At the end of WWI the unimaginable losses piled up. Margaret MacMillan,
in Paris 1919, lays out the historical aftermath.
To add a bitter sting to the end of the war, the Spanish Influenza was estimated to have killed
more people than in the Great War. Sigmund Freud described very well the empty void
people feel when the light of life is snuffed out by an invisible enemy, including his daughter Sophie.
When consoling Ludwig Binswanger, who was suffering from a similar loss. Freud:
After focusing so much on individual dynamics in psychology and healing from trauma,
Freud found so many group dynamics that it became necessary to
study the influence of groups separately.
Humanity provides labels for all these individuals in our lives, but we also provide labels for groups. Whether it's our country, ethnicity,
institution, or even a makeshift crowd that spontaneously gathers, labels for groups
have emotional significance for us. One of the main ways to see how powerful
this impact is, is to notice how one reacts when one is by oneself,
and how that quickly changes when a person interacts with another person or a group.
Freud surveyed the literature on group behaviour and quoted heavily from Gustave Le Bon,
who viewed these behaviours as evidence of a collective mind.
Here a collective mind has less to do with a shared brain, but more to do with a part of the mind
that activates in certain ways when people are interacting in a group.
Le Bon believed our influences from others starts in our biological inheritance
and those influences coming out of our unconscious.
What worried Le Bon was the unconscious connection people had and some of their ill effects.
The key for Le Bon, on what leads to bad individual behaviour in a group,
is how he uses the words invincibility and anonymity.
He viewed that individuals were much more responsible by themselves than when in a group.
Modern examples of this would be anonymity in a chat room. A person can insult,
or 'troll,' a person that they would never do face to face, because of anonymity.
People behave differently when they don't fear social consequences,
and not fearing consequences means they feel they can do anything, which is what I think Le Bon was getting at.
The feeling of omnipotence or invincibility is the feeling
that there are no consequences and one can do what one wants.
here is pleasure and relief when social inhibitions are lifted.
So here, the example is one type of group interaction, where group members condone bad behaviour,
as opposed to the typical expectation of people being bad when they are alone,
and good in public. Both situations, of course, exist in their own contexts,
and as we will see later, will require leadership that steers the group more one way or another.
Le Bon viewed the unconscious as what was inherited and what gets
unleashed in group behaviour. For Freud, he is more interested in what was imitated
and repressed, than what was inherited. One way or another,
there is a predisposition coming from the unconscious.
What is curious is Freud's view of repression, which can create a super-ego of conscience,
partially from a dread of social punishment, yet at the same,
as can be seen in the Great War, society can condone the dark side of people's personality,
so that it operates very different from a conscience per se,
or a conscience that uses social excuses and reasons to condone sadistic behaviour.
Moving into the power of suggestion and hypnotism, Le Bon asserts that the mind
switches from a personal interest to a collective interest when in a group,
but he slips in a power differential between the hypnotized and the hypnotist.
The power differential leads to reciprocal condoning that strengthens what is typically inhibited.
Reading Le Bon, Freud sees his version of the Unconscious, in that it...
As the rationality decreases to simple rationalization a collective unconscious can appear.
Freud then describes what we see in ALL political parties where followers have to toe-the-line
and follow the group objective, no matter the facts or the doubt.
Freud characterizes group psychology as incapable of nuance. It is only moved by suggestions from others that...
There must be exaggeration and repetition to convince a group.
If there is too much nuance, it naturally breaks down the cohesiveness of a group.
I would add to Freud's theories by saying that a group has so many
people with individual perspectives, that they will only agree on a small group of ideas.
Any motivation in a group has to be influenced by simple, but also precise ideas,
that many can gather around to agree on.
If they agree on enough, they will be willing to let go of some of the disagreements because their core issues
are agreed upon. Often politicians will defect parties because
the core ideas of a political party have shifted so much that there is not enough
in common to keep that individual identified with that group.
Freud then sees the eternal difficulty the individual has, especially one who is different,
with new ideas, to make changes, and advancements in society as a whole.
