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Video Description
Mass psychosis is not an accident — it can be deliberately manufactured. This lecture from Academy of Ideas lays out the recipe: fear, propaganda, waves of terror, isolation, and the assault on the mind that Meerloo called ‘menticide.’ Hannah Arendt called totalitarianism an attempt to transform human nature itself, and this video traces how that transformation is engineered step by step. But it does not end in despair. The road back, it shows, runs through inner order, truth, laughter at demagogues, and the ‘parallel structures’ Havel said build enclaves of freedom inside the totalized state.
Full Video Transcript
The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error if error seduced them.
Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master. Whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Diseases of the body can spread through a population and reach epidemic proportions, but so too can diseases of the mind.
And of these epidemics of the latter variety, the mass psychosis is the most dangerous.
During a mass psychosis, madness becomes the norm in a society, and delusionary beliefs
spread like a contagion.
But as delusions can take many forms, and as madness can manifest in countless ways,
the specific manner in which a mass psychosis unfolds will differ based on the historical
and cultural context of the infected society.
In the past, mass psychoses have led to witch hunts, genocides, and even dancing manias.
But in the modern era, it is the mass psychosis of totalitarianism that is the greatest threat.
Totalitarianism, writes Arthur Versluis, is the modern phenomenon of total centralized
state power, coupled with the obliteration of individual human rights.
In the totalized state, there are those in power, and there are the objectified masses,
the victims.
In a totalitarian society, the population is divided into two groups, the rulers and
the ruled, and both groups undergo a pathological transformation.
The rulers are elevated to an almost godlike status, which is diametrically opposed to
our nature as imperfect beings who are easily corrupted by power.
The masses, on the other hand, are transformed into the dependent subjects of these pathological
rulers and take on a psychologically regressed and child-like status.
Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s preeminent scholars of this form of rule,
called totalitarianism an attempted transformation of human nature itself.
But this attempted transformation only turns sound minds into sick minds, for as the Dutch
medical doctor who studied the mental effects of living under totalitarianism wrote there is in
fact much that is comparable between the strange reactions of the citizens of totalitarianism and
their culture as a whole on the one hand and the reactions of the sick schizophrenic on the other
the social transformation that unfolds under totalitarianism is built upon and sustained by
delusions for only deluded men and women regress to the childlike status of obedient and submissive
subjects and hand over complete control of their lives to politicians and bureaucrats.
Only a deluded ruling class will believe that they possess the knowledge,
wisdom, and acumen to completely control society in a top-down manner.
And only when under the spell of delusions would anyone believe that a society composed of
power-hungry rulers, on the one hand, and a psychologically regressed population,
on the other will lead to anything other than mass suffering and social ruin but what triggers
the psychosis of totalitarianism as was explored in the previous video of this series the mass
psychosis of totalitarianism begins in a society’s ruling class the individuals that make up this
class be it politicians bureaucrats or crony capitalists are very prone to delusions that
augment their power. And no delusion is more attractive to the power-hungry than the delusion
that they can and should control and dominate a society. When a ruling elite becomes possessed
by a political ideology of this sort, be it communism, fascism, or technocracy, the next
step is to induce a population into accepting their rule by infecting them with the mass
psychosis of totalitarianism. This psychosis has been induced many times throughout history
And as Meerloo explains,
It is simply a question of reorganizing and manipulating collective feelings in the proper way.
The general method by which the members of a ruling elite can accomplish this end is called menticide,
with the etymology of this word being a killing of the mind.
And as Meerloo further explains,
Menticide is an old crime against the human mind and spirit, but systematized anew.
It is an organized system of psychological intervention and judicial perversion
through which a ruling class can imprint their own opportunistic thoughts upon the minds of those they plan to use and destroy.
Priming a population for the crime of menticide begins with the sowing of fear.
For as was explored in the first video of this series, when an individual is flooded with negative emotions such as fear or anxiety,
He or she is very susceptible to a descent into the delusions of madness.
Threats real, imagined, or fabricated, can be used to sow fear.
But a particularly effective technique is to use waves of terror.
Under this technique the sowing of fear is staggered with periods of calm.
But each of these periods of calm is followed by the manufacturing of an even more intense spell of fear.
And on and on the process goes.
Or as Meerloo writes,
Each wave of terrorizing creates its effects more easily after a breathing spell than the
one that preceded it because people are still disturbed by their previous experience.
Morality becomes lower and lower, and the psychological effects of each new
propaganda campaign become stronger. It reaches a public already softened up.
While fear primes a population for menticide, the use of propaganda to spread misinformation
and to promote confusion with respect to the source of the threats and the nature of the crisis
helps to break down the minds of the masses. Government officials, and their lackeys in the
media, can use contradictory reports, nonsensical information, and even blatant lies, as the more
they confuse, the less capable will a population be to cope with the crisis and diminish their
fear in a rational and adaptive manner. Confusion, in other words, heightens the susceptibility
of a dissent into the delusions of totalitarianism. Or as Meerloo explains, logic can be met with
logic, while illogic cannot. It confuses those who think straight. The big lie and monotonously
repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal than logic and reason. While the people are
still searching for a reasonable counter-argument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault
them with another. Never before in history have such effective means existed to manipulate a
society into the psychosis of totalitarianism. Smartphones and social media, television and the
internet, all in conjunction with algorithms that quickly censor the flow of unwanted information,
allow those in power to easily assault the minds of the masses.
What is more, the addictive nature of these technologies
means that many people voluntarily subject themselves
to the ruling elite’s propaganda with a remarkable frequency.
