“Mass whatever” is a twist on a number of stories. It is well packaged in fancy sounding terms, so it is easily absorbable. The problem is that it is a self-supporting theory, not a baseline observation of a social phenomenon.
The major defect is that it tries to cover the whole population (“mass”), notwithstanding cultural, ethnographical, geographic, environmental or individual determinants. As if all people were die-cast from the same mold. This approach appears to have no support in any reasonable study, it’s just a story told with words that appear to be “psychological”. As such, it is not even a theory, it’s just a personal reflection, and an incomplete one. It doesn’t explain anything. At best, it sounds like a consolation for those who are so uprooted that any explanation is needed for them to feel ok.
Considering pretty nice following it accumulated, it is a major distraction, turning energy away from the need to find constructive solutions.
The way it is told creates the polarization into those who are too weak to understand psychological mechanisms and the elite capable of watching the game from a hill.
The worst thing is that - in the view of the proclaimed certainty of this theory - no remedies have been proposed. We know so much about it, we can use complicated terminology to name everything related to it, ok. What next? How a simple regular person can handle it?
I'm still in the early middle parts of reading it, but those early and middle parts of "Political Ponerology" by Andrew M. Lobaczewski (two editions -- 2007, 2022) promise that discussion and explanation of some tangible remedies available to the 'masses' of simple, regular persons will be provided.
Lobaczewski's work is reportedly based on individual and social phenomena observed sub rosa by clinical psychologists working in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Amazon carries both editions of the text.
Reading Lobaczewski, I don't agree that Desmet's work is a distraction. I think, rather, that Desmet's stuff could eventually be judged to be a rousing introductory warm-up act.
Short of reading the English translation of Lobaczewski's tortuous technical Polish, from what I can see so far the written work for general population reading by Albert J. Bernstein is quite consistent with the findings of Lobaczewski and his past co-workers.
Instead of “distraction”, I could have used the term “inability/unwillingness to provide remedies”. Theories tend to multiply into more theories, over time gathering enough dust to become a dogma or a psychological/philosophical canon. First of all, [social/behavioral] theories without even hints of “what can I do with it” are useless. In the context of a major crisis, venturing into fantasy theories is not only useless, it is almost a sabotage of the social development - because they attract more theorists and produce more words and words and words.
Replacing these high-flying theories with simple down-to-earth one-step solutions to problems at hand would end psychological suffering of people within weeks. But, no, it would not be “original” and would not be attractive enough to make bestsellers, and would not count as contribution to further academic careers.
The basic premise of psychology is that once you can give a name to a particular condition (behavior, reaction, emotion, etc.), you are almost at the finish line. Becoming verbally aware of a problem reduces this problem or even dissolves it completely. Writing a book about “mass whatever” should eliminate all problems of humanity in one stroke. But is didn’t. This is why it is “distraction”.
Thank you for this. I look forward to listening.
“Mass whatever” is a twist on a number of stories. It is well packaged in fancy sounding terms, so it is easily absorbable. The problem is that it is a self-supporting theory, not a baseline observation of a social phenomenon.
The major defect is that it tries to cover the whole population (“mass”), notwithstanding cultural, ethnographical, geographic, environmental or individual determinants. As if all people were die-cast from the same mold. This approach appears to have no support in any reasonable study, it’s just a story told with words that appear to be “psychological”. As such, it is not even a theory, it’s just a personal reflection, and an incomplete one. It doesn’t explain anything. At best, it sounds like a consolation for those who are so uprooted that any explanation is needed for them to feel ok.
Considering pretty nice following it accumulated, it is a major distraction, turning energy away from the need to find constructive solutions.
The way it is told creates the polarization into those who are too weak to understand psychological mechanisms and the elite capable of watching the game from a hill.
The worst thing is that - in the view of the proclaimed certainty of this theory - no remedies have been proposed. We know so much about it, we can use complicated terminology to name everything related to it, ok. What next? How a simple regular person can handle it?
I'm still in the early middle parts of reading it, but those early and middle parts of "Political Ponerology" by Andrew M. Lobaczewski (two editions -- 2007, 2022) promise that discussion and explanation of some tangible remedies available to the 'masses' of simple, regular persons will be provided.
Lobaczewski's work is reportedly based on individual and social phenomena observed sub rosa by clinical psychologists working in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Amazon carries both editions of the text.
Reading Lobaczewski, I don't agree that Desmet's work is a distraction. I think, rather, that Desmet's stuff could eventually be judged to be a rousing introductory warm-up act.
Short of reading the English translation of Lobaczewski's tortuous technical Polish, from what I can see so far the written work for general population reading by Albert J. Bernstein is quite consistent with the findings of Lobaczewski and his past co-workers.
Instead of “distraction”, I could have used the term “inability/unwillingness to provide remedies”. Theories tend to multiply into more theories, over time gathering enough dust to become a dogma or a psychological/philosophical canon. First of all, [social/behavioral] theories without even hints of “what can I do with it” are useless. In the context of a major crisis, venturing into fantasy theories is not only useless, it is almost a sabotage of the social development - because they attract more theorists and produce more words and words and words.
Replacing these high-flying theories with simple down-to-earth one-step solutions to problems at hand would end psychological suffering of people within weeks. But, no, it would not be “original” and would not be attractive enough to make bestsellers, and would not count as contribution to further academic careers.
The basic premise of psychology is that once you can give a name to a particular condition (behavior, reaction, emotion, etc.), you are almost at the finish line. Becoming verbally aware of a problem reduces this problem or even dissolves it completely. Writing a book about “mass whatever” should eliminate all problems of humanity in one stroke. But is didn’t. This is why it is “distraction”.
Recently? When exactly, please?
At 10:30 – I wonder what Dr. Desmet would cite as examples of "counter mass formations" during the covid freakout.