Now here one has to be careful of the term conservative, because this could apply to any group,
including scientists. Once a new scientific theory
gains strength it can be ossified by the group and turn into a dogma.
The people who decried a lack of scientific rigor and open-mindedness, can turn into a theocrat
attacking all newcomers. This ironically can be seen in psychology itself.
If a financial well-being and the pleasure of positive attention is in danger,
leaders of an old movement will feel threatened by new theories purely out of addiction.
Losing what you enjoy is always a cold bath and painful.
It brings up all the individual resistances that naturally motivate,
those who have enough power, to scapegoat and oppress. To me this hints at a personal self-interest
that hides in the collective interest. People are always monitoring a self-interest in a group,
and as described above, there's plenty of repression
of desire in groups, not just condoning. Individuals can support group goals
that also support individual goals, a sense of harmony, but not all those goals are constructive.
Freud then describes this dichotomy of unleashing
condoned desires, and restricting prohibited desires, pushing people into a collective super-ego.
This is why looking at those in power in a group becomes essential. Leaders and followers.
Here followers are described by the book as people who are looking for someone
to take care of them. The words of the leader are...
It's so much easier to believe than to test.
For Freud, the followers have an unfulfilled wish that they hope will be fulfilled by the group or leadership.
As can be seen in my Cult Psychology review, the wishes of the followers
are so emotionally invested in their leaders, they often tolerate abuse
and maltreatment at the hands of authorities, rather than to test reality
and to find better environments to satisfy wishes in a realistic way.
The internal super-ego can be masochistic and self-destructive when the follower
moves into self-austerity and slavery, while the leader exploits.
Followers with no willpower are at the mercy of leaders. How leaders can attract followers is
through the wishes of their followers by being a promise of satisfaction, an...
Freud's two examples are religion and the army. Promises to satisfy wishes involve some form of love
that followers sense from the leader...
The danger of this abstract symbol of love can be seen how wishes appear in
the minds of followers. In War Pt. 2, I briefly reviewed Freud's Project, and how
hazy wishes appear in the mind. This abstract, unrealistic, hazy wish is
looking for satisfaction in the real world, but the real world always seems to
have imperfections that disappoint wishes, and sometimes devastatingly so.
It's interesting how hazy, abstract and dreamy a lot of promises are
that are made by leaders, or I would say seducers. They are designed to be appear as reality
to the follower because they are displayed in the environment. The hazy dream
matches the hazy symbol and feels motivated, and continues chasing it.
This is often why we like art, which isn't real, except for being in the environment
for us to view, because it can appear as an escape from the real. The abstractness
can cover hyper-realistic flaws, but our craving lights up when we see few flaws
or cannot find flaws. Virginia Postrel quotes, in The Power of Glamour,
the fashion writer Alicia Drake:
If a habit to chase these hazy symbols develops,
an idealization, a person can move from one disappointing group, political party,
cult, relationship, and product advertisement after another.
The person may even ask for help from one group, after escaping another,
only to be equally abused by their new saviour group. The hazy, abstract quality
of promising symbols fools followers again and again because of how precisely they
ignore important contradictory detail. Reality testing always looks for
more detail than what is provided and doesn't shy away from disenchantment.
Followers have to see their motivation to run away from reality to see what
they are doing to themselves. Almost like a childhood playhouse with unrealistic exaggerated colours,
we are trying to find an abstract heaven on earth.
In these groups, the leader definitely exploits, but the follower is actually hurting themselves
with their need to believe, or their hope. You can even imitate these
abusers into your mind and have it abuse you inside of you with false abstract symbols
and promises of happiness. The internal symbols become a dangerous Siren,
"Greeks bearings gifts", a backstabber, a Fifth Column in your mind.
A form of bodysnatching. The belief goes too far,
because the emotional investment is so strong, and the embarrassment so powerful.
It is often worth tolerating more abuse than to admit failure. When people get out of cults
they feel like they've snapped out of a dream. In reality that's exactly what they did.
