Why Do People Willingly Sacrifice Their Freedom?
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/11/27/mass-formation-totalitarianism.aspx?ui=351b973b51dd8d94b40d43b54c99780f794c82daa03fe9c71f963a4ce91bf507&sd=20101212&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20211127_HL2&mid=DM1042413&rid=1333795231
Extracts:
"STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- A psychological condition of society known as “mass formation” is a condition for totalitarianism. Under mass formation, a population willingly sacrifices their freedom
- The central condition for mass formation to occur is a lack of societal bonding. In other words, social isolation on a mass scale, which is precisely what the lockdowns were all about. But even before the pandemic, social isolation was at a historical high
- The second condition is that a majority of people must experience life as meaningless and purposeless. The third condition is widespread free-floating anxiety and free-floating discontent. This refers to discontent and anxiety that have no apparent or distinct causes
- The fourth condition is free-floating frustration and aggression, which tends to naturally follow the previous three. Here, again, the frustration and aggression have no discernible cause
- Once these four conditions are widespread, mass formation can occur, which allows for totalitarianism to rise and thrive. A key strategy to break mass formation and prevent totalitarianism is for dissenters to join together as one large group, thereby giving fence-sitters who are not yet fully hypnotized an alternative to going along with the totalitarians. Another is to loudly speak out against the totalitarian regime, as this is how atrocities are limited."
"Key Difference Between Dictatorship and Totalitarianism
So, it’s important to realize that classical dictatorships and totalitarianism arise from different causes. As a general rule, in a classic dictatorship, the dictator becomes milder and less aggressive once dissident voices, his opposition, are silenced. Once he has seized complete power, he doesn’t need to be aggressive anymore and can resort to other means to maintain control.
In a totalitarian state, the exact opposite occurs. This is crucial for us to understand, because in a totalitarian society, once the opposition is silenced, that’s when the state commits its greatest and cruelest atrocities.
19th Century Mass Formation
Gustave Le Bon, a French social psychologist renowned for his study of crowds once said:
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”
Le Bon’s book, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind,”1 takes a deep-dive into the characteristics of human crowds and how, when gathered in groups, people tend to relinquish conscious deliberation in favor of unconscious crowd action.
He warned that if society didn’t take heed and ward of social isolation and the anti-religious idea that life has no purpose, we would end up in a state where mass formation would become the norm. These psychologically damaged people would take over, which is precisely what happened.
The Tragic End That Awaits All Mass Formation Societies
The fate of those who succumb to mass formation and embrace totalitarianism is particularly tragic, in a sense, because of another curious thing that occurs. People under its spell often end up agreeing that they deserve to die and willingly go to their death. This, Desmet says, is what happened with many of Stalin’s party members who were given death sentences for no apparent reason.
As noted by Marcus, this is basically menticide, the killing of the mind. The psychological process of menticide so degrades the mental faculties that rational thinking is no longer possible, making you profoundly gullible. In this state, you’ll buy into any narrative without critical thinking.
Mass formation also always ends up creating more of the conditions that allowed it to emerge in the first place. So, in the end, people who are under mass formation hypnosis will feel greater social isolation than ever before, less meaning and purpose in life, and more free-floating anxiety and free-floating aggression than before.
Mass formation also erases individuality. The group becomes all-important and the individual inconsequential. Hence being told you, your parents or children deserve or need to die for the betterment of society is acceptable and agreeable.
“Everyone becomes equally stupid, essentially,” Desmet says. “It doesn’t matter how smart or intelligent they were before. They lose all capacity for critical thinking, they lose all individual characteristics.”
Applied to today, this is shockingly relevant. It helps explain how and why parents are willing to line up their children for an experimental injection that can disable or kill them. “Totalitarianism is a monster that ALWAYS devours its own children,” Desmet says.
Mass Formation in Action
Another important point is that, typically, only 30% of people in a totalitarian society are actually under the hypnotic spell of mass formation. It seems greater, but they’re actually in a minority.
However, there’s typically another 40% that simply go along with the program, even though they’re unconvinced. They don’t want to stick out by going against the prevailing current. The remaining 30% are not hypnotized and want to wake the others up.
A key strategy to break mass formation and prevent totalitarianism is for dissenters to join together as one large group, thereby giving fence-sitters who are not yet fully hypnotized an alternative to going along with the totalitarians.The so-called Ash experiments clearly demonstrated that very few people, only 25%, are willing to go against the crowd, no matter how absurd and obviously wrong the crowd’s opinion is. Two-thirds of people are willing to go along with “idiocracy.”
Time and again, mass formation events and experiments show us there are three groups of people: those who become spellbound and actually believe that the wrong answer is the right one; those who know the answer is wrong, but dare not tell the truth so they agree with what they know to be false; and those who know the answer is wrong and say so.
According to Desmet, what dissidents need to do is join together to form one large group. This gives the largest, 40% group — the fence-sitters who only go along with the program because they’re afraid of being ostracized — an alternative social bonding platform.
Most of them are likely to join the dissident anti-totalitarian group rather than follow the totalitarian mindset that they don’t fully agree with. At that point, the mass formation is done. The totalitarian state is finished because the neutral fence-sitters, which allowed for mass formation to take root and grow, are now no longer participating in that process. And without mass formation, a totalitarian takeover cannot succeed.
Secondly, we must continue to speak out — LOUDLY. Speaking out can help minimize the number of people who get hypnotized. It can also wake some up who already are under the mass formation spell. According to Desmet, speaking out has also been shown to limit the atrocities committed.
“In my opinion, it is not an option to stop speaking,” he says. “It’s the most important thing we can do.” "
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