The Psychology Of Totalitarianism ( 2022) Mattias Desmet

2022·2.8 MB·English

by  Mattias Desmet

PRAISE FOR THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF
TOTALITARIANISM
“As I walk through the halls of a major US medical center, I see eyes that
divert themselves away from me as I pass. When we engage in our usual
discussions on patients, the topic of COVID-19 vaccination brings a halting
response: ‘We don’t want to talk about it.’ I see fear, shame, and a never-
ending cycle of groupthink that has been more contagious among
physicians than aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 in a crowded elevator. Mattias
Desmet, like a guided missile, has hit the target. The medical community is
in mass formation and this led to a much larger penumbra that has
enveloped the general population. In this book, Desmet has constructed an
explanatory framework from which the cohesive fabric is suspended that
clearly and concisely explains what is happening and what the next steps
are that each and every one of us need to take to break the ‘spell’ and
restore normalcy. A must read for our time.”
—PETER A. MCCULLOUGH, MD, MPH; chief medical advisor, Truth for
Health Foundation
“Transcending medical controversies, this book offers an indispensable
window into the social phenomenon we call COVID.”
—CHARLES EISENSTEIN, author of Sacred Economics and The
Coronation
“Mattias Desmet is the world’s expert on the phenomenon of mass
formation—and one of the most sincere, thoughtful, and important
intellectuals of the twenty-first century. If you want to understand why and
how the coronavirus pandemic response unfolded the way it did at a
societal level and—even more importantly—how to prevent such a travesty
from happening again, The Psychology of Totalitarianism is essential
reading. Desmet shows us how to reclaim our humanity in an increasingly
dehumanized and mechanized world.”
—DR. REINER FUELLMICH, trial attorney; cofounder, Berlin’s Corona
Investigative Committee
“In this masterful book, Desmet asks how we have arrived at the doorstep of
totalitarianism. Taking the reader on a wild, scholarly ride through history,
science, and psychology, he delivers answers both necessary and
unexpected.”
—HEATHER HEYING, PhD, evolutionary biologist; coauthor of A Hunter-
Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century
“Desmet is waking a lot of people up to the dangerous place we are now
with a brilliant distillation of how we ended up here.”
—ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.
“Mattias Desmet’s theory of mass formation is the most important lens
through which we can understand the COVID-19 pandemic and the social
aberrations that accompanied it. In The Psychology of Totalitarianism,
Desmet explains how and why people will willingly give up their freedom,
how the masses can give rise to a totalitarian leader, and—most importantly
—how we can resist these phenomena and maintain our common humanity.
This is the most important book of 2022.”
—DR. ROBERT MALONE, author of Lies My Gov’t Told Me
“Mattias Desmet’s [theory of mass formation hypnosis] is great.… Once I
kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere.”
—ERIC CLAPTON
THE
PSYCHOLOGY
OF
TOTALITARIANISM
MATTIAS DESMET
TRANSLATED BY ELS VANBRABANT
Chelsea Green Publishing
White River Junction, Vermont
London, UK
Copyright © 2022 by Mattias Desmet and Pelckmans Uitgevers nv.
Originally published in Belgium by Pelckmans Publishers in 2022 as De Psychologie van
Totalitarisme.
English translation copyright © 2022 by Chelsea Green Publishing.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission
in writing from the publisher.
This edition published by Chelsea Green Publishing, 2022.
Translator: Els Vanbrabant
Project Manager: Patricia Stone
Developmental Editor: Brianne Goodspeed
Copy Editor: Angela Boyle
Proofreader: Nancy A. Crompton
Indexer: Shana Milkie
Designer: Melissa Jacobson
Printed in Canada.