They allowed healthy scientific doubt to add the detail
that the wish didn't want to look at. Many wishes can't be satisfied,
and no matter what your faith, political inclinations,
scientific theoretical inclinations, relationship hopes are, reality is reality, and there is no group
or person that has a monopoly on reality. We are all still trying
to figure this thing out called existence. If someone on a podium says that they've figured it out,
they at best are only partially correct.
This dangerous symbol was defined by Freud and Le Bon as Prestige.
Prestige has to be earned, but is often only a hazy promise. Like in Totem and Taboo,
when the followers are disappointed enough, they depose their leaders with hostility,
because their entitlement was disappointed, like a child disappointed in their parent,
or like an infatuated lover disappointed in their love object.
The entitled follower can go from idealizing to scapegoating, all the while
not seeing their complicity in trying desperately to avoid reality.
This putting a leader on a pedestal and tearing them down can go on endlessly
with constant new leaders that always disappoint, as can be seen in numerous dictatorships.
It's also a learning process for people who are political junkies
who find that responsibility is much harder than criticizing.
There's a natural disappointment and disheartening that happens every time one actually succeeds
in getting their politician in power. Deep down people know that they
will be disappointed because their expectations were way too high.
The healthy and peaceful mind can finally let go of the need to get excited with
every new leader who makes a promise.
Until those promises are fulfilled, there's no need to get emotionally invested.
Peaceful minds also know that it's nice to take responsibility for
oneself and there's a pleasure in taking credit for what one has contributed,
instead of giving all credit to our favourite leaders. There is no soul-mate,
one has to work at relationships and constantly negotiate.
Reality becomes much more beautiful, despite the flaws, because at least it is real.
The imperfect positive things in reality can now be appreciated. They don't have to be perfect,
and reality testing can confirm their true value
instead of chasing a carrot of promises.
The freedom that comes to the person who has a love of reality is partially
painful because one now realizes that one has accumulated habits,
tendencies and beliefs that steered the personality in a distorted direction.
If one was more skeptical like a scientist, and demanded more proof before a decision was made,
a lot of damage could have been avoided.
Identification is just a series of imitations of suggestions from others, who have varying grasps of reality.
As in War Pt 2., Vittorio Gallese viewed the source of suggestion as imitation of goals and I naturally posit
that goals are about what Freud described as The Pleasure Principle,
The Reality Principle, and Freud's later welcoming of death, The Nirvana Principle.
Those three general umbrellas include all of Freud's categories for desire
including friendship, family, community, self-love and intimate partners.
When leaders of a cult are wearing those abstract symbols
of success in robes, in expensive accessories, and advertised lifestyles,
we followers are partially wishing to be in their place, or we want them to be
cooperative for our goals or lovers if we can't be them. When leaders show weakness,
tensions escalate with those who are led, as they see opportunities to
replace the leader with themselves, or so they hope. Followers can have desires for revenge,
and in some cases it's achieved, and power shifts in the hierarchy.
In some cases, leaders see the writing on the wall and work on a succession plan,
or conflict increases until they are ousted.
Identification for Freud is a social psychology that is based on imitative desire, but it can have an aggression to it.
Like in the Oedipus Complex, Freud looks at sexual organization as something that can have a sense of feeding,
starting with desires to imitate parents.
In a way it depends on upon whether the feeding is a hostile and competitive one
or a cooperative one. From an ancient logic, it makes sense that early humans
would eat many different things and some of those good things would lead to
an individual to feel better. Through basic thought association,
it would be possible to believe that one could gain the qualities of what is eaten.
One might then, by thought association, gain the qualities of a competitor
in victory or preserve characteristics of a lost loved one,
through eating their flesh. Whether it's a competitive or cooperative feeding,
there's a desire to replace distinctive people or to have them as romantic partners,
or friends. In the case of leaders and followers, the leader is
someone to replace or to have. As the saying goes, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Or you can follow in their path.
In some cases one can see how people can flip between one or another mode unconsciously.
For example, if a leader corners people by being a source of leverage,
it's possible that the targets will have no chance but to be subservient.
