THE MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS IN AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES
Mattias Desmet and The Psychology of Totalitarianism
David Barnhizer
We are experiencing a mass psychosis in which many faculty and administrators in America’s universities have formed into a single-minded ultra-authoritarian mob whose members consider themselves an “enlightened elite.” This is the result of a largely successful fifty-year long effort by ideological activists to capture the university in America. As with the Communist Party and Maoism in China, the impassioned Marxists of the former Soviet Union, and the murderous fanatics of Nazi Germany, their intention has been to turn the university, and the equivalent of the system’s K-12 educational institutions as well, into instruments of propaganda and systemic transformation. The reason? To capture the hearts and minds of America’s youth when they are at their most curious and vulnerable.
We are undergoing a subtle but still devastating process in America than occurred in Russia, Nazi Germany, Cuba and China. It is a strategic transformation in which a one-sided political orthodoxy is seeking control and, in the process, create a “revolutionary” shift through linguistic control, coercion and intimidation, and the application of intense social pressure while silencing dissent. We find this shaping and silencing in universities and K-12 schools where activist faculty and administrators, along with an increasingly aggressive and intolerant number of students, approve only ideas and beliefs consistent with their political agenda and brook no dissent. They attack, silence, and “cancel” anyone with the audacity to question their narratives, opinions, theories, arguments, intolerance, and abuses.
The fact that the Radical Progressives have of late become so obvious in their language control, censorship, and “canceling” is a bad omen. It signals that the “Revolutionary Utopians” have shifted toward the degree of language control and suppression that is characteristic of totalitarian states.
We have reached the stage described by Walter Williams in which he warned:
“Once leftists have gained power, as they have in most of our colleges and universities, free speech becomes a liability. It challenges their ideas and agenda and must be suppressed.” The Independent Women’s Forum’s Heather Higgins discusses this in the context of authoritarian societies, warning that it cuts off the “oxygen of liberty” that is vital to healthy democratic societies.”
The Core Elements of Mass Formation
Belgium’s Ghent University professor Mattias Desmet presents a powerful interpretation of what he calls the Mass Formation phenomenon, describing how “mass” totalitarian systems of belief take over power in society. This includes an emphasis on how a relatively small but well-organized, highly strategic, and very aggressive portion of a population, as low as 20-30 percent, can impose a mass belief system on others. Desmet offers Nazi Germany and Iran as examples, although Russia, China, Venezuela, and others can be added to the list. He also describes the core elements of Mass Formation, which are behaviors congruent with fanaticism and fascism.
“What is mass formation actually? It’s a specific kind of group formation that makes people radically blind to everything that goes against what the group believes in. In this way, they take the most absurd beliefs for granted. … [I]individuals in mass formation become radically intolerant for dissonant voices. In the ultimate stage of the mass formation, they will typically commit atrocities toward those who do not go along with the masses.”
Desmet’s ideas of Mass Formation and Mechanist Ideology are also linked to situations where a nation’s media collaborate with the mass systems, public and private, and function as propagandists, censors, and monitors. Media outlets whose core responsibility in America has long been proclaimed to be “speaking truth to power” have become activist systems themselves rather than objective truth-seekers and purveyors of wisdom and insight.
People Who Lived Through Darkness See What Is Occurring More Clearly
I have great admiration for writers in the 1950s and 1960s. They saw the social transformation that was beginning to take place with depressing clarity. Swiss physician and theologian Paul Tournier captured the essence of the cultural forces they were describing when he observed that people have increasingly become “cogs” in our social and economic “machinery”.
“People have become merely cogs in the machine of production, tools, functions. All that matters is what they do, not what they think or feel. . . . [T]heir thoughts and feelings are ... moulded by propaganda, press, cinema and radio. They read the same newspaper each day, hear the same slogans, see the same advertisements.”
