This came up in the Covid thread and I thought it to be an interesting topic to discuss on its own. I put the phrase into DuckDuckGo (my search engine of choice) and Google just to see what would come up and got very different results. The following article came up and I randomly clicked on it specifically because it wasn't a news outlet. I wanted to know what an article free from news media bias would say. It was interesting. It was written on 28 December 2021, so before the Joe Rogan interview with the doctor went viral and has been taken down on youtube. The author begins with interesting insight from South Africa and it goes from there. My comments are in red.
Link
Opinion: How have we gotten here? Mass Formation Psychosis, explained
Clark County Today Administrator Heidi Wetzler shares clinical psychology professor Mattias Desmet’s theory about the societal conditions under which a population ends up willingly sacrificing their freedom
I received the following comment recently from a reader in Africa, on a column I wrote a while back regarding natural immunity. It captures the essence of my daily inner dialogue.
“Arguments from privileged countries. We in Africa have little access to vaccines, boosters, etc. The question we should be asking is, how is Africa managing? You people have already caused mayhem over Omicron. Our good doctors from South Africa have told us not to panic, but the rest of the world is in the highest panic mode yet … your countries’ have over 70% vaccinated, boosted etc. You should be at peace … you will die of fear.”
As I sat with these ideas, coming from half a world away, I realized the privileged countries in the world are living a far different reality than the less privileged. Ironically, in America, we have limitless access to vaccines, and some of the most educated doctors and scientists in the world, yet the majority of our citizens are consumed with fear. But does the level of fear and now the level of governmental control really match the current threat of the virus and its variants? Why aren’t we jumping for joy that so far Omicron is looking to be more transmissible, but far less deadly? In theory, this variant could signal the end of the pandemic. Shouldn’t it be good news that many more people will likely develop a level of natural immunity from a less dangerous variant as we work toward the promised land of herd immunity? But this commenter is right … instead of optimism, what we have instead are increased calls for panic, lockdowns, passports, mandates and more. Why, you ask? Let me suggest a theory.
Seriously. I have asked myself many of the same questions. Why is omicron being heralded as the next worst variant when it's been stated over and over by the SA doctor who discovered it that it's not any worse than a bad cold? Why aren't people happy it's less lethal than delta? Etc., etc., etc.
Recently, I ran across the concept of mass formation, explained by Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium. He explains the societal conditions under which a population ends up willingly sacrificing their freedom.
There are four basic conditions which need to be met in order for a society to be vulnerable to mass hypnosis.
-a lack of societal bonding
-when the majority of people view their lives as being without purpose or meaning
-free floating anxiety
-high levels of frustration and aggression, with no discernible cause
She cites the reasons for the above conditions and it's not a stretch to say we have seen all of this happening. She goes on to express her thoughts on the subject and I found it to be interesting. I've never heard of mass formation except in the context of my time in the Army and we would all get into a mass formation for morning PT. It seems to be what allowed Hitler and the Nazis to do their thing and turn the German people against their countrymen/women because they were Jewish, homosexual, gypsies or some other "undesirable" label.
To say this isn't happening in this country is to be willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. She ends the piece saying this.....
At the end of the day, the global fight against COVID has brought an unbreakable bond between the members of a vulnerable group. Mass formation erases individuality. The virtuous fighters have now focused their virtuous fear and hatred on a group that is not under the spell. The unvaccinated are now the subject of intense disdain. The governor of Washington state recently called them domestic terrorists. And the masses likely agree. Even though many unvaccinated are COVID recovered, have natural immunity and are completely safe to be around. No questions are being asked. All critical thinking is done for.
(01-02-2022, 05:08 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]This came up in the Covid thread and I thought it to be an interesting topic to discuss on its own. I put the phrase into DuckDuckGo (my search engine of choice) and Google just to see what would come up and got very different results. The following article came up and I randomly clicked on it specifically because it wasn't a news outlet. I wanted to know what an article free from news media bias would say. It was interesting. It was written on 28 December 2021, so before the Joe Rogan interview with the doctor went viral and has been taken down on youtube. The author begins with interesting insight from South Africa and it goes from there. My comments are in red.
Link
Opinion: How have we gotten here? Mass Formation Psychosis, explained
Clark County Today Administrator Heidi Wetzler shares clinical psychology professor Mattias Desmet’s theory about the societal conditions under which a population ends up willingly sacrificing their freedom
I received the following comment recently from a reader in Africa, on a column I wrote a while back regarding natural immunity. It captures the essence of my daily inner dialogue.