The secret of inhibition, is how people feel when the obstacles are too high
so they can't put themselves in the same situation as the leader,
or like when you desire someone who is "out of your league." That stress happens so quickly
because the mind likes what it sees in the love-object, but instantly moves
into stress and concern because of how love-objects can easily remove attention and presence.
We become intimidated. When in identification mode, chasing after a role model,
there's always a desire to close the gap. The reward of success
is to turn the tables with the old leader and to now be looked upon by others
as a desired love-object. If the goal is too hard, or actually impossible,
the goal changes for the imitator. The role model is viewed as a friend or a love interest.
Either way, people are feeding socially, and the unconscious can quickly find
replacement objectives if the initial ones fail.
As we have already explained, people can move
into the powerful position to gain benefits or to give transference of prestige
and regard to the leader to siphon off some of the benefits that way.
Here Freud finally explains his male homosexual theory with a bit more detail,
but it ended up being more applicable in many situations that have nothing to do with homosexuality,
and can appear in any dominant and subservient posturing.
For Freud, masculinity is being a master and useful. Femininity is being cooperative,
but also paradoxically, needing help.
Freud uses an example of a child that identifies with a lost kitten,
as if to preserve the lost qualities of the missing pet. This is what Freud calls an introjection.
In the Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Charles Rycroft describes
how this mental model of a lost love object is introjected into the mind.
One of it's motivations is to...
Freud described introjection and projection as opposites, and again using the feeding model,
the instincts make judgments that say...
Like with the Dora review, we can reject influences
we don't like about ourselves to outside targets [projection], and we can
adore what we don't have and empathize with the lost loved object
and introject it to maintain the loved presence. Introjection, the way it's described,
is almost like a desperate need to remember and repeat something important
so as to not forget it. It becomes a habit in us very quickly
because of how important those details are to remember. We practice them so well
in our minds that we can become skilled with the imitation.
Another type of identification is a love connection treated as a status symbol where we
actually want to be in that position [identification], but instead of
authentically liking that person, we choose a love object that provides
positive social attention that we couldn't get otherwise.
In these relationships Freud expands love to include pretty much all forms of desire. It embraces any
power differentials you can see in the workplace, politics, and economics,
hat all have these dynamics. With introjection...
So like with being in love, or any other contracts, the master is developing ego skills,
while at the same time wanting a companion that is willing to surrender their ego
to rely on the master's ego instead, a form of dependency.
The sexuality can then follow in some instances, or fawning, brown-nosing behaviour to curry favour.
For Freud, there's always some love going on in the background when there's a sense of prestige.
With friendships and intimate partners Freud sees again, like in his Love trilogy,
the love we have for friends and family has to be applied to our intimate partners
to help us go beyond lust, which without tender love, will dangerously drain into boredom every time we satisfy it.
Some insights appear with this explanation. Love and tenderness can
become a useful template for comparing a loving introjection, imitation,
or the enriching of our ego, to a reaction formation where a person is forcing themselves
to be like others. In the later situation the motivation is not supported
by love and tenderness but instead by stress. To truly take on details from others,
inspiration essentially, one has to love those details and the skills involved.
Until a person has repeated those skills with loving attention,
it remains unsustainable. Similar to an "mmmmm" feeding,
we have to get to the point that new skills are tasty
and create an appetite in us to use them. A good sign that a new skill you are
developing is finally something that you deeply love, is the stress and yearning
that appears when you are away from
those activities relationships can work
Relationships can work well enough when the master has enough skills to maintain the economics for the family,
business, or department. If that fails or the dependent becomes bored and wants more,
as in more rewards from the master's ego, the relationship can fall apart
when needs aren't met. It's hard for the master to maintain prestige,
or the façade of prestige, and the dependent is restricted in that their success and failure
is tied to the master. Success allows sexuality to flourish, and failure the opposite.
The man gives his ego-penis, so to say, and the woman receives it.
It turns into a castration complex, or a sore spot in manhood if he cannot succeed in business,
politics, or to raise a family. As an extension of his penis,
the man symbolically gives love by giving a lifestyle. The women wants the lifestyle,
and has the pressure of being attractive enough as the object of desire.