For me, an always startling fact is that the post-WWII period, one that lasted perhaps into the early 1970s as the intellectuals aged, is filled with philosophers and social critics, European and American, along with Canada’s Marshall McLuhan, who perceived the world far more deeply and accurately than most of our modern “thinkers.” This “Golden Age of the Public Intellectual” includes McLuhan, Jacques Ellul, Noam Chomsky, Eric Hoffer, Albert Camus, Buckminster Fuller, Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Hans Morgenthau, Max Weber, Alvin Toffler, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Hofstadter, Crane Brinton, Arnold Toynbee, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jurgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Ayn Rand (Alice O’Connor), Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others. They sought truths and possessed knowledge and wisdom.
Today, those who deserve to be called the independently-minded “Public Intellectuals” have disappeared, other than people such as Bari Weiss, Jeffrey Tucker, Mark Bauerlein, Russell Jacoby, and a handful of others. The courageous intellectuals have been replaced by sycophants to power and a mass of university academics and media hacks who “profess” a coordinated political agenda with a single corrupted and indignant voice.
“Adolph and the Aryans,” “Mao and the Long Marchers,” “Karl and the KGBs”
Most people want security. Others want power. Those who quest for power will do almost anything to obtain and retain it. Failure to understand that irreversible human reality is the ultimate and unbridgeable failure of Marxism. The only solution is the diffusion of power in the way designed in the American Constitution, and that is what the Woke/Crits are trying to reverse in their ongoing strategy to seize control and create a monolithic government in which all participants march to the beat of the same Woke drummer. This brings to mind the mythical musical combos of “Adolph and the Aryans,” “Mao and the Long Marchers,” and “Karl and the KGBs.”
Those in control of such authoritarian movements understand quite well the darkness many people carry within their souls but which decent people struggle against. They also understand the insatiable hunger for identity and power that drives a portion of the human race in quests to control and dominate others so as to feel significant and superior. Anyone forced to endure the impact of a Totalitarian mass is shaped by that experience, whether we are speaking of Maoism, Nazism’s National Socialism, or Marxism.
The intellectual and moral leaders who experienced the totalitarian strife of the 1930s and the horrors of the next several decades fully understood why monolithic power should not be given to any of us, yet how easy it is to look the other way as the “mass” is acquiring power. They also at least intuitively understood the dangers of the powers provided to governments and propagandists by the internet and social media. This particularly included the understanding that control over the “magical powers” of such communications systems must never be allowed to a few self-oriented “elites”. Being human, they knew with certainty those elites would inevitably seek to impose their visions on all members of society while reaping the benefits for themselves.
The Disappearance of the “Public Intellectual"
Most of the individuals listed above I described as Public Intellectuals experienced a world in which a Totalitarian mass dictated, controlled, imprisoned, and murdered after their movement seized power. There should also be no question that those monolithic “masses” imposed a stifling and often deadly “psychosis” on their populations. Hitler and the Nazis, Stalin and the USSR, and Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party destroyed the lives of millions upon millions of innocent people.
We are currently experiencing the rebirth of such systems with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Venezuela’s Chavez and now Maduro, the ongoing control’s of Fidel Castro’s cabal, and the Iranian Ayatollahs to name a few. The political “vampires” who feed on power and gain control of a nation’s governance are ruthless masters of manipulation and maneuvering. They always deliberately create an “enemy” class in what is an admittedly imperfect world in which there are wrongs, and use the stirring of rage and hate to convince those they need to recruit to gain control that they have been unjustly victimized by that enemy group.
Their strategies are aimed at gaining power pursuant to the claim they can “right the historical wrongs” done by the “enemy class” they denounce. As always occurs, if successful, the new masters become worse than what they replaced. The reality is that in a context where their power was gained by promising justice to the previously marginalized and “victimized”, the leaders of the revolutionary cabals consolidate power for themselves and the functionaries needed to keep them in power, and the abuses are worse than before.