First printing May 2022.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1  22 23 24 25 26
Our Commitment to Green Publishing
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ISBN 978-1-64502-172-8 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-64502-173-5 (ebook)
| ISBN 978-1-64502-174-2 (audio book)
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CONTENTS
Introduction
PART I
Science and Its Psychological Effects
  1:  Science and Ideology
  2:  Science and Its Practical Applications
  3:  The Artificial Society
  4:  The (Im)measurable Universe
  5:  The Desire for a Master
PART II
Mass Formation and Totalitarianism
  6:  The Rise of the Masses
  7:  The Leaders of the Masses
  8:  Conspiracy and Ideology
PART III
Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview
  9:  The Dead versus the Living Universe
10:  Matter and Spirit
11:  Science and Truth
Acknowledgments
Notes
Introduction
To write a book about totalitarianism—the idea first occurred to me on
November 4, 2017. Or rather, it first appeared then in my scientific diary, a
notebook I use to scribble down anything that might be useful for a later
article or book.
At the time, I was staying at a chalet in the Ardennes, owned by a couple
of friends. In the early morning hours, as the rising sun illuminated the
surrounding woods, I opened my diary to write down thoughts that had spun
during the night. Perhaps it was the peace and quiet of the natural
environment that made me more sensitive than usual, but on that November
morning, I was gripped by the palpable and acute awareness of a new
totalitarianism that had left its seed and made the fabric of society stiffen.
Even by 2017, it could no longer be denied: The grip of governments on
private life was growing tremendously fast. We were experiencing an
erosion of the right to privacy (especially since 9/11), alternative voices
were increasingly censored and suppressed (particularly in the context of the
climate debate), the number of intrusive actions by security forces was rising
dramatically, and more.
It was not only governments behind these developments, however. The
rapid emergence of “woke” culture and the growing climate movement was
giving rise to the call for a new, hyper-strict government that emerged from
within the population itself. Terrorists, climate changes, heterosexual men,
and, later, viruses were considered too dangerous to be tackled with old-
fashioned means. The technological “tracking and tracing” of populations
became increasingly acceptable and was even deemed necessary.
The dystopian vision of the German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt
loomed at society’s horizon: the emergence of a new totalitarianism, no
longer led by flamboyant “mob leaders” such as Joseph Stalin or Adolf
Hitler but by dull bureaucrats and technocrats.
That November morning, I drafted the blueprint for a book in which I
would explore the psychological roots of totalitarianism. At the time, I
wondered: Why did totalitarianism as a form of statehood emerge for the
first time in the first half of the twentieth century? And moreover: What is
the difference between it and the classical dictatorships of the past? The
essence of this difference, I realized, lies within the field of psychology.
Dictatorships are based on a primitive psychological mechanism, namely
on the creation of a climate of fear amongst the population, based on the
brutal potential of the dictatorial regime. Totalitarianism, on the other hand,
has its roots in the insidious psychological process of mass formation. Only
a thorough analysis of this process enables us to understand the shocking
behaviors of a “totalitarized” population, including an exaggerated
willingness of individuals to sacrifice their own personal interests out of
solidarity with the collective (i.e., the masses), a profound intolerance of
dissident voices, and pronounced susceptibility to pseudo-scientific
indoctrination and propaganda.
Mass formation is, in essence, a kind of group hypnosis that destroys
individuals’ ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think
critically. This process is insidious in nature; populations fall prey to it
unsuspectingly. To put it in the words of Yuval Noah Harari: Most people
wouldn’t even notice the shift toward a totalitarian regime. We associate
totalitarianism mainly with labor, concentration, and extermination camps,
but those are merely the final, bewildering stage of a long process.
*   *   *
In the months and years after I made these initial notes, more and more
references to totalitarianism appeared in my diary. They spun into longer
and longer threads that organically connected with other areas of my
academic interests. For example, the psychological problem of
totalitarianism touched upon a crisis that had erupted in the scientific world
in 2005, a theme that I explored extensively in my doctoral dissertation.
Sloppiness, errors, biased conclusions, and even outright fraud had become
so prevalent in scientific research that a staggeringly high percentage of
research papers—up to 85 percent in some fields—reached radically wrong
conclusions. And the most fascinating thing of all, from a psychological
point of view: Most researchers were utterly convinced they were
conducting their research more or less correctly. Somehow, they failed to
realize that their research was not bringing them closer to the facts but
instead was creating a fictitious new reality.
