Liberty Relearned

How does mass formation perpetuate totalitarian regimes?

“In substance, the totalitarian leader is nothing more nor less than the functionary of the masses he leads; he is not a power-hungry individual imposing a tyrannical and arbitrary will upon his subjects. Being a mere functionary, he can be replaced at any time, and he depends just as much on the masses he embodies as the masses depend upon him.” -Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Given this background, one could infer, if one did not know it already, the general structure of Oceanic society. At the apex of the pyramid comes Big Brother. Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is to act as a focusing point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which are more easily felt toward and individual than toward an organization.” -George Orwell, 1984

Unlike a dictatorship, the head of a totalitarian regime is an ideology.  That makes it very hard to end the regime by simply toppling its titular leader. 

The UN has come up with a scheme by which wealthy countries pay less wealthy countries “reparations” for natural disasters attributed to climate change. This episode goes over an article in  FoxNews.com that describes the scheme and points out some of the less-fair parts of it.  Is the UN scheme a fund for natural disasters, or simply a means to redistribute wealth on a global scale?

So, what happened with the election?

The Democrats will retain control of the Senate, Republicans will probably control the House.

According to an NBC News exit poll, most of the people who voted weren't fans of President Biden, but the election seems to have been only indirectly a referendum on his performance.  Most of the people polled were voting primarily on Inflation (31%) or Abortion (27%).  Crime, the next most important issue for Republicans seems not to have been important enough in blue districts to make a difference.

The US Senate race between Fetterman and Dr Oz is a good example of why the Democrats have been fighting for extended early voting.  They wanted as many people voting before the debate between Oz and Fetterman.  Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier in the year was in no shape for a debate.  Would the people who voted for Fetterman before the debate have voted for him after?  We'll never know, but it's likely that at least some who did wouldn't have.  

As far as elections go, Arizona has become the new Florida. Florida had become the laughingstock when it came to running elections during the Bush v Gore fiasco in 2000/2001.  Now Florida has cleaned up its act and is now a model of how elections should be run in the US. For the second major election in a row, Arizona has failed to finish counting ballots and declaring winners, long after almost every other state has finished counting theirs sufficiently to declare winners and losers. If a party were going to cheat, (not saying anybody did yet) they'd certainly have an easier time of it in Arizona.  If a party or candidate were going to pull any shenanigans, legal or illegal, they'd have ample time and opportunity to do it in Arizona. --We'll just leave it that! 

EP 14: Radical Intolerance

We continue covering the phenomenon of mass formation described by Mattias Desmet, and how the mass formation creates radical intolerance against anybody not caught up in the mass formation. Why did we have to deal with “mask Karens” telling us to wear a mask during COVID, and why were people skeptical about the COVID vaccine dubbed “anti-vaxxers”? Why are people skeptical of the climate-change alarmism called “climate-deniers”. How did this phenomenon play out in the past century with the fascists and communists?

From The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Mattias Desmet:

“We have to add one more important characteristic to the problematic psychological properties of mass formation: radical intolerance of other opinions and strong tendency toward authoritarianism. To the masses, dissident voices appear 1) antisocial and devoid of solidarity, because they refuse to participate in the solidarity that the mass formation creates; 2) completely unfounded as critical arguments are no assigned any cognitive or emotional weight within the narrow circle of attention of the masses; 3) extremely aversive because they threaten to break the intoxication and in this way confront the masses again with the negative situation that preceded the mass formation (lack of social bond and meaning, indefinable fear and unease); 4) extremely frustrating because they threaten to remove the venting of latent aggression.”

This goes a long way towards explaining the kind of vitriol and condescension so prevalent on the left nowadays towards anybody who refuses to go along with them. This explains the steep rise of authoritarianism, especially in the West around COVID and climate-change.

So, what happened with the election?

The Democrats will retain control of the Senate, Republicans will probably control the House.

According to an NBC News exit poll, most of the people who voted weren't fans of President Biden, but the election seems to have been only indirectly a referendum on his performance.  Most of the people polled were voting primarily on Inflation (31%) or Abortion (27%).  Crime, the next most important issue for Republicans seems not to have been important enough in blue districts to make a difference.

The US Senate race between Fetterman and Dr Oz is a good example of why the Democrats have been fighting for extended early voting.  They wanted as many people voting before the debate between Oz and Fetterman.  Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier in the year was in no shape for a debate.  Would the people who voted for Fetterman before the debate have voted for him after?  We'll never know, but it's likely that at least some who did wouldn't have.  

As far as elections go, Arizona has become the new Florida. Florida had become the laughingstock when it came to running elections during the Bush v Gore fiasco in 2000/2001.  Now Florida has cleaned up its act and is now a model of how elections should be run in the US. For the second major election in a row, Arizona has failed to finish counting ballots and declaring winners, long after almost every other state has finished counting theirs sufficiently to declare winners and losers. If a party were going to cheat, (not saying anybody did yet) they'd certainly have an easier time of it in Arizona.  If a party or candidate were going to pull any shenanigans, legal or illegal, they'd have ample time and opportunity to do it in Arizona. --We'll just leave it that! 

What is the end goal of the leftist Democrats? What would they do with the power they seek?