Modern technology, explains Mirlu,
teaches man to take for granted the world he is looking at.
He takes no time to retreat and reflect.
Technology lures him on, dropping him into its wheels and movements.
No rest, no meditation, no reflection, no conversation.
The senses are continually overloaded with stimuli.
Man doesn’t learn to question his world anymore.
The screen offers him answers. Ready made.
But there is a further step the would-be totalitarian rulers can take to increase the chance of a totalitarian psychosis.
And this is to isolate the victims and to disrupt normal social interactions.
When alone and lacking normal interactions with friends, family, and co-workers,
an individual becomes far more susceptible to delusions for several reasons.
Firstly, they lose contact with the corrective force of the positive example,
for not everyone is tricked by the machinations of the ruling elite,
and the individuals who see through the propaganda can help free others from the menticidal assault.
If, however, isolation is enforced,
the power of these positive examples greatly diminishes.
But another reason that isolation increases the efficacy of menticide is because like many other
species, human beings are more easily conditioned into new patterns of thought and behavior when
isolated. Or as Meerloo explains with regards to the physiologist Ivan Pavlov’s work on behavioral
conditioning, Pavlov made another significant discovery. The conditioned reflex could be
developed most easily in a quiet laboratory with a minimum of disturbing stimuli. Every trainer of
animals knows this from his own experience. Isolation and the patient repetition of stimuli
are required to tame wild animals. The totalitarians have followed this rule.
They know that they can condition their political victims most quickly if they are kept in
in isolation, alone, confused, and battered by waves of terror, a population under an
attack of menticide descends into a hopeless and vulnerable state.
The never-ending stream of propaganda turns minds once capable of rational thought into
playhouses of irrational forces, and with chaos swirling around them and within them,
the masses crave a return to a more ordered world.
The would-be totalitarians can now take the decisive step.
They can offer a way out and a return to order in a world that seems to be moving rapidly
in the opposite direction.
But all this comes at a price.
The masses must give up their freedom and cede control of all aspects of life to the
ruling elite.
They must relinquish their capacity to be self-reliant individuals who are responsible
for their own lives and become submissive and obedient subjects.
The masses, in other words, must descend into the delusions of the totalitarian psychosis.
Totalitarianism, writes Meerloo, is man’s escape from the fearful realities of life
into the virtual womb of the leaders.
The individual’s actions are directed from this womb, from the inner sanctum.
Man need no longer assume responsibility for his own life.
The order and logic of the prenatal world reign.
There is peace and silence, the peace of utter submission.
But the order of a totalitarian world is a pathological order.
By enforcing a strict conformity and requiring a blind obedience from the citizenry, totalitarianism
rids the world of the spontaneity that produces many of life’s joys and the creativity that
drives society forward.
The total control of this form of rule, no matter under what name it is branded, be it
rule by scientists and doctors, politicians and bureaucrats, or a dictator, breeds stagnation,
destruction, and death on a mass scale. And so perhaps the most important question facing the
world is how can totalitarianism be prevented? And if a society has been induced into the early
stages of this mass psychosis, can the effects be reversed? While one can never be sure of the
the prognosis of a collective madness.
There are steps that can be taken to help effectuate a cure.
This task, however, necessitates many different approaches from many different people.
For just as the menticidal attack is multi-pronged, so too must be the counter-attack.
According to Carl Jung, for those of us who wish to help return sanity to an insane world,
the first step is to bring order to our own minds and to live in a way that provides inspiration
for others to follow.
It is not for nothing that our age cries out for the redeemer personality, for the one
who can emancipate himself from the grip of the collective psychosis and save at least
his own soul, who lights a beacon of hope for others, proclaiming that here is at least
one man who has succeeded in extricating himself from the fatal identity with the group psyche.
But assuming one is living in a manner free of the grip of the psychosis, there are further
steps that can be taken. Information that counters the propaganda should be spread as far and as
wide as possible. For the truth is more powerful than the fiction and falsities peddled by the
would-be totalitarian rulers. And so their success is in part contingent on their ability to censor
the free flow of information. Another tactic is to use humor and ridicule to delegitimize the
ruling elite, or as Mirlu explains, we must learn to treat the demagogue and aspirant dictators in
our midst with the weapon of ridicule. The demagogue himself is almost incapable of humor
of any sort, and if we treat him with humor, he will begin to collapse. A tactic recommended by
Vaclav Havel, a political dissident under Soviet communist rule, who later became president of
Czechoslovakia is the construction of what are called parallel structures. A parallel structure
is any form of organization, business, institution, technology, or creative pursuit that exists
physically within a totalitarian society, yet morally outside of it. In Communist Czechoslovakia,
Havel noted that these parallel structures were more effective at combating totalitarianism than
political action. Furthermore, when enough parallel structures are created, a second culture,
or parallel society, spontaneously forms and functions as an enclave of freedom and sanity
within a totalitarian world, or as Havel explains in his book The Power of the Powerless.
What else are parallel structures than an area where a different life can be lived,
a life that is in harmony with its own aims, and which in turn structures itself in harmony with
those aims. What else are those initial attempts at social self-organization than the efforts of
a certain part of society to rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism,
and, thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the totalitarian system?
But above all else, what is required to prevent a full descent into the madness of totalitarianism
is action by as many people as possible for just as the ruling elite do not sit around passively
but instead take deliberate steps to increase their power so too an active and concerted effort
must be made to move the world back in the direction of freedom this can be an immense
challenge in a world falling prey to the delusions of totalitarianism but as thomas paine noted
Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet
We have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph
Source: Academy of Ideas