The man is going through all these hoops and women have pressure to be "worth it!"
This predicts Jacques Lacan's theory of the Phallus
and the pressure both sexes are under, and the reaction formations [pretending] caused by
the pressure to sell themselves. I remember a very crude example
of that at an expensive restaurant. When the bill was brought out to this couple nearby
the man literally looked at the bill, looked at the woman, and back and forth
between her and and the bill as if he was thinking, "I paid that much, for you?!"
The woman had that look of stress of not being good enough but doing her best to pretend,
just as predicted. Men have to pretend that they are more successful than they are,
and women have to pretend they are more beautiful and seductive than they are.
Men have to dress stylish, like a God,
as if their door-to-door photocopier salesman job is so lucrative,
and women have to pressure themselves with extensive grooming and exercising to appear more fit
and youthful than they actually are. The Façade eventually cracks if it's too inauthentic
and there's relief when the burden is let go of. The realistic fear
that remains for each side of a relationship implies the rejection: "You are not worth it!"
Just as there's conflict between love interests on who's
pulling their weight and making the right decisions, groups have to encounter people
who aren't as enamored with them as they would want them to be. If we love a particular group,
it's quite easy to hate those who don't belong to it,
and especially non-conformists who endanger it.
Freud here showed some subtlety by not only picking on religious people for their...
We are all religious when we succumb to the naive imitation of suggestions
of ideal leaders, experts, taste-makers, celebrities,
and even "soul-mates." For all of us, this habit has already been developed since birth.
Andrew N. Meltzoff in Mimesis and Science, describes this early development as "gaze following."
It's a mother-baby-object triangle paradigm where the child follows the...
The danger of this habit is a lack of reality testing. As a child, it makes sense that you would be aware
of the intentions of others, and be dependent on their suggestions.
Children don't have enough capability of reality testing, and rely on mimetics in order to learn,
but adults need that capability. Yet the habit to follow suggestions
blindly can be so strong. That sense of comfort in relying on the suggestions of strangers,
is often on shaky ground, especially when we find out that the product
wasn't that good, the romantic partner was a narcissist, the expert was wrong,
or the con artist was duping us. Being in a position where we need people too much
is a dangerous dependency because those in power can always withdraw their resources,
attention, and they can also hurt us with their mistakes.
At the extreme end of relying on suggestions,
wouldn't it lead to a kind of self-brainwashing where one doesn't trust one's own reasoning and reality testing,
or in Freud's description, not being able to rely on one's own ego?
If there's a target for a predator, I can't think of a better one.
The freedom of letting go of chasing prestigious leaders, and following their suggestions,
has it's difficult qualities, though. If one isn't used to it then it requires
a lot of practice to pull off. There is a lack of comfort when the illusion is seen through,
especially if a large section of moral imitation was coming from
the leader's illusory belief system, and aping Nietzsche's death of God,
Freud predicted that followers would release their inhibitions to extremes.
Of course, all institutions are open to this kind of disillusionment that seems to sanction
a letting go of restraint to the extreme opposite. When dependent followers
have to drop their substitute ego, their empty void of skills to face the world
can lead to regression to unskillful ways of living, or searches for a new leader.
We can hurt ourselves when we don't have anyone to look to for guidance.
How leaders and love interests are able to worm their way into power over us
is how they can feel their sense of power by how we react.
The way towards mastering another person is to have leverage to take away resources and attention. Prestige...
Here Freud finally get's to the individual element of group psychology that adds onto Le Bon's work.
The terror we feel around a love-object is their ability
to be helpful to us and their power to remove their presence and resources. It's not just a group-mind.
It's the same for an employer or political leader. Comparing power to hypnotism, Freud says that...
Our brain senses this power and unless we gain independence, we are stuck feeling this danger.
The other side of mastery is dependency. If the leader, or love-object needs us,
we can be comforted by them. We can both loathe the lack of independence
and love the benefits of someone taking responsibility for us.
his explains well the rapt attention we give to those in power and our suggestibility.
We would like their power, but because there are obstacles, we surrender
and try to cooperate in order to gain a substitute power within the rest of the group.