“Arguments from privileged countries. We in Africa have little access to vaccines, boosters, etc. The question we should be asking is, how is Africa managing? You people have already caused mayhem over Omicron. Our good doctors from South Africa have told us not to panic, but the rest of the world is in the highest panic mode yet … your countries’ have over 70% vaccinated, boosted etc. You should be at peace … you will die of fear.”
As I sat with these ideas, coming from half a world away, I realized the privileged countries in the world are living a far different reality than the less privileged. Ironically, in America, we have limitless access to vaccines, and some of the most educated doctors and scientists in the world, yet the majority of our citizens are consumed with fear. But does the level of fear and now the level of governmental control really match the current threat of the virus and its variants? Why aren’t we jumping for joy that so far Omicron is looking to be more transmissible, but far less deadly? In theory, this variant could signal the end of the pandemic. Shouldn’t it be good news that many more people will likely develop a level of natural immunity from a less dangerous variant as we work toward the promised land of herd immunity? But this commenter is right … instead of optimism, what we have instead are increased calls for panic, lockdowns, passports, mandates and more. Why, you ask? Let me suggest a theory.
Seriously. I have asked myself many of the same questions. Why is omicron being heralded as the next worst variant when it's been stated over and over by the SA doctor who discovered it that it's not any worse than a bad cold? Why aren't people happy it's less lethal than delta? Etc., etc., etc.
Recently, I ran across the concept of mass formation, explained by Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium. He explains the societal conditions under which a population ends up willingly sacrificing their freedom.
There are four basic conditions which need to be met in order for a society to be vulnerable to mass hypnosis.
-a lack of societal bonding
-when the majority of people view their lives as being without purpose or meaning
-free floating anxiety
-high levels of frustration and aggression, with no discernible cause
She cites the reasons for the above conditions and it's not a stretch to say we have seen all of this happening. She goes on to express her thoughts on the subject and I found it to be interesting. I've never heard of mass formation except in the context of my time in the Army and we would all get into a mass formation for morning PT. It seems to be what allowed Hitler and the Nazis to do their thing and turn the German people against their countrymen/women because they were Jewish, homosexual, gypsies or some other "undesirable" label.
To say this isn't happening in this country is to be willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. She ends the piece saying this.....
At the end of the day, the global fight against COVID has brought an unbreakable bond between the members of a vulnerable group. Mass formation erases individuality. The virtuous fighters have now focused their virtuous fear and hatred on a group that is not under the spell. The unvaccinated are now the subject of intense disdain. The governor of Washington state recently called them domestic terrorists. And the masses likely agree. Even though many unvaccinated are COVID recovered, have natural immunity and are completely safe to be around. No questions are being asked. All critical thinking is done for.
Thank you for sharing, and I agree with your responses. I am completely at a loss as to why such hysteria over a watered down version of Covid. This virus has done exactly what every other virus has done when introduced. It came in strong and devastated the most vulnerable. A virus wants to survive so it mutated to a little weaker version but a little more contagious and so on. Just like every other virus in history and yet here we are locking down again instead of moving on.
That's just a clinical psychologist. Probably has an ax to grind.
^^^ Some will say that. I have no idea who the lady is who wrote the piece nor the Belgian doctor which was kind of the point of choosing a random website that wasn't a news media site. If it had sounded bat crap crazy I would have chosen another random site. This lady sounds reasonable so I went with it.
I'm going to look up the doctor she cites to see what else he has to say about it. It is an interesting subject to read about and discuss.
(01-02-2022, 07:23 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]That's just a clinical psychologist. Probably has an ax to grind.
He's a relative unknown except in the fear peddling circles. It's also interesting that everything about "Mass Formation Psychosis" applies to the MAGA crowd and to discredited anti-vaxxers, especially those who conflate Covid policy and Nazi frigging Germany. Also that there really isn't a "psychosis" associated with Mass or Crowd Psychology, it's something he added to established research.
(01-02-2022, 08:24 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]^^^ Some will say that. I have no idea who the lady is who wrote the piece nor the Belgian doctor which was kind of the point of choosing a random website that wasn't a news media site. If it had sounded bat crap crazy I would have chosen another random site. This lady sounds reasonable so I went with it.
I'm going to look up the doctor she cites to see what else he has to say about it. It is an interesting subject to read about and discuss.
I was just [BLEEP] with FSG.
