Social Distancing – Why They want You Isolated and Alone

“The structure of political power which came into being three centuries ago on the basis of its eradication of medieval forms of community has remained—has indeed become ever more—destructive of the contents of new forms of community….Knowing the basic psychological truth that life apart from some sense of membership in a larger order is intolerable for most people, the leaders of the total State thus direct their energies not just to the destruction of the old order but to the manufacture of the new.” 

Robert Nisbet, Community and Power

In the 19th and 20th centuries many intellectuals assisted the State’s efforts to dismantle traditional community associations by arguing that institutions such as the church and the family were outdated, obsolete, and oppressive. Friedrich Nietzsche attacked the community of Christian Church, calling it “the greatest of all imaginable corruptions”. Herbert Marcuse, a member of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, joined the growing voices of 20th century radical feminism by arguing that the community of the family was a patriarchal system of oppression. What motivated these modern iconoclasts was the idea that traditional communities and institutions limited man’s freedom to develop in an autonomous manner, or as Ross Douthat explains: 

“As social institutions, these [community] associations would be attacked as inhumane, irrational, patriarchal, and tyrannical; as sources of clinical and economic power, they would be dismissed as outdated, fissiparous, and inefficient. In place of a web of overlapping communities and competing authorities, the liberal West set out to build a society of self-sufficient, liberated individuals…” 

Ross Douthat, Introduction to Community and Power

What these intellectual iconoclasts did not foresee is that most people are not self-sufficient or mentally strong enough to embrace freedom when they lack community involvement and a sense of social belonging. The dismantling of traditional community associations has left many people lacking the social ties that give their life meaning and joy. Furthermore, this so called “liberation” from the communal bonds of the past left many individuals socially isolated, anxious, alienated and lacking in purpose. This social atomization was taken to an extreme in the first few years of the 2020s, when individuals, most of whom already lacked a strong sense of community, were forced to isolate to a degree never before experienced society-wide. History shows, that when social atomization and isolation reach unnatural levels, it tends to trigger the phenomenon of enantiodromia. The law of enantiodromia, formulated by the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus, states that when an individual or society is too one-sided or excessive in some important manner, a counterreaction to the opposite extreme will sooner or later occur. In accordance with this law, extreme social atomization triggers a swing to its opposite, extreme collectivism. And as most traditional forms of community have been destroyed, in the modern day this extreme collectivism plays out in the political realm, as individuals try to fulfill their needs by becoming fervent supporters and participants of the political community of the State. Or as Ross Douthat writes: 

“Man is a social being, and his desire for community will not be denied…And if he can’t find that community on a human scale, then he’ll look for it on an inhuman scale—in the total community of the totalizing state.” 

Ross Douthat, Introduction to Community and Power

That modern man, in his social isolation, is seeking to satiate his yearning for community by forming a deep emotional and psychological bond with the political community of the State, is apparent when we look at the case histories of 20th century totalitarianism. 

In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt notes the intimate connection between social isolation, and the rise of 20th century totalitarianism. As she wrote:  

“What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century.” 

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Hitler recognized that a lack of community creates a void of social isolation which can be filled by a strong leader and a strong state. Hence why, when in power, he suppressed and co-opted independent associations including trade unions, youth groups, and other cultural organizations, and replaced local town hall meetings with mass political meetings.  In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote that:

“The mass meeting is necessary if only for the reason that in it the individual who in becoming an adherent of a new movement feels lonely and is easily seized with the fear of being alone, receives for the first time the picture of a great community, something that has a strengthening effect upon most people.” 

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

In a similar manner, the attraction which communism held to millions of people in the 20th century, and continues to hold for many today, has less to do with its ideology than with the sense of community it offers its adherents. Or as Nisbet explains: 

“To a large number of human beings Marxism offers status, belonging, membership, and a coherent moral perspective. Of what matter and relevance are the empirical and logical refutations made by a host of critics as against the spiritual properties that Marx offers to millions.” 

Robert Nisbet, Community and Power

How COVID Turned People Into Fascists – Explained By Psychologists! So why alternative sources of news like The Duran, Jimmy Dore and GrayZone are so important.

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Mass formation typically emerges in a society when very specific conditions are met. One of the most important conditions is that many people feel lonely and isolated, disconnected from their fellow human beings and the natural world around them. This state of isolation, often referred to as the atomization of the human being, is the root cause of the phenomenon of mass formation.

Once people feel socially isolated and lonely, mass formation can begin. This was especially the case just before the COVID-19 crisis. Globally, about 40% of people reported feeling lonely, with many saying they had no meaningful relationships and only connected with others through the internet. In the United States, the U.S. Surgeon General spoke of a "loneliness epidemic," and in the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a minister of loneliness to address the issue.