Freud starts this development with childhood. There's a rivalry
with other siblings for their parents' attention which doesn't always have a clear winner.
Then there's a surrender and each rival focuses on the other
to prevent either from being a favourite. Fandom, worship, and infatuation
can co-exist without the jealousy because the target has too many boundaries.
So we can't be the celebrity, or have them, but we still like the products, services, art,
and philanthropy they provide. In a way, this is a prescription for success,
but also for isolation. Unless you are able to keep people from trying to pilfer your success
you won't keep it. Freud describes a scene that is eerily similar to celebrity today.
Freud's description of this phenomenon moves closely to a description of communism
when talking about the herd instinct, starting with children.
The mentality almost says that if the love-object is forbidden to me
then I will only feel better if it's forbidden to everyone else.
Now how about the leader? Freud, continuing with Nietzsche's tradition, places the leader into the template
of ancient human groups as he does in Totem and Taboo, a narcissistic father.
The early group, or family, would always want to succeed the father
as a way to get out of the egalitarian envy of group psychology.
This naturally spread to many different systems of government that we have seen.
The independence that everyone seeks can be different in their goals, different businesses,
or different government positions. Everyone is trying to seek
their own path of independence, to escape, with all the struggles of envy and narcissism
when people imitate and compete for rewards that can't be shared.
Some of this need for independence comes from goading from abusive powerful
people who feel omnipotent, and feel they can do anything they want to people they have leverage against.
When people receive enough abuse, some will surrender,
but many won't and will continue trying to gain power to satisfy revenge,
but if that's not possible, then to gain revenge on targets who have less power and to vent
their abuse on easy targets, as can be seen in War Pt. 2. Having powerful people
in one's life who only care about themselves means they have no scruples with anyone else.
The above lessons remind me of the all powerful ring in Lord of the Rings.
The more power one has, the more desires can be satisfied. When a dictator, like Sauron,
has unlimited power, they unleash desire associations
that were thought about continually in relation to power. It's like spring
waiting to be sprung in the right environment. If I achieve this power,
then I can get all these goodies, and there may even be a feeling of entitlement for those things.
"I should have these goodies." If one is indispensable, then one can demand
as much as the unconscious wants. As John Bargh described...
As we gain power, what was filed away in unconscious memory starts to pop up. This is why we
can point out corruption when others do it, especially when it damages us in some ways,
but we have an unconsciousness about it in ourselves.
If few people have little to no desire, then that means most people have large or
indefinite sources of desire, but they are inhibited by obstacles and their safety,
with a reduction of temptation, is what we are unconscious of and take for granted.
Yet we don't have to be completely unconscious. One way is to notice
what people do when they gain more money, or have less obstacles to power.
Economists look at the rule that as people make more money they tend to spend more.
With each of us having unlimited desires, it's quite easy to see
how we could unconsciously be the same as those we accuse.
The healthy admission, and also an admission that provides relief from perfectionism,
is that everyone in a power position can be more or less guilty.
Awareness and self-restraint become paramount when there's temptation.
Doing the right thing, when one has power, may actually feel wrong.
The way to gain pleasure from doing the right thing, in Freud's estimation,
is gaining pleasure in satisfying the ego-ideal by making it into a conscience,
and this is especially true if the conscience is independent of a corrupt leader.
Margaret MacMillan described in Paris 1919, all those attempts to create a
satisfactory ideal to the end of the Great War, starting with President Wilson's 14 points,
but the final Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919 wasn't able to satisfy all critics.
As long as there are grievances and resentments, there's always room for war
to rekindle again when new generations are energized and motivated.
The circumstances of the Great War showed how the future could hang on hairpin turns.
Tim Cook in Vimy: The Battle and The Legend described the horrible twist of fate.
By 1940 Hitler was able to return to Vimy Ridge and there was a photo taken of him
at the memorial proving to the allies that he hadn't destroyed it as they had thought.
The irony was that Hitler didn't demolish the monument because he enjoyed it's peaceful nature.
The age of personality disordered leaders was reaching its apex.
