Top-Expert REVEALS: EU in Grip of Deadly Mass-Formation | Prof. Mattias Desmet

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Welcome back everybody to Neutrality Studies. I am Pascal Lotar and I'm joined today by Dr. Matias Desmet, a professor of clinical psychology at Kent University in Belgium, a practicing psychotherapist and one of the world's leading scholars on the theory of mass formation um as well as the author of the wonderful book the psychology of totalitarianism.

[00:00:23]Matias, welcome.

[00:00:25]>> Uh thank you for having me, Bas.

[00:00:27]>> It's great having you. you are one of the voices that was very very important during the covid-19 mass formation. Uh you were the person who championed that uh kind of interpretation and you wrote this very important book of try trying to make sense psychologically of some of the tendencies that we've been seeing going on in uh in society. Can we maybe talk a little bit about this? Can you can we start with the the concept of mass formation and um how it links up with totalitarianism?

[00:00:59]>> Yes.

[00:01:00]>> Yeah, that's a good point to start. Um well, you know, uh I started doing a PhD in at Gent University in Belgium back in 2003. And uh uh I I was supposed to to to do a classical research in psychology.

[00:01:23]Uh I I where I would investigate um the associations between certain personality traits and depressive symptoms. You know, it's might seem like a strange point to start uh going into the topic of totalitarianism, but you will see it is related. It's it's like it's it's um so I I I I started to do a classical research in psychology and like after a few months I had a feeling that like these research methods that I was supposed to use like where I would measure uh the psychological characteristics and then compute statistical correlations between them that these research methods methods actually uh uh impossibly could lead to valid results. And and uh because I when when I measured the same psychological characteristic, for instance, a personality trait in three different ways, the results were often completely different. and and I I uh I I asked my promoter of my PhD uh whether rather than doing this classical research research in psychology whether um I could just uh investigate the validity of research methods in psychology and uh I was granted permission to do so and and then like when I when I was uh investigating these research methods in psychology.

[00:02:59]Like after two years the the the replication crisis started uh in in the sciences which which actually showed that uh like the vast majority of uh published research papers uh are false and there was this famous paper of course by John Ionidis which was titled uh why most published research findings are false. So this this problem I stumbled upon in psychology turned out to be quite widespread in the sciences like more than 85% of the papers uh uh cannot be cannot be reproduced which is like which means that uh they actually have no scientific valid validity at all and the strange thing was like um on the basis of the of the of the results of my PhD I published my first book a very small book I don't have a copy you with me here now but but uh it's a very small book um uh which was titled um the pursuit of objectivity and psychology and and I I made it clear I think in a very clear way in such a way that well like even a child maybe could understand when it sees certain examples that the research method in psychology cannot possibly lead to valid conclusions And and the strange thing was at that moment that every time when I gave a presentation or a lecture about this phenomenon where I really presented the audience with these very simple uh examples showing that uh for instance the measurement methods in psychology uh are not reliable and are not valid and that they are they contain too much measurement error to to do meaningful statistical inference. And like every time I I presented this I I could see the same thing like a few people in the audience like maybe a few percent like two 3% of the people um were very enthusiastic and they wanted to know more but like more than 90% or at least many of them got angry with me and when I asked them when I asked them like okay but but tell me what what what would Can I be wrong? Can you show you know I I I have a I have a master I have a PhD in psychology but also a master degree in in statistics.

[00:05:30]So I'm a statistician as well. And and every time I asked them like show me where is my statistical mistake? Where is the mathematical mistake in my line of reasoning? like nobody ever nobody ever gave me an answer because because it I think it was clear that my that that uh that that uh from a mathematical point of view I was right and and um at that at that moment I just started to to be to become fascinated fascinated by something very strange like that under certain conditions very intelligent people because like my colleagues at university are very intelligent people. They are highly intelligent people. But under under some under certain conditions, highly intelligent people can buy into a narrative that is actually absurd and no matter what you do, they will refuse to drop the narrative. They will continue to buy into it. So, and and like somewhere I think it was around 2013 or something, um I I started to to to to go into mass psychology because I started to become aware of the fact that this strange expert blindness as I sometimes call it, this strange expert blindness, this strange blindness of people under certain conditions like cannot be explained on the basis of individ individual psychology. ology alone. You you you you need to to to understand how people uh and people's identity, people's cognitive functioning um uh is in the grip of of of uh psychological processes at the level of the group to which they belong.