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In the beginning of the 20th century, for the first time, mass formations could seize control of the state apparatus, leading to the emergence of the first totalitarian states in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. A totalitarian state is based on mass formation, which occurs when 20 to 30 percent of the population becomes fanatically gripped by a particular narrative or ideology. Led by certain leaders, they can take control of the state apparatus, resulting in a system that not only controls public and political spaces like a classical dictatorship but also invades private life. This is due to the presence of a large secret police force composed of the population in the grip of mass formation, fanatically loyal to the state narrative and willing to report anyone who doesn’t conform to it.

The root cause of mass formation is loneliness, which correlates with the increasing mechanization of the world and the rise of technology. This trend has led more people to feel isolated, and as a result, they struggle with finding meaning in their lives. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, over 40 percent of people worldwide reported that they considered their jobs to be “bullshit jobs”—jobs with no meaning. This sense of disconnection and lack of meaning causes people to experience free-floating anxiety, frustration, and aggression. These emotions aren’t tied to any specific cause, so people feel anxious, frustrated, and aggressive without knowing why.

In such a state, if a narrative emerges that identifies an object of anxiety (e.g., a virus or witches) and proposes a strategy to deal with it (e.g., lockdowns or witch hunts), this free-floating anxiety suddenly attaches to the object. The population then shows a strong willingness to follow the proposed strategy, even if it is absurd, because it offers them a sense of control over their anxiety. They can now direct their frustration and aggression toward the identified object.

Furthermore, as more people participate in this strategy, they feel they are fighting a collective, heroic battle against the object of anxiety. This gives them a sense of connection and solidarity, though it is a false sense of unity. The mass isn’t formed because individuals connect with each other, but because they connect with a collective ideal. Over time, this leads to less solidarity between individuals and more loyalty to the collective. Eventually, people start reporting anyone, even their own children or parents, who they believe isn’t following the narrative closely enough.

“It is crowds rather than isolated individuals that may be induced to run the risk of death to secure the triumph of a creed or an idea, that may be fired with enthusiasm for glory and honour… Such heroism is without doubt somewhat unconscious, but it is of such heroism that history is made.”(The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon)

Since those who compose a crowd are by their very nature mediocre, they are incapable of understanding these ideas in their  original form. Therefore, in order for an idea to unite and influence a crowd,  it must first be thoroughly simplified:

“Ideas being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very simple shape must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat lofty philosophical or scientific ideas that we see how far-reaching are the modifications they require in order to lower them to the level of the intelligence of crowds…. However great or true an idea may have been to begin with, it is deprived of almost all that which constituted its elevation and its greatness by the mere fact that it has come within the intellectual range of crowds and exerts an influence upon them.” (The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon)

For example, a great philosopher could extol  the nature of liberty in an 800 page masterpiece. However, the crowd, incapable of comprehending such thoughts, would require the  concept of liberty to be thoroughly simplified in order for it to stimulate revolutionary action. Le Bon proposed that  this is where leaders come in. For it is the leader of a crowd who communicates simplified ideas to the crowd and in doing so unites it together and stimulates it to act. 

“The majority of men, especially among the masses, do not possess clear and reasoned ideas on any subject whatever outside their own specialty. The leader serves them as guide.” (The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon)

In the modern day one can see how invigorated and rejuvenated crowds become when they hear a leader pronounce that a cause is being  fought in the name of freedom, peace, or prosperity. Once these words are proclaimed the members of the crowd nod their heads in blind obedience to whatever else follows from the leader’s mouth – completely ignorant as to the corrupt purposes that may be the true guide for the leader’s  actions.

“How numerous are the crowds that have heroically faced death for beliefs, ideas, and phrases that they scarcely understood!”(The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon)

Referring to the ideas which leaders manipulate in order to govern and control crowds, Le Bon wrote:

“By many they are considered as natural forces, as supernatural powers. They evoke grandiose and vague images in men’s minds, but this very vagueness that wraps them in obscurity augments their mysterious power. They are the mysterious divinities hidden behind the tabernacle, which the devout only approach in fear and trembling.”(The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon)

Approaching these simplified, and therefore gravely misunderstood, ideas as mysterious divinities, a crowd always forms a  religious relationship to the ideas which motivate them to action. This being the case even when the ideas have no explicitly religious component:  “A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind, the complete submission of his will, and the whole-souled ardour of fanaticism at the service of a cause or an individual who becomes the goal and guide of his thoughts and actions.”

Along this line of reasoning Le Bon continued:

“Were it possible to induce the masses to adopt atheism, disbelief would exhibit all the intolerant ardour of a religious sentiment, and in its exterior forms would soon become a cult.”(The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind – Gustave Le Bon)

Ask yourself: what’s more terrifying? Fear, or the frightened.