Utopianism The left believes that men should be ruled by experts. All matters of health and welfare should be determined by unelected officials. This was most clearly seen during the recent COVID pandemic. Elected officials yielded power to unelected officials to determine how we should live. Utopianism, carried to its logical extreme is totalitarian in nature. The only choices in life would be those per-approved by the state. Someone, a member of an elite class, will determine what is good for society, the state, and you. Democracy won’t mean the people will get to determine how they will be ruled, only which of a few pre-selected candidates will be serve in various capacities. There are no natural “rights” in a utopian society. The totalitarian society will run on a series of privileges doled out for correct behavior, and punishments for bad behavior.

Things like ESG already control the behavior of individuals indirectly. The aim of the Utopian Left is to extend this sort of control to the individual level. Examples of this can already be seen in such things like vaccine passports and mask mandates. The reliance on technology will be used as a point of control. Access to things like education, online commerce, and entertainment will be subject to an ever-increasing array of rules and regulations. In order to partake in the modern lifestyle, people will be made to trade their freedom and privacy for goods and services. Heath, spending, energy consumption and location will all be monitored through technology sold as convenience. Direct control over individual commerce though digital currency is part of the Left’s ultimate control plan. Anyone living in today’s world scarcely need and example, as the means to exercise such control already exists, only the organized implantation, directed and executed by the ruling elite remains.

What about the Right?

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Rule of Law. The Republicans want smaller government.  They want a government to do a few essential things well.    The first mission of a Republican Congress will be to stop the unchecked growth of government, and to get federal spending under control. Reducing government spending is the key to reducing inflation. Where Democrats wish to treat the symptoms of inflation by handing out more money, the Republicans want to attack inflation at its source, by reducing deficit spending. No, America will not become fascist under their control.  Yes, we'll still be having elections two years from now when we select a new president. A Republican Congress alone won't be enough to reverse the damage of the last two years, but they can stop it from getting worse.  

What is the end goal of the leftist Democrats?  What would they do with the power they seek?

Utopianism   The left believes that men should be ruled by experts.  All matters of health and welfare should be determined by unelected officials.   This was most clearly seen during the recent COVID pandemic. Elected officials yielded power to unelected officials to determine how we should live.  Utopianism, carried to its logical extreme is totalitarian in nature. The only choices in life would be those per-approved by the state.  Someone, a member of an elite class, will determine what is good for society, the state, and you.  Democracy won't mean the people will get to determine how they will be ruled, only which of a few pre-selected candidates will be serve in various capacities.  There are no natural “rights” in a utopian society.  The totalitarian society will run on a series of privileges doled out for correct behavior, and punishments for bad behavior.

Control  A totalitarian system must have mechanisms to control the people living within them.  Many of these controls already exist in crude, but constantly refined and augmented forms.  The CCP in China has a social credit score system.  Privileges, such as where you can live, work, and go to school are given according to behavior favored by the Party. Undesirable privileges can be revokes as well for behavior deemed non-beneficial to the Party. In the West, the system of Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) has been developed to control the actions of corporations and governments. A corporation's ability to access critical services like banking and access to capital under ESG is determined by their ESG score.

Things like ESG already control individual the behavior of individuals indirectly. The aim of the Utopian Left is to extend this sort of control to the individual level. Examples of this can already be seen in such things like vaccine passports and mask mandates.  The reliance on technology will be used as a point of control.  Access to things like education, online commerce, and entertainment will be subject to an ever-increasing array of rules and regulations.  In order to partake in the modern lifestyle, people will be made to trade their freedom and privacy for goods and services.  Heath, spending, energy consumption and location will all be monitored through technology sold as convenience.   Direct control over individual commerce though digital currency is part of the Left's ultimate control plan.  Anyone living in today's world scarcely need and example, as the means to exercise such control already exists, only the organized implantation, directed and executed by the ruling elite remains.

What scares the Left?  Commentary on the top five things that the Left fears: 

Power is the ultimate pursuit of the left.  Follow the Left's ideology to its logical conclusion and you have a totalitarian state not unlike the one imagined by Orwell in his novel, 1984. It stands to reason then, that their greatest fear is not being in control-- of everyone and everything.  The Left is highly motivated by fear, and they fear a world in which they are not in control they will be victimized by those who are.  This is driven by the Marxist belief that all power imbalances between people result in an oppressor/oppressed relationship.

For the Left to realize their totalitarian dreams, they know they cannot have any competing ideologies.  Objective morality, like objective reality acts as a sociological insulation against the kinds of amoral and even immoral behaviors that are necessary for totalitarianism to gain and maintain control of the populace. Just like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm needed to change the laws of the farm to suit their needs and to give the appearance that they were not above the law, so too does the Left need an ever-changing sense of morality that suits the needs of the elite among them.

Independent thinkers question the intentions of others, and have a stubborn reliance on facts when it comes to making important decisions for themselves and their loved ones.  The leftist elite cannot have anyone questioning their decisions, much less refusing to go along with them.  To paraphrase the fascists-- Nothing outside the collective, everything inside the collective, and nothing against the collective. All wants and needs must align with those of the collective. We see this taken to its logical extreme in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, when society completely collapses without the services of those who refuse to sacrifice their own self-interest to an ungrateful society that takes them for granted.

Five Things the Left Fears Most:

For Halloween:  What does the Left fear the most?  Here are the top five things...