Extraordinary Popular Delusions [View all]

[H2O Man]

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
Charles MacKay; Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds (1841)


They would later say the crowd was so loud that they couldn't hear themselves tune their guitars. They were used to screaming during their concerts, but it was becoming more intense. Being the Beatles, they could afford the strongest marijuana available, and had gotten high before going on stage. As they were playing, John noticed that he could get waves of madness from the audience, by moving the neck of his guitar.

John realized then that the audience was an organism, rather than a collection of individuals. He had become increasingly unhappy about touring. This sealed it for him. In a short time, the Beatles would stop going on the road.

I was thinking of this when Trump read the state of the union address. Like every conscious human being who listened to it, the speech that Stephen Miller wrote for him was disturbing. And how could it not be? For Trump and Miller are highly disturbed individuals.

This morning, I was thinking about the people who support Trump. The republican chant, “Four more years” was pathetic. Some are true believers with a shared goal of destroying the Constitution ( **except Amendment 2), others are moral cowards afraid of their own shadows. And, of course, the 40% of voters who support him.

Trump tipped the neck of his guitar at the brain-dead fans of Rush