[00:07:19]That's so that's where I got interested and after a few few years maybe I started to become aware that uh so I I I started to to to to read about uh uh mass psychology um and after a while after a few years I started to become aware of the fact that actually um this phenomenon for which I coined the term massformation the term was used by Gustav Labon as well sometimes a few times and sigman for it as well. I think use it a a few times but then I I I use it as the the the major term to indicate the strange phenomenon of group formation which has this very strange effects at the level of individual psychological functioning. So like like mass formation when people are in the grip of a mass formation they will typically um uh be incapable of taking a critical distance of everything the group believes in. When the group believes in the most absurd things, the people will buy into it no matter how intelligent they are. Uh they will become willing to radically self-sacrifice. That is that's another very strange characteristic of mass. People in the grip of a mass or or willing to radically self-sacrifice. And then the most dangerous thing of course is that they will typically become radically intolerant for uh dissonant voices for everyone who thinks differently. And like this strange phenomenon I started to become aware of the fact that actually uh this phenomenon of mass is the basis uh of of of of uh totalitarianism like it's that's the phenomenon of mass is what makes uh totalitarian states such as uh Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union which are of course the most uh famous examples. So the sermon of emanation is what makes totalitarian states completely different from classical dictatorships. And most people mix up the two. Most people think like that Nazi Germany was a a dictatorship. Not at all. And and or that the Soviet Union was a classical dictatorship. That's not true at all.

[00:09:31]It's completely different. And and the difference is that in a totalitarian state uh a totalitarian state at the psychological level is based on um on a massformation and and a classical dictatorship isn't.

[00:09:45]>> Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube and although I'm back this can happen anytime again. So please consider subscribing not only here but to my mailing list on Substack. That's pascalota.substack.com.

[00:09:58]The link's going to be in the description below. And now back to the video.

[00:10:02]So you're viewing then the totalitarian state as something that goes psychologically much much deeper than just the power structures right of the that the political power structures that are built. They they essentially include this fan fanatic belief by by a large number of the group into the core tenets of the group. That that's about it, right? And it's not just that that the the guy on the top has all the weapons and then is able to coers everybody into into submission.

[00:10:34]>> No, exactly. That that would be a classical dictatorship.

[00:10:38]Like in a classical dictatorship there is this dictatorial regime.

[00:10:43]>> Mhm. which indeed as you said like uh has all the weapons and and people people are are scared of the the aggressive potential of the of the regime and so they they just accept that that uh the dictatorial regime unilaterally imposes its social contract to them.

[00:11:03]That's a classical dictatorship. But a totalitarian state is is something um uh much much much more uh powerful at a psychological level in a in a totalitarian state. Uh a totalitarian state starts usually in the population. That means that a part of the population starts to believe fanatically in a in a certain ideology. For instance, the race theories uh which were popular before the the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany or um historical materialism, Marxism which which became very popular um in um in the in the Soviet in in in in Russia by the end of the 19th century. So first in a in a the beginning of a totalitarian state is um a process psychological process where a certain part of the population usually not much more than 20 to 30%. So it's not not everyone definitely not. So like 20 to 30% of the population starts to believe fanatically in a certain ideology and um and uh because of the emotional function this ideology has in this part of the population uh it'll uh uh uh a massformation will emerge where people so fanatically believe in the ideology that uh they are incapable of seeing uh everything in reality which is in contrast or in conflict with that ideology and where where where they start to believe so fanatically in it that they are willing to self-sacrifice to sacrifice their lives for it and where they start to feel very aggressive against everyone who doesn't buy into the ideology. So that's what's happening in in a total state and and once this person of massimation uh emerges in society uh uh there is a chance that there are certain rhetorically gifted people who use it uh to seize control of the state apparatus.

[00:13:13]So they they present themselves as Hitler did, as uh uh Lenon did. They present themselves as those who who uh um uh incarnate like all the the virtues of this ideology and they they they use the masses to to seize control and that then that then then like a a then a state system emerges. Um which as Hana Arand uh very eloquently said in in her origins of totalitarianism. She said like uh a state system emerges in that case. Um which which has a huge secret police namely namely this part of the population which blindly fanatically buys into the state ideology and which and who are willing who are willing to to uh to report everyone to the state who who doesn't buy fanatically in the into this ideology. So that's that's what happens like 20 to 30% of the people by fanatically believes in the ideology and they are willing to report their fathers their mothers their children everyone to the state who doesn't follow the narrative. So that means that almost in every sleeping room every kitchen every house there is someone who actually will report everyone of their family members to the state if they are not uh not uh not loyal enough to the state narrative.

[00:14:43]That's what happened in Iran for instance and uh 1978 revolution for instance. Uh I know a woman who lived there and uh she uh witnessed she she was the daughter of a mayor of one of the major cities of Iran and she w she she she witnessed how a mother who reported her son to the state put the news around his neck when he was on the scaffold and when he was dead. She was very proud to accept a medal for hermanship. So that was back in 1978.

[00:15:12]But there's so many examples like of in every process of mass formation people after a while very strange like in Eastern Europe uh after the second world war 20 to 30% of the people belong to the secret police literally literally they joined the secret police and when when after the collapse of um of Eastern Germany uh when when people went to the archives and tried to find about who reported them to the state. Almost everyone was reported by a family member.