This, of course, is a serious problem, especially for contemporary
societies that place their faith in science as the most reliable way of
understanding the world. Furthermore, the foregoing problem is directly
related to the phenomenon of totalitarianism. In fact, this is precisely what
Arendt exposes: The undercurrent of totalitarianism consists of blind belief
in a kind of statistical-numerical “scientific fiction” that shows “radical
contempt for facts”: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the
convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the
distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and
false no longer exist.”1
The poor quality of scientific research reveals a more fundamental
problem: Our scientific worldview has substantial shortcomings, the
consequences of which extend far beyond the field of academic research.
These shortcomings are also the origin of a profound collective unease,
which, in recent decades, has become increasingly palpable in our society.
People’s view of the future is now tainted with pessimism and lack of
perspective, more so everyday. Should civilization not be washed away by
rising sea levels, then it certainly will be swept away by refugees. The
Grand Narrative of society—the story of the Enlightenment—no longer
leads to the optimism and positivism of yesteryear, to put it mildly. Much of
the population is trapped in almost complete social isolation; we see a
remarkable increase in absenteeism due to mental suffering; an
unprecedented proliferation in the use of psychotropic drugs; a burnout
epidemic that paralyzes entire companies and government institutions.
In 2019, this predicament was clearly perceptible in my own
professional environment. I saw so many colleagues around me drop out
from work due to psychological problems, hindering the capacity to perform
even basic day-to-day work. For example, that year, it took me nearly nine
months to obtain a signature on a contract that was required for me to get
started on a research project. The university departments that had to review
the contract and grant their approval were dealing with so much absenteeism
that there was always someone on sick leave due to mental suffering, so that
the contract simply didn’t get finalized. During that period, all social stress
indicators rose exponentially. Anyone familiar with systems theory knows
what this means: The system is heading for a tipping point. It is on the verge
of reorganizing itself and seeking a new equilibrium.
At the end of December 2019—in the same Ardennes chalet I mentioned
earlier—I ventured to make a small prediction in the company of friends:
One of these days, we will wake up in a different society. This intuitive
premonition even enticed me to take action. A few days later, I went to the
bank to pay off the mortgage on my house. Whether or not that was a wise
thing to do depends entirely on your perspective. Maybe it wasn’t wise from
a purely economic or tax point of view, but that was of no concern to me.
First and foremost, I wanted my sovereignty back; I did not want to feel
indebted to and complicit in a financial system that, in my view, played a
part in the social impasse that was about to occur. The bank manager
listened to my story; he even agreed with me. But he insisted on knowing
why I felt so determined about it. Even after we spoke for an hour and a
half, it wasn’t enough to fill the emptiness of his question. I ended up
leaving him wondering, well past the closing time of his branch office,
which was to be shut down forever shortly thereafter.
*   *   *
A few months later—in February 2020—the global village began to shake
on its foundations. The world was presented with a foreboding crisis, the
consequences of which were incalculable. In a matter of weeks, everyone
was gripped by the story of a virus—a story that was undoubtedly based on
facts. But on which ones? We caught a first glimpse of “the facts” via
footage from China. A virus forced the Chinese government to take the most
draconian measures. Entire cities were quarantined, new hospitals were built
hastily, and individuals in white suits disinfected public spaces. Here and
there, rumors emerged that the totalitarian Chinese government was
overreacting and that the new virus was no worse than the flu. Opposite
opinions were also floating around: that it must be much worse than it
looked, because otherwise no government would take such radical measures.
At that point, everything still felt far removed from our shores and we
assumed that the story did not allow us to gauge the full extent of the facts.
Until the moment that the virus arrived in Europe. We now began
recording infections and deaths for ourselves. We saw images of
overcrowded emergency rooms in Italy, convoys of army vehicles
transporting corpses, morgues full of coffins. The renowned scientists at
Imperial College confidently predicted that without the most drastic
measures, the virus would claim tens of millions of lives. In Bergamo, sirens
blared day and night, silencing any voice in public space that dared to doubt
the facts. From then on, story and facts seemed to merge and uncertainty
gave way to certainty.
The unimaginable became reality: We witnessed the abrupt pivot of