Abridged from M. Desmet: “The Psychology of Totalitarianism”
Mass Formation – brief summary
• Totalitarianism requires the total obedience of the masses
• This obedience is been created via mass formation process inside the population
• Four conditions are needed:
- The masses must feel alone and isolated.
- Their lives must feel pointless and meaningless.
- The masses then must experience constant free floating anxiety, and
- They must experience free-floating frustration and aggression.
With these conditions met, people are now ripe for hypnosis.
•No matter how stupid, senseless or even harmful the “solution”, people are made to feel solidarity, which validates the whole thing for them
• They are now changed, no longer rational. This automatically excludes analyses based on mathematical approaches like Nash’s game theory, where all agents are assumed to act completely rationally.
• People who are consumed by the mass formation process become intolerant and cruel.