[00:15:48]Right. Oh, so that's what happens and and and that that's that's what what makes a totalitarian state so extremely suffocating and powerful at a psychological level and that that that's that's why it is so extremely important to understand what happens at the psychological level in a mass formation and kind of I'll add one more thing to it if if I may you know from the moment I started to to be inter to investigate the phenomenon totalitarianism. I had two questions like what makes it different from a classical dictatorship and the second question was like why did totalitarianism emerge for the first time in the 20th century? Because before the 20th century there were no totalitarian states. And the answer to both questions after a while I found out was just that um the phenomenon of massation like it's massation which makes totalitarianism different from classical dictatorships and the reason why totalitarian states emerge for the first time in the 20th century is that the phenomenon of mass formation for certain reasons which I go into in my book for certain reasons the phenomenon of massformation has always existed has always existed but uh it became stronger throughout the last centuries. It became stronger and stronger and stronger just as a consequence of a of another process namely the fact that society is atomizing. It's falling apart. More and more people feel lonely, isolated. And that's why masformationations become strong as men. We see it now. Like for instance, the way in which what happens at the geopolitical level now like so many people just buy into all these narratives uh uh which are used now to to to to go to war. while um everyone who who who who would like think for one moment seriously could see that most of these narratives well I I won't say that they are complete lies but uh a lot of it is inaccurate and and and uh and more propaganda than uh than uh than truth >> this is my main concern you know this is why I think your theory is so absolutely important in order to understand what's happening ing to Europe at the moment because the question we we need to answer is how is it that so many very intelligent people, extremely intelligent people and people who are in the same circles as we are buy into the war narratives. Why is Europe marching toward a war with Russia and it is utterly clear especially if you're looking what what's happening in Germany how the Europeans are gearing up.

[00:18:48]They're saying so they're not even hiding it for a war with Russia which is very is a suicidal endeavor. Um, and we've seen before, I mean, you were one of the main uh critics of course of the way that the uh that that COVID was approached with with with measures that were were really like extremely harmful and so on. And I mean the the mass formation issue then tries if I understand it correctly you're trying to understand how the how how on the um on the level of the of the group how the level of the group interacts with the with the individual psychology of of the of the of each person right and how certain things then start overriding even rational thinking. Um so one more question here like is it is it also the the availability of the medium you know the fact that for the first time in the 20th century we have mass media right we have TV and radio and this ability of large groups to be uh to be to hear the same narratives at the same time and that apart from the atomization of the of society that that you have s the um possibilities of talking to millions or tens of millions of people um is that does that flow into it as well? And where do you think that the current state then is with the ability of on social media of a whole new level of of of mass communication?

[00:20:12]>> Yes. Let me let me first go into for one minute into something you said in the beginning. Um namely that you could see how highly intelligent people just buy into the war narratives in Europe.

[00:20:26]Exactly. Exactly. And and and the str the strangest thing is that or one of the the very remarkable things in a phenomenon of mass is that the higher the level of education, the more vulnerable people become for mass. So this is a very strange thing.

[00:20:44]You would you would usually would you would think that highly educated people would uh be resilient that they they they they are they they have this skilled critical thinking ability which is not true. like Gustav Labour in the 19th century century already wrote in his book the psychology of the masses of the crowd the psychology of the crowd he said like uh the higher the level of education the more people will fall prey to mass something that was echoed by um Jagal in his book propaganda the best book about propaganda that has ever been written I think he said exactly the same he said uh uh the longer people go to school the more easily they will fall prey for propaganda. So just be he said like Gustav Jacal said that this had to do with the fact that education and our school system actually is a kind of indoctrination >> unconsciously. That's not that teachers know consciously that they are indoctrinating children. No, it's just their the the the educational system learns people not to think for themselves. It learns them to think all in the same way. Which means it learns them to think according to the mainstream view on men and the world.

[00:22:11]And in this way uh education becomes a psychological preparation um um which makes people vulnerable for for the propaganda that will be used later on in their lives. So that's one thing. So the higher the level of education more easily they fall prey to it. And you can see it indeed in the example of the the war in Ukraine.

[00:22:36]Uh the war with Russia is an excellent example. I wrote two articles about it.

[00:22:40]I publish them on my on my Substack page. One article where I where I uh go into uh uh the structure of Putin's Russia which exactly put Putin is not a saint. We know that we know we know he's not a saint. I mean I mean uh and there are many problems in Russia also at the level of free speech. But if you look from the other perspective like what the what NATO did then one thing for sure NATO is also not a saint and and and they they have this expansionist politics in which which actually goes so far that I think in my humble opinion that there is no other choice for Putin and Russia uh than to go to war because if they don't um uh they will lose uh their their they will they won't be a a superpower anymore. So, and and and and I I I it's so strange like like that that an entire population really believes that Putin is this devil which has to be destroyed or which threatens to to destroy Europe uh without ever being able to take the other perspective uh and to see what happened in in Ukraine to see how American companies purchased like 30% of all the the the the the country and so on and so on. It was a so so um so that's that's what mass information does and no number of counterarguments will ever help. You know the first person I interviewed on my channel four years ago was Jack Matllock the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union and he kept saying like this is our mistake. We should never have done that and he's like just one in a long line of people who said like we must not push this war on the Russians.

