“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?
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?
At 10:30 – I wonder what Dr. Desmet would cite as examples of "counter mass formations" during the covid freakout.