It is vital for us to understand that the development of history’s most oppressive societies was not instantaneous. In each case, years—even decades—elapsed as the movements planned and implemented their strategies to seize power. Each involved the use of social criticisms about injustice, done by those Eric Hoffer described as the “fault-finding men of words.” It also involved the identification of victims and oppressors because “all revolutions require an enemy.” This helped to create and recruit a critical mass of revolutionary adherents as the movement gained power through dominance of key institutions.
The World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” Proclaiming:
“The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”
We need look no further than the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Great Reset” for proof of this reality of the “Alphas” of the human race. The WEF represents a global network of elites intent on remaking global society and nations into a worldwide political system of the network’s design. Although it purports to be focused on economics, the truth is that the organization seeks to create a consolidated, overarching political sphere of centralized power under which all nations are to operate.
The WEF’s June 2020 response to the COVID-19 breakout, “Now is the time for a 'great reset,’” helps to understand its true agenda. It is one the leaders of the WEF organization felt could be advanced more rapidly and deeply due to the widespread fear of the pandemic and the willingness of frightened populations to accept a series of Draconian orders issued by governments and faceless bureaucrats. It turned out that while the “WEF-type elites” were consistently wrong in their dictates, they achieved startling breakthroughs in the imposition of controls over their populations to previously unacceptable levels. This was achieved by using fear and the assertion of close to dictatorial emergency powers no one knew existed in a democracy. Here is an excerpt from the WEF’s Great Reset plan.
COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s. But, while this outcome is likely, it is not unavoidable. To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism. Clearly, the will to build a better society does exist. We must use it to secure the Great Reset that we so badly need. That will require stronger and more effective governments. … [Emphasis added]
Shutting Off the “Oxygen of Liberty”
All the fundamental institutions and systems by which we communicate, compete, grow, learn, and create are being undermined. The enormous scope of what is occurring on all levels of America’s fundamental institutions, including universities and K-12 schools, is what I sought to show in the publication of my book Un-Canceling” America (Amazon 2021). A more specific focus on education is found in No More Excuses!” Parents Defending K-12 Education published on Amazon in 2022. The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in contributing to the reshaping, benefitting, and plaguing of Western societies was analyzed in the 2019 publication of The Artificial Intelligence Contagion: Can Democracy Withstand the Imminent Transformation of Work, Wealth, and the Social Order? in 2019 by Clarity Press. The unfortunate answer to that book’s titular question is “probably not.”
The political censoring and use of the punishment tools of Cancel Culture are consuming our educational systems as well as media, politics, government, business and, strangely enough, America’s military. The monitoring, censoring, and shaming of the “heretics,” “blasphemers,” and “deviants” are being used as weapons to compel agreement and to silence. It is a powerful tactic for those who want to dismantle our nation and recreate it in a darker, bigoted, and repressive political image.
Universities and the Repressive Betrayal of Free Speech and Thought
My position is simple. I don’t care whether what we are dealing with is propaganda and intimidation arising from cultures of the Left or the Right. My point is that universities lose their central moral reason for being if they suppress the free and independent thought they are responsible for nurturing. Speaking not only as an academic but as an American, when we allow cultures of either hard or soft repression to emerge, in which independent thinking and honest critical discourse are undermined, we have sabotaged our very justification for existing. For many scholars and teachers, this includes the rather amazing privilege of lifetime tenure, although that entitlement is understandably under great duress.
I am not trying to be overly simplistic, but if we continue to “pack” universities with people with agendas and belief systems who reject those basic ideals and mission of progress, and who all think the same, have the same politics, write about the same issues in the same way, and share the same values, we have blinded ourselves to the intellectual richness and diversity of American society. We have tragically turned our educational and political systems into propaganda and indoctrination vectors, seeking to reach back centuries to “fix” every wrong that ever took place. The task of doing so is one that can never be achieved, and beyond a certain level of fairness and justice will only tear the nation apart. We cannot allow this to happen.
Consider what you would call the behavior of hundreds of Stanford University’s law students in relation to the Federalist Society’s speaking invitation to a US Court of Appeals judge whose presentation was to be on Constitutional law. A report of the debacle appears next.
A federal judge shouted down by protesters at Stanford Law School ripped the behavior of the student body and administrators, saying they were treating their peers like “dogs**t.” Judge Kyle Duncan, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, was invited to speak at Stanford University Thursday by the school’s Federalist Society chapter. However, he was heckled by hundreds of students, who made it impossible for him to deliver his speech. “If enough of these kids get into the legal profession, the rule of law will descend into barbarism,” Duncan told the Washington Free Beacon.
Video footage widely shared on social media shows that the school’s associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), Tirien Steinbach, did nothing to quell the disruption as protesters hurled verbal abuse at the judge, which appeared to violate Stanford’s free speech policies. Instead, Steinbach gave a minutes-long and emotional speech at the event, accusing Duncan of causing “harm” through his work on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The students were particularly angry at Duncan for a 2020 opinion in which he refused to use a transgender sex offender’s preferred pronouns. In comments to the Free Beacon, the judge described the incident as a “bizarre therapy session from hell.”
The students and DEI administrator’s behavior clearly violated the University’s rules on free speech. Tim Rosenberger, who is head of the student Federalist Society at Stanford, compared what occurred to a “train wreck.”
Stanford Law student Tim Rosenberger says the ugly protest against U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan earlier this month is indicative of a broader problem with speech and culture on campuses, and not just at his own. “There definitely is a problem with speech and with the culture, I don’t think it's unique to Stanford,” he [said]. … “They were just yelling at him,” he said. “People are yelling really horrible things about him, about his family members being raped, I assume an allusion to his support for [Dobbs v. Women’s Health].” Rosenberger said he didn’t think the kind of campus disruptions against conservative speakers that have been occurring around the country would happen at Stanford, one of the top law schools in the United States. “We’ve had hostility, but we haven’t had anything like this,” he said. “I mean, it was like a train crash, right? It just kept getting worse and continuing.”
Both Stanford’s president and law dean subsequently offered apologies to Judge Duncan and that produced more venom and hate. If we needed a more graphic example of an intolerant mass formation at Stanford, we need look no further than the follow-up by hundreds of masked, black-clad students as they dramatically followed and lined corridors in an effort to intimidate and shame Dean Martinez after she finished teaching her class on Constitutional Law. It brings back images of Nazi “Black” and “Brown Shirts” as brainwashed young fascists facilitated the rise of that murderous and evil political movement. One Stanford student who did not participate in the protest called the experience “eerie.”
Hundreds of student protesters wearing masks and all-black clothing lined the hallways outside Stanford Law School Dean Jenny Martinez’s classroom after she apologized to U.S. Circuit Court Judge Kyle Duncan for the disruption of his recent speech. Martinez, who teaches constitutional law, arrived to find her whiteboard covered in fliers ridiculing Duncan and defending those who disrupted his speech. The fliers echoed the opinion of student activists and some administrators who claimed hecklers derailing Duncan’s talk was a form of free speech.
After her class ended the protesters formed a “human corridor” that stretched from the classroom to the building’s exit that contained nearly a third of the school’s students and scowled at those who did not join. “They gave us weird looks if we didn’t wear black” and join the crowd, first-year law student Luke Schumacher said. “It didn’t feel like the inclusive, belonging atmosphere that the DEI office claims to be creating.” Another student, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the experience was “eerie.” “The protesters were silent, staring from behind their masks at everyone who chose not to protest, including the dean,” the individual said.
What happened at Stanford has occurred throughout America’s universities, where the freedom of speech and protest has been turned into a right to intimidate, engage in violence and to shut down the speech of anyone whose views you don’t like. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, UCLA, New Mexico and many other universities have been converted into one-sided systems of oppression that contradict their purposes for existing and sabotaged America’s Democratic Republic.