[00:24:43]It was pushed and it became a war and it has been a war for four years. And even though all of these all of these revelations came out, including the way in which the CIA had been infiltrating, you know, according to this New York Times, not some conspiracy theorist uh uh uh magazine, the New York Times, how the CIA after 2014 had been infiltrating Ukraine and been starting to build up uh Ukraine as as as a bastion against against the Russians and forward capabilities. um how bor how the the the it was the the the UK and the United States that sabotaged the Eastern Bull agreement. All of this is out confirmed from several sides yet if you bring it up the people who are under the grip of mass they will get angry. Can you explain to me why it is that anger is the reaction that that that is then that that that the individual produces instead of a of a of a rational conversation.

[00:25:41]>> Yes. That that's that's that's I I exactly that's why it's so important I think to understand what happens in a massformation at the emotional level.

[00:25:49]You know there's something very interesting and I will just first take a helicopter view zoom out a little bit like like some somewhere in the let's say 17th century or something um we like uh there was a huge what I call metaphysical revolution. Um before the 17th century uh the dominant view on men and the world was the religious worldview and then like in the 17th century that changed I changed the religious worldview was replaced by slow slowly step by step by the by by a by a rationalist materialist worldview which which which started to believe that the real world is the world you could you can see with your eyes and understand with your brain and and And and from then on um uh well that I I think that's that's what you have to understand like from from from then on we started to believe that the human being in the first place um is a rational being that he that and also that we should be rational beings like that when you when you wake up in the morning the first thing you should wonder about is like how will I be as smart as possible?

[00:27:07]today. That's that's that's what the rationalist worldview believes. It's no longer Yeah. like when when people uh before the 17th century woke up, they used to think or at least that was they were what they were expected to do by the by the dominant worldview like how can I live a good life today? So good and bad were the most important things.

[00:27:30]Uh uh the first question you should should ask was a netical question, a netical question, not not a rational question. And so like from the 17th century onwards, we start to believe that human being should leave live its life uh uh uh starting from the question like how can how can we be as smart as possible? How can we live a life that is as rational and as possible? And um it it it like like um uh the major goal of life in this respect is um to be the smartest and the strongest in the struggle to survive something like that.

[00:28:15]Um, and the strange thing was like if you look at modern democracy, how it started somewhere back in uh in in in the in the 18th century when after the American Revolution, you could say that the founding fathers, for instance, of of the of a of a American democracy, they all really believed that the human being is a rational being, they believed that people when when they were free would think rationally and choose for politicians who were uh from a rational point of view the best leaders. That that was people like Thomas Jefferson and stuff if you read their works they all believe that they believe like and and even all the the the enlightenment thinkers really believe that the human being is a rational being. Now strange thing was like after after a few decades like I think I think by the by the beginning of the 19th century 1810 or something like 20 years later after the the uh American Revolution or 30 years after the the American Revolution all the founding fathers of uh of modern democracy they knew already that they made a fatal mistake that that they they knew already that the human being is not a rational being not at all. And that was the beginning like at almost at the same time the phenomenon of modern propaganda emerged. Modern propaganda >> which means a kind of practice like you know propaganda is the most important organizing principle of modern democracy. If you read the work of the beginning of of democracy, if you read all these all these people who who uh who witnessed uh the problems of of early democracy, they all said we have no other option than manipulating the population. If you read there is no other option with that manipulation it's impossible to organize society and because by that time after 20 or 30 years they knew already that citizens and the people that they absolutely wouldn't behave rationally.

[00:30:36]So modern propaganda is like the return of something that was repressed in the beginning of modern democracy. Modern democracy started from the belief that a human being is a rational being >> and propaganda starts from exactly the opposite. You can make people believe the most irrational things no matter what when you just confront them time and time again with irrational emotional messages. So that's the point you have these two things on the one hand the belief so so typical for enlightenment culture that human beings are rational beings and then on the other hand exactly the opposite like human beings are completely irrational and with propaganda which always goes to the emotions of people which manipulates the emotions with propaganda you can make them believe everything you want so that's the point. Modern democracy actually is essentially is exactly the opposite of what it pretends to be. It pretends to be a system where people are free and can choose rationally for what is good for them. But essentially, everyone who really studies modern democracy in an open-minded may conclude that it is a system where people are fooled every day by propaganda and where they where the population starts to believe the most absurd and irrational things because propaganda manipulates them.

[00:32:18]>> Or they can they can start believing the most absurd of things, right? It's not it's not necessary that they do, but it is it is possible. Which is why the question, oh, how do democracies produce totalitarian states is kind of the wrong question. It's it's more like how is it that some some democratic systems do not fall prey to totalitarianism and mass formation whereas others do. Um what what what is it that is so um what is it that then that then informs this mass formation phenomenon though?

[00:32:52]you know that that sometimes they you have this this movement and I I don't recall if it was a a metaphor that came to mind when I was listening to one of your podcasts or or or or or in somebody else when you know how do you have this um the physical phenomenon that if you're on a bridge that is wobbly and a lot of people walk over that thing then people naturally have to start walking in lock step because they try to counteract the uh the the swinging of the bridge and that itself then makes the swinging of the bridge worse to the point where a bridge can collapse that that starts wobbling, right? And is mass formation in in a sense that kind of phenomenon where each individual is kind of forced to react to the uh to the movements of the other one and that then causes lock step and in the end a totalitarian state.

