the non-virus related deaths, many by suicide.
Callous indifference, indeed! (See my post “They Just Don’t Care—Rationalization and the Need to Look Good.”
Who exactly am I talking about? The intelligentsia in particular: mainstream media, leftist teachers and professors, certain left-leaning entertainers and business leaders, politicians, and the public health cadre of unelected deep staters.
The latter two may even have a worse psychology. The past two years seem to have brought out their inner totalitarian, as in “we’re telling you who you can have in your home and when or if you can travel. Obey!”
Other people, such as the laptop elite who support the intelligentsia’s doctrines, would have to be included. The cause of all psychologies varies widely, in this case likely ranging from plain ignorance of the doctrine’s consequences to deliberate envious glee for those harmed (akin to many Germans during World War II).
Today, most people are just scared, thanks to the unrelenting propaganda campaign waged by the intelligentsia.
The root of the syndrome is psychological dependence, a psychology that does not depart completely from reality as a psychotic does, but one that shifts reality to other people as their source of beliefs and values. It is a passive acceptance of what those significant others think, feel, and do—a suspension of independent judgment to go along to get along . . . with the crowd.
We all often fail to seriously investigate, because we learn from books and other people and can’t escape the need to rely on experts.
But why the suspension of independent judgment? On the mass scale, this is where there is again a wide variety of reasons. The culture’s philosophy contributes in large part to explaining Simon’s observation of “pervasive obedience.” Germany’s duty ethics of self-sacrifice to the state (or Führer) eclipses independence. “It’s your duty to obey.”
The United States holds a nearly as strong duty ethics based on its predominant Protestantism. Just look at attitudes toward the military draft: “It’s your duty to die for your country.” (Should a big war break out, a new draft would be passed in a heartbeat by Congress and supported by the public. See The Ominous Parallels.)
For over 120 years, American culture has been assaulted and battered unendingly by the progressive left demanding that to be moral we must sacrifice ourselves to the collective, the group, the state.
And in non-Judeo-Christian cultures, asceticism and self-denial are widely held doctrines, with authoritarianism not even questioned.
Hence, worldwide, pervasive obedience.
Psychologically, independence derives from a strong sense of personal identity and self-responsibility. Courage, integrity, and self-esteem are consequences. Parental and formal education (the “how” of this issue) are both crucial in helping us develop these traits, but preaching self-sacrifice and victimhood erodes or blocks the development of independence.
“Dependent personalities,” as I have written before (p. 105), “gravitate to groups as the source of their identity, such as their religion, nation, race, class, ethnicity, or private clubs. They gravitate to the government as their caretaker.”**
Depending on the level of deficiency in self-esteem, dependent personalities will blindly accept whatever the government and its public health officials say, even if they are asking us to give up our rights.
It takes a confident mind to stand up to the irrational onslaught we have been going through over the past two years.
Perhaps the best explanation of mass gutlessness is the bureaucratic state. Bureaucracy is how governments manage their affairs and rules and laws are their tools. “Rules are rules” is the battle cry and “I don’t make ‘em, I just enforce ‘em” is what we have been up against for many years.
Those who respond by saying “Oh, okay”—without understanding or questioning what is being asked of them—encourage the totalitarians to continue with more total control.
The rules and laws—far too many of both in the United States, for about a century—all allow both citizens and bureaucrats to rationalize what they are doing as good. “I’m just following (or enforcing) the law.”
Rationalization is a strong defensive habit that allows us to make excuses for our behavior. Criminals thrive on it. So did many Germans in Nazi Germany.
Deference to authority comes first. Then, the obedience. Rationalization does not require or allow examination.
The bureaucratic state of Nazi Germany had gangs of secretaries typing orders to send Jews to the death camps. How could they do it? The explanation has to be that they thought they were doing something good! See “The Reductio of Bureaucracy” (Applying Principles, pp. 117-21) and William L. Shirer’s book.
Deference sacrifices independent judgment. Obedience makes one a follower and in extreme cases a killer.
Are we going to reclaim our rights, our personal agency, and, most importantly, our ability to reason to assert independence from the madness of crowds?
Or are we going to continue to go along to get along?
* Psychotics usually have episodes. They are not constantly “out of their minds,” living in a “waking dream,” as psychosis has sometimes been described. Even statuesque catatonics are aware of their surroundings and occasionally will respond to a nearby conversation before retreating to their trance-like states. And one psychiatrist asked a psychotic to “stop acting crazy now so I can talk to you.” The response? “Oh, okay.”
** Psychologist Edith Packer (p. 264): “Such people want to be taken care of, and in return they will gladly obey. A nation that breeds a dictator is a nation of people who are afraid of life.”
