Thread: The Mass Psychosis that Now Grips the World nism, 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.”
(The Rape of the Mind)
Never before in history have such effective means existed to manipulate a society into the psychosis of totalitarianism. Smart phones and social media, television and the internet, all in conjunction with bots that spread propaganda and 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 Meerloo “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.”
(The Rape of the Mind)
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 coworkers, 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 behaviour when isolated, or as Meerloo explains with regards to the physiologist Ivan Pavlov’s work on behavioural 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 isolation.”
(The Rape of the Mind)
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 come 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. “the totalitarian systems of the 20th century represent a kind of collective
psychosis,” writes the medical doctor Joost Meerloo. “Whether gradually or suddenly, reason and common human decency are no longer possible in such a system: there is only a pervasive atmosphere of terror, and
a projection of “the enemy,” imagined to be “in our midst.”
Thus society turns on itself, urged on by the ruling authorities.” 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 and 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 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: firstly, 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 humour and ridicule to delegitimize the ruling elite or as Meerloo 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 belived, a life that is in harmony with its own aims and which in turn structures itselfin 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.”
(Thomas Paine, American Crisis)