[00:33:45]>> To a [snorts] certain extent it is you know maybe maybe it would be good to to go into the the the the the mechanism of mass formation like in a few minutes we can we can we can walk through it like I I think in my opinion like I I I uh I I think like like one of the major questions when you're studying uh the phenomenon of mass psychology or uh massation one of the major questions always is like why did it get stronger like okay there were always massformationations like there was the crusades there was the witch ones in the 17th century and so on and so on. There was always mass formations.

[00:34:24]But the the the strange thing is like that that this phenomenon became stronger and stronger and stronger through last throughout the last few centuries. And you know I believe that uh uh uh uh the reason why it became stronger in the first place was that the level of loneliness emerged. Like um I I I I studied phenomenon of massation for a few years and in my opinion the starting point is always loneliness. Like like it so many scores or or have have remarked that like something like propaganda cannot work uh in a in a in a in a in a population with good social bonds. like you need disconnected lonely people for propaganda to be very uh efficacious. So that what happened in the first place was this like our rationalist materialist fuel men in the world for many reasons. I described them in my book disconnected people. It made them feel lonely and it made more and more more and more people feel lonely and that's the first step as the first very important step at the psychological level. loneliness. Heaggel, Hegel, the German philosopher Hegel was the first who who uh uh used the term atomization to in the beginning of the 19th century already to refer to the fact that in modern societies people more and more people started to feel lonely and then like if you look like now in the 20th century 21st century like I think it's up to 40 to 60% of the people who report to feel lonely like uh Theresa May in Great Britain uh appointed the minister of loneliness just because she acknowledged how much lonely people there were and like in in the states uh the US surgeon general in 2017 I think said that there was a loneliness epidemic so so many people feel lonely disconnected as a first step and then once people feel lonely they will typically um start to struggle with lack of meaning making like like a dis an isolated human being uh to an isolated human being. It always seems that life is uh without purpose, without meaning just because because human beings have a spontaneous feeling of purpose and meaning in life when they feel that their existence has an effect on other human beings. So lonely people don't have that anymore and they will typically be confronted with lack of meaning making like it's unbelievable like uh almost 50% of the world population believes that his or her job is without purpose that it is a so-called job. So it's it's the percentages are staggering and like and then then something extremely important happens at the emotional level. Once people feel lonely, disconnected, isolated and struggle with lack of meaning making, something very typical will happen at the emotional at the effective level.

[00:37:28]And that's uh that's what in my theory is uh is uh is just quintessential to understand mass. Like once people feel isolated, struggle with lack of meaning making, they will be confronted at the emotional level with what I called free floating frustration, aggression and anxiety.

[00:37:51]That means a kind of frustration, aggression and anxiety which people cannot connect to an object to to so they meaning in plain words that uh they feel frustrated, aggressive and anxious without knowing what they feel frustr aggressive and anxious for. And that's an extremely painful >> state. is extremely like like when you feel anxious but you think that you know why you feel anxious you feel a little bit in control. If you feel anxious of a dog you know you can run from the dog but if you feel anxious without knowing what you feel anxious for. Um the at psychological level it's extremely painful uh mental state and when people when many people are in this state which was definitely the case for instance before the corona crisis when many people in a population or in this state when there are very high levels of free floating anxiety something very typical might happen. If under these conditions someone distributes a narrative through the mass through the mass media indicating an object of anxiety for instance a virus and at the same time providing a strategy to deal with that object of anxiety for instance the lockdowns.

[00:39:19]Yeah. Something very typical might happen. All that free floating anxiety might at once connect to the object of anxiety. And people might be willing to buy into the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, no matter how absurd it is. Because the reason why they buy into the narrative is not because they believe that it's a rational uh effective strategy to deal with the object of society. No, it's just psychologically. It's because the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety functions as a kind of a ritual that allows them to have control over their anxiety. That's a first step.

[00:40:04]That's a first step. It's like a collective symptom. Something like that happens all the time at the individual level. Like when people have a phobia or one or another compulsive symptom, exactly the same process happens. But in a massation it happens at the collective level. So all these people buy into the narrative because it makes them feel in control again. And then at second in a second step something even much more important happens because so many people at the same time participate in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety.

[00:40:45]It makes them feel connected again. They have the feeling that they fight a collective battle with the object of anxiety makes them feel connected again.

[00:40:55]It makes them the the strategy, the object of anxiety, the maskearing, the lockdowns functions as a collective ritual which makes them feel united again which which makes them feel as if they can escape the most painful condition a human being can be in complete isolation. that feels that they can escape their isolation and their loneliness and that they can form a community again. I see it feels as if or it seems because they are not really connected again. That's what makes mass formation so dramatic and so destructive because when people form a mass with a mass formation a mass formation is a kind of group formation which has a very specific characteristic like in a healthy group formation individuals connect to each other and the group is based on connections between individuals but in a mass something completely different happens like in a mass transformation. A mass is a group that emerges not because individuals connect with each other but because they all connect to the same collective ideal.

