Why do people still trust the narrative?
This is a pretty important point in my opinion. Why, after nearly two years of failed policy, does around 70% of the population still listen to anything the government has to say about Covid?
While the majority of my personal relationships are with people who do not believe the government line when it comes to Covid, I still know a significant number of people who do.
People who believe it’s still essential that we wear masks, get jabbed as many times as the powers that be decide is good for us and that if we just follow the rules, someday we’ll be on the other side of this.
I listened to a podcast recently, which I’ll link at the end of this post, that offered a plausible explanation as to why so many people are willing to follow “rules” that
- Go against their best interest, in having a reasonably happy, healthy and satisfying life.
- Aren’t working.
Dr. Mattias Desmet is a professor of Psychology at Ghent University in Belgium. He was interviewed by Dan Astin-Gregory who has over 300 videos on his YouTube channel, Pandemic Podcast.
The interview is over 90 minutes long, and I realize not everyone will listen to something that long, so I’ll do a sort of thumbnail version today.
Dr Mattias’ theory is centered on something called “Mass Formation”. Mass Formation, as it relates to psychology is also called “Crowd” or “Mob” psychology and examines the mechanisms by which large groups of people are led to believe the same thing.
Check out the conditions by which large scale Mass Formation is likely to be formed:
- There is a lack of social bond and connection.
- There is a lack of meaning in what is happening – not being able to “make sense” of events.
- There is a sense of free-floating anxiety. Anxiety that is not connected to a specific object.
- There is a sense of free-floating frustration that can’t be directed at a specific object.
It’s actually fairly easy to draw the parallels to the current state of a large part of the world.
Our anxiety is directed toward Covid and everything in the popular narrative is geared to increase the level of fear, dread and frustration.
Mass Formation is used as a means of control by drawing a connection to a solution for the anxiety and when people participate in the strategy by which the problem is solved, their anxiety is relieved and directed.
This willingness to participate together creates a new kind of social bond, which helps alleviate the undirected anxiety that was created when a problem was first pointed out.
People go from feelings of isolation and fear to a sort of heroic battle against a common enemy – a community is formed. There are rituals connected to this new community and even if it’s soon apparent that the rituals are absurd and not working particularly well, they forge a stronger bond, the longer they’re adhered to. The rituals make you part of the group and the group is “doing something”.
I’ll continue this in a Part 2 article soon. In the meantime, I recommend taking the time to listen to the podcast linked above.
