

Does History Repeat Itself? Bret Speaks with Mattias Desmet
Mass Formation's Paradoxical Effects
- Mass formation blinds individuals to contradictions and makes them intolerant to dissent.
- It drives people to self-sacrifice and cruelty toward those who oppose the collective narrative.
Isolation Enables Mass Formation
- Mass formation emerges when many feel socially disconnected and lonely.
- This creates vulnerability to propaganda, especially in isolated modern populations.
Role of Free-Floating Negative Feelings
- Free-floating anxiety and frustration without clear cause create a mental state primed for mass formation.
- Narratives that identify an object of anxiety and provide a strategy bind people and give illusion of control.
Bret Speaks with Mattias Desmet on the subject of mass formation, a topic Mattias has spent a great deal of time exploring and has written a recent book on (The Psychology of Totalitarianism), linked below. They tackle this process from their differing backgrounds of expertise and discuss what it suggests about our path into the future.
Find Mattias’ book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Totalitarianism-Mattias-Desmet/dp/1645021726/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1657654629&refinements=p_27%3AMattias+Desmet&s=books&sr=1-1
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Theme Music: Thank you to Martin Molin of Wintergatan for providing us the rights to use their excellent music.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(02:10) Sponsors
(05:32) What is mass formation?
(09:55) Modern masses Vs ancient masses
(15:10) Conditions for mass formation
(31:00) Desirable evolutionary reason for mass formation
(39:20) Evergreen mass formation
(43:00) Mass formation is a state of madness
(47:15) Bret and Mattias disagreement
(54:25) What if Hitler had won
(01:01:36) Mass formation is a symptom
(01:03:20) Love and rationality
(01:07:50) Is mass formation rational?
(01:12:32) Individuals who stood up during pandemic
(01:18:58) Woke mass formation
(01:29:40) Importance of words and language
(01:34:11) Isolation during the pandemic
(01:36:35) One mass formation after another
(01:42:40) Unease across the population
(01:45:22) Reductionist mechanist materialist ideology
(01:59:30) Wrap up