[00:42:12]>> Meaning after a while like uh all the energy all the love between people is sucked away and it's all injected in the bond between the individual and the collective. Meaning that after a while people love the collective ideal as it is usually incarnated in one or another leader like Stalin or Hitler for instance, people love the collective ideal much more than other individuals.

[00:42:42]And that explains of course why after a while in a mass mothers start to report their children to the state when they are not loyal enough to the state. So that's what happens in a mass. It's an extremely destructive powerful mechanism where people seem to escape uh loneliness where they seem to find a way to take out their frustration, aggression uh on a scapegoat where they seem to be in control of their anxiety but where in reality they feel more and more anxious, frustrated and aggressive and feel more and more lonely and be in this way become even more vulnerable. vulnerable to a new massformation. So that was what happened in uh when the corona narrative ended immediately almost day by day after the corona narrative lost its grip on society Ukraine narrative emerged.

[00:43:39]>> Yeah.

[00:43:40]>> Corona Corona was not ended by any kind of lockdown mechanism. Corona was ended by Ukraine because you could you could needlessly shift into the next one and you could even you could even reuse the same kind of jargon.

[00:43:54]um the what how how do we break through that if and I buy into what you're saying and I I do think you you you you got the the analysis of how this works right what do we do against it how do we break the grip of mass formation and like uh on the realistic level and the unrealistic level I mean like unrealistically just like ideologic ideally I've had a talk with uh Dr. Neil McLaren who wrote about uh you know narcissism and the connection to fascism and he pitched the idea just on on passing you know because the system is such that then these narcissists necessarily end up on the top what we would need is a mechanism to prevent that. So let's say 50% of parliament should be erected elected not not elected by people but purely randomly decided pure randomness 50% go to parliament and then that would that would be a counter mechanism you know that's of course unrealistic but in in the level of such things and in the in the in the realm of the of of realistic things that can be done what are things that would that work against this mass formation in which we actually are and in Europe we are walking toward a war with Russia if we do not break Yes. Uh yes that's the most important question of course and and uh and uh like from my analysis uh you can very easily say uh what the solution might be and what uh the solution won't be uh because and that to understand that I think we need to go one level deeper like like um um and and and wonder like what what the psychological reasons are for this loneliness iness that got stronger and stronger. You know there are 100 reasons why people in modernity during the enlightenment culture got more and more lonely. There are 100 reasons but there is one more very fundamental reason which is the most important one and which is always forgotten. I know nobody I I who who really uh focused on the on on on on on what I believe to be the most important the most fundamental the root cause of loneliness. The root cause of loneliness I think is the fact that in modernity and during the enlightenment culture people lost touch with truth. Very strange. Very strange.

[00:46:20]Like when when uh the enlightenment started, when the rationalist and materialist fuel man in the world started um people started to believe that like uh the entire universe is a kind of a machine uh and that the human being is a small machine, a cog in the in the in in the big machine of the universe and that the human being is a purely biological being. uh and that the ultimate goal of life is biological survival or enjoying as much as possible or avoiding pain doesn't matter but the ultim ultimate goal of life has to be understood in materialist terms according to this new materialist worldview and and from there on something very strange happened. Uh during the enlightenment culture, humanity believed to have found the royal road, the highway to truth. Like people started to believe that we can find truth.

[00:47:21]>> Mhm.

[00:47:22]>> Uh just by observing the world with our eyes and then uh determining determining the exact ratio between all the facts that are observed with our eyes. So that was how we believed to find the truth in enlightenment culture. And strangely enough um uh while we believe to be on the highway to truth in a strange way we completely lost touch with it. And I believe just because of the following reason. Even antique Greek culture knew already. Every all the old traditions knew it that speaking the truth is always dangerous because speaking the truth by definition means articulating words that destroy illusions. And everyone who tries to find its stability in all kinds of common sense socially shared uh uh uh illusions and in the world of appearances will get angry when someone speaks the truth. So you know everyone could feel that speaking the truth is always risky. And when you really look at life uh as a game in which the ultimate goal is to be the strongest, to survive, speaking the truth is extremely stupid just because it puts you at risk.

[00:48:51]>> When you really look at the world from a materialist point of view, you have to manipulate other people. And definitely don't try to speak the truth because truth speech is always dangerous. It's always risky. It makes you weaker in the world of appearances.

[00:49:09]You know, I can recommend everyone who's watching this podcast to uh watch the 1978 speech of Alexander Solunichin at Harvard because that's exactly what he's saying there. I w I I watched it for the first time like one week ago. That's exactly what he is saying there. He said like uh you know everyone expected salt senichin to to be very critical of communism uh at Harvard and of course he was very critical of communism but uh at that speech he he he he was in the first place very critical of western society.