However, to respond to him, mass hysteria has been a thing for forever. It's not just some quacky fringe doctor that is talking about it. I don't know anything about that dude, but I have watched disbelief as ordinary, smart people lost their minds during this pandemic. I've watched respected people make highly emotional and reactive decisions. Now that Omicron is here, the left is literally producing articles to help their base deal with feelings of guilt and paranoia that have become a staple in those circles. What caused that, FSG? Whether or not it's mass formation psychosis or whatever a person wants to call it, it is clear that there is a large portion of the population that was completely blind to the facts about this disease and EVERY single data survey showed the left was WAY off in their assessment of its real threat. Their policies were extreme and their othering of anyone who didn't think like them was borderline scary.
Am I saying that there wasn't a version of this on the right? Absolutely not. One of the reasons I took up the mantle of this debate is because every time I took a break, the void was filled with some non-rational, extreme right-wing position. Of course there was misinformation and people who died in disbelief as they pretended Covid wasn't at thing. However, by and large, there was some phenomenon during this whole thing that did not reflect well on our society, and I don't care if it's given a stupid name. It exists. In all of our debates, you still have yet to acknowledge how wrong you were about this disease's trajectory... about the vaccine's efficacy... and the terrible policies enacted by our institutions. But we don't need to rehash all that.
(01-02-2022, 08:37 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote: [ -> ] (01-02-2022, 07:23 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]That's just a clinical psychologist. Probably has an ax to grind.
He's a relative unknown except in the fear peddling circles. It's also interesting that everything about "Mass Formation Psychosis" applies to the MAGA crowd and to discredited anti-vaxxers, especially those who conflate Covid policy and Nazi frigging Germany. Also that there really isn't a "psychosis" associated with Mass or Crowd Psychology, it's something he added to established research.
Tell that to the people who were in Waco or Ruby Ridge or others like it. Or the Charles Manson followers.
(01-02-2022, 10:49 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-02-2022, 08:37 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote: [ -> ]He's a relative unknown except in the fear peddling circles. It's also interesting that everything about "Mass Formation Psychosis" applies to the MAGA crowd and to discredited anti-vaxxers, especially those who conflate Covid policy and Nazi frigging Germany. Also that there really isn't a "psychosis" associated with Mass or Crowd Psychology, it's something he added to established research.
Tell that to the people who were in Waco or Ruby Ridge or others like it. Or the Charles Manson followers.
Not really the same thing, those were religion-based cults of personality. Mass formation, and why it's criticized, is more akin to hypnotism.
Lisztomania, Mass hysteria, collective behavior, contagion theory. A rose by any other name is still a rose. There's well documented spontaneous and irrational behavior that passes through the masses found in both humans and other animals. I don't think we can say for certain what causes it, but it exists, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it. Why would a person want to pretend stuff like this doesn't occur? Cognitive dissonance, perhaps?
We could have taken any one of these subjects (including the one from the OP) and discussed it prior to the pandemic and you would not be nearly so quick to dismiss it. Can't say that with certainty, but I did it anyways.
(01-03-2022, 01:16 AM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]Lisztomania, Mass hysteria, collective behavior, contagion theory. A rose by any other name is still a rose. There's well documented spontaneous and irrational behavior that passes through the masses found in both humans and other animals. I don't think we can say for certain what causes it, but it exists, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it. Why would a person want to pretend stuff like this doesn't occur? Cognitive dissonance, perhaps?
We could have taken any one of these subjects (including the one from the OP) and discussed it prior to the pandemic and you would not be nearly so quick to dismiss it. Can't say that with certainty, but I did it anyways.
I"m not dismissing it, some people are always going to be easily led by fear mongers, but that doesn't make this instance a case of societal hypnosis any more than the way the other side is acting with their own fear mongering is. But man are some people are quick to start the Nazi comparison.
(01-03-2022, 07:41 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote: [ -> ] (01-03-2022, 01:16 AM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]Lisztomania, Mass hysteria, collective behavior, contagion theory. A rose by any other name is still a rose. There's well documented spontaneous and irrational behavior that passes through the masses found in both humans and other animals. I don't think we can say for certain what causes it, but it exists, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it. Why would a person want to pretend stuff like this doesn't occur? Cognitive dissonance, perhaps?
We could have taken any one of these subjects (including the one from the OP) and discussed it prior to the pandemic and you would not be nearly so quick to dismiss it. Can't say that with certainty, but I did it anyways.
I"m not dismissing it, some people are always going to be easily led by fear mongers, but that doesn't make this instance a case of societal hypnosis any more than the way the other side is acting with their own fear mongering is. But man are some people are quick to start the Nazi comparison.
Have you ever read about the Hitler Youth and how those kids were literally taught/brainwashed/hypnotized/whatever into what they believed? It doesn't matter if it's religion, nationalism, the Beatles craze, or what is happening now- it all comes from group think.
As soon as Trump was elected we had people on the right who practically worshiped the ground he walked on and that led to some causing the issues on 6 January. Then you had the left foaming at the mouth and basing their lives on how many times Trump would be impeached and had meltdowns every time he spoke, tweeted, farted or belched.
None of this even addresses the whole antifa and blm riots and protests that destroyed cities and lives and is still causing problems where cities defunded police and now Mayors are having to walk back everything they told their people was the right thing to do.
Good grief dude. I thought you were smarter than how you sound here. If it were on any other issue you would probably agree but because it's talking about the vaccine you're automatically rejecting it.
(01-03-2022, 01:16 AM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]Lisztomania, Mass hysteria, collective behavior, contagion theory. A rose by any other name is still a rose. There's well documented spontaneous and irrational behavior that passes through the masses found in both humans and other animals. I don't think we can say for certain what causes it, but it exists, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it. Why would a person want to pretend stuff like this doesn't occur? Cognitive dissonance, perhaps?
We could have taken any one of these subjects (including the one from the OP) and discussed it prior to the pandemic and you would not be nearly so quick to dismiss it. Can't say that with certainty, but I did it anyways.
I am reminded of the reaction the masses had after Jaws came out. People were actually afraid to swim in pools.
(01-03-2022, 10:56 AM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-03-2022, 07:41 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote: [ -> ]I"m not dismissing it, some people are always going to be easily led by fear mongers, but that doesn't make this instance a case of societal hypnosis any more than the way the other side is acting with their own fear mongering is. But man are some people are quick to start the Nazi comparison.
Have you ever read about the Hitler Youth and how those kids were literally taught/brainwashed/hypnotized/whatever into what they believed? It doesn't matter if it's religion, nationalism, the Beatles craze, or what is happening now- it all comes from group think.
As soon as Trump was elected we had people on the right who practically worshiped the ground he walked on and that led to some causing the issues on 6 January. Then you had the left foaming at the mouth and basing their lives on how many times Trump would be impeached and had meltdowns every time he spoke, tweeted, farted or belched.
None of this even addresses the whole antifa and blm riots and protests that destroyed cities and lives and is still causing problems where cities defunded police and now Mayors are having to walk back everything they told their people was the right thing to do.
Good grief dude. I thought you were smarter than how you sound here. If it were on any other issue you would probably agree but because it's talking about the vaccine you're automatically rejecting it.
So what you're saying is that you agree with me but I'm wrong.
(01-03-2022, 03:14 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]More like hypnotized...
Meh, I've been called worse.
Or have you? When I count backwards from 3 and snap my fingers, you'll have no memory of this conversation, and you'll consider being hypnotized the worst insult imaginable. 3...2...1...
(01-03-2022, 11:42 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote: [ -> ] (01-03-2022, 10:56 AM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]Have you ever read about the Hitler Youth and how those kids were literally taught/brainwashed/hypnotized/whatever into what they believed? It doesn't matter if it's religion, nationalism, the Beatles craze, or what is happening now- it all comes from group think.
As soon as Trump was elected we had people on the right who practically worshiped the ground he walked on and that led to some causing the issues on 6 January. Then you had the left foaming at the mouth and basing their lives on how many times Trump would be impeached and had meltdowns every time he spoke, tweeted, farted or belched.
None of this even addresses the whole antifa and blm riots and protests that destroyed cities and lives and is still causing problems where cities defunded police and now Mayors are having to walk back everything they told their people was the right thing to do.
Good grief dude. I thought you were smarter than how you sound here. If it were on any other issue you would probably agree but because it's talking about the vaccine you're automatically rejecting it.
So what you're saying is that you agree with me but I'm wrong.
I was not feeling well yesterday so who knows.
(01-04-2022, 10:33 AM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ] (01-03-2022, 11:42 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote: [ -> ]So what you're saying is that you agree with me but I'm wrong.
I was not feeling well yesterday so who knows.
I hope you feel better today!