[00:49:45]He said western society lost touch with truth because he said they start from a materialist worldview. He he he almost said literally what I what I mentioned in my book and then I never heard a speech before so I definitely didn't hear it when I wrote my book but he he's along the same lines he says like uh western culture is lost just because in in western philosophy and in western materialism there is no reason whatsoever to be fine to be found to speak the truth because speaking the truth always makes you lose something.

[00:50:20]So anyway, speaking the truth, when when in a society, a material society, people lose touch with truth and people find no reason anymore to speak sincerely, something very strange happens.

[00:50:36]Connection gets lost because because speaking the truth is what makes people feel connected.

[00:50:46]speaking the truth. You speak the truth when you articulate something that you usually hide behind our narcissistic ideal image. People constantly keep up an ideal image, a narcissistic image and that's what isolates them from other people. And the act of sincere speech of truth speech is what destroys these narcissistic ideal images and connects people again with each other. So a society in which there is less and less free speech is doomed to end in isolation and disconnectedness.

[00:51:29]Yeah.

[00:51:31]>> One question here because like the the other very um typical rationalist thing to assume is of course an uh truth and reality that um met like actually metaphysically exist and that they are part of an observer independent reality. And this idea of an observer independent reality to me is probably one of the most damaging ones. I I I don't think it is the even within physics we've learned that the observer actually is crucial in order to determine the reality of the quantum world. Um and I view that as well like as in also within the psychological frameworks of people right truth is observer dependent. uh that's why you know the evilness of Vladimir Putin is an absolute truth within the uh the framework of of of that this group of people and the uh no the the the you know the relational uh um the relational reality of the Russian political system where things move each other and then react to to things that were were imposed externally. That is part of the truth of of of of people maybe like you and I. But it is it is observer dependent. How do you and your framework account for that or or can it be discounted? The the the observer question.

[00:52:50]>> Yes. Well, the example of uh of quantum mechanics is of course a very good example and um uh I'm writing three books at the moment um and uh one of them uh goes into the history of science of the last five centuries uh and uh of the way in which science actually constantly stumbled upon uh this strange phenomenon of consciousness even the strange phenomenon of the soul and but constantly also uh walked away from it man like the >> that's religious. We're going to go away.

[00:53:26]>> Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yes. the se the seinal scientists, the founding fathers of science, none of them was a materialist. And uh and I even like last year I I uh visited CERN for one week uh because one of the physicists there had read my book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, and he was very fond of it. And he said like look maybe uh you would be happy to be here for a week and to see all these experiments uh to observe them and to and so I went there.

[00:53:57]I I I wrote I even once wrote like a an article which is also on my substack about the on the mathematical basis of um of uh uh Bell's theorem. So I I I really I'm I'm into it and I and I and I always I was always fascinated by what you what you mentioned of course that uh that um uh like even in at the level of our material reality there is an observer effect like there is no there is no such thing as an observation which is not influenced uh or even constructed by the observing entity by the human being that that observes it. So that's true, but but I'm not sure I'm not quite sure that I that I agree with you when when when when you say that like there is no truth independent of the observer. At least I think you said that. But >> you know, yes.

[00:54:54]>> Yes. You know, I believe that I I would rather say like reality is always uh constructed by the observer and you can see that very easily at the level of elementary particles like uh when when before a particle an elementary particle is observed uh it's a sea of potentialities. It's a it's it's it's it's it's a it's a wave uh probability wave they say in um in physics. Uh of course they don't know what they say there. Nobody knows what really what a particle is before it is observed like from a physical perspective. Okay. It's probably something like a a probability wave which is situated in a hillberg space in mathematical terms. So uh uh and and at the moment of the observation suddenly uh this this probability wave collapses and and a particle appears that is located somewhere in space and time and that has certain physical characteristics which uh or like a very small part of all these potentialities all these characteristics it possessed before the observation. So, so like the moment we observe we create reality. A reality which is like one minor aspect of a material reality which is like one very small part of what uh everything that constitutes this reality was before the observation. So but I I think like I think that we create reality there is no reality independent of us as an observer.

[00:56:37]>> Yeah.

[00:56:38]>> But in my opinion that doesn't mean that there is no truth independent of the observer. Like >> in that case truth must be shared reality. The realities the realities of different individuals that accept the same reality and that is then truth. Sorry we're going into a very abstract.

[00:56:56]>> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. Yes.

[00:56:58]Exactly. No. For me, when we are talking about quantum mechanics, truth would be the probability wave which we don't really know which is so much more which is so much more than we can observe. But but it is out there to a certain extent.

[00:57:14]It is out there and and and at the moment of observation we reduce truth to this small thing we see with our eyes and understand with our brain.

[00:57:26]So that's more or less how I think at this moment about it. Uh there is truth but we can never fully articulate it know it. Um >> yeah it lands us in the problem that truth is actually the the camp being dead and alive at the same time and that's a problem which Verig hated that.

[00:57:44]why you need the experiment but but in that case truth will be reduced to this kind of dissatisfactory state >> it's got them both um which took us very far away from the original question is can you think of an um things to do against mass formation because we really need to get out of it in Europe although otherwise it's going to be millions of people who will die >> yeah exactly uh yes uh and and of course like like um like the problem started when modernity um uh uh got alienated from the act of sincere speech. Meaning that uh as a human being we constantly are confronted with a choice like will we take the easy way and buy into all these narratives that everyone shares?

[00:58:37]Will we go will we take the easy way and buy into all these social illusions and shared narratives? Will we just uh or will we take a difficult road and say like look okay this doesn't feel good to me and I will try to articulate why I feel uh uh uh this isn't right. So the act of sincere speech at all levels from the lowest to the highest level always boil boils down to this. It means that you decide to articulate words that go against certain ideal images that are projected onto us. Like most people even never realize that they buy into all these social norms and ideal images.

[00:59:23]They just constantly do. They never think for themselves. They always thinks think as others um uh uh want uh them to think. They speak the words that other people want them to speak and they never speak their own words. That's what happens in a mass formation. Suddenly the mass emerges.

[00:59:46]there is this huge pressure to conform to go into it and then there is like a few percentage of the people who decide to say that they do not agree and Gustaf labon in the 19th century already mentioned he said like every time a massformation emerge emerges you have three groups first 20 to 30% of the people who buy into the massformation they just are completely hypnotized literally hypnotized it's hypn it's it's hypnosis mass transformation is mass hypnosis. And then you have a large group 60% maybe 65% who uh knows that there is something wrong but who who who who chooses to remain silent because they feel the tremendous pressure of the massation. And then there is a few percent of the people sometimes up to 10% sometimes even 20% who doesn't go along with it and who who decides to speak out to try to to say like look there is something wrong with this narrative here uh of the Ukraine war of the corona uh crisis and so on and Gustaf Leon in the 19th century already observed like he said like this small group of dissident people when they speak out, they will almost always be very disappointed because they will feel that the people in the masses refuse to wake up because like one once someone is in a mass formation is hypnotized and no matter what you say uh no matter how clear your arguments are against the narrative, they will have no psychological impact because because they refer to that they refer to a part of a reality to which no emotions are attached anymore. Meaning that at a psychological level all these arguments have not the least no impact at all. So and Gustaf Lemon said already like okay so when these dissident people speak out they were very disappointed because they see that the masses refuse to wake up but he so and that's crucial he said like but that doesn't mean that their words have no impact when there are people who continue to speak out in a quiet and sincere way not claiming that they know everything but just saying like look I do not agree there is something wrong according to me when these people continue to speak out they will not be able to wake up the masses but usually they will prevent the masses from going to the last stage of the massformation where they typically will try to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with the masses. So, and that's what we need.

[01:02:37]>> When the masses do not go to the last stage, they will destroy themselves before they destroy everyone who doesn't go along with them.

[01:02:47]And to the contrary, when the people who do not fall prey to the massformation choose to be to remain silent, the masses will first destroy the people who do not go along with the masses and then they will destroy themselves as happened in the Soviet Union for instance. Doesn't doesn't matter. We could go give a lot of historical examples.

[01:03:12]>> Yeah, >> it's a very good point. So the act of resistance is actually also the the act of of uh of helping the mass is actually of of preventing at work just just through resistance and and through uh through saying like no no um there's something wrong here even if you don't go along with it I want it to be registered.

[01:03:33]>> Okay. Um, exactly. You know, the the only cure I I could I could analyze this from 20 perspectives and you would see it's always the same conclusion. The only cure, the only remedy for a society sick of lies and manipulation, sick of propaganda is sincerity. That's the only cure. It's it's it's it's uh we have to rediscover the psychological value of truth for a human being. Truth is fundamental for a human being. It's fundamental.

[01:04:09]It's fundamental for every human being, every individual and it's fundamental for human living together. There can be no society truly humane which is alienated from the act of sincere speech.

[01:04:23]>> I I I like that one. Sincerity. the the idea of sincerity and that it that it registers um because it's very I mean yeah once you once you then get the emotional reaction of the other one that's when you know that you've that you've touched something right that they would prefer not to be touched and that's probably where to go um Matias people who want to read more about your analysis and um and and your insights um of there's of course your books but is there you've said there's also a substack where else should people find you.

[01:04:56]>> Um, [clears throat] oh yes, there is my book which is translated now I think in 25 languages. So it's uh also in Japanese. It's uh in Chinese and in most major languages it's a um and there's my Substack my Substack page uh where I publish short essays uh from time to time. Uh sometimes I don't publish anything for two or three months. I because I just I only write when I feel that uh there are certain things that uh wants to be articulated otherwise I don't write. Um yeah, so my Substack page and my book uh is is the most two the two most important things. I think I also publish from time to time something on the social media but not too much because um uh I I think uh like like on Substack you can publish like these longer essays uh which I prefer. So that's probably the most two important ways to to to learn about mother.

[01:05:58]>> Okay. I will link to both to your book as well as to your substack in the description box below and then I hope to talk to you soon again in order to continue this conversation and also the idea the the the ways of getting out of the mess we've maneuvered ourselves into. Matias Desmet, thank you so much for your time today.

[01:06:16]>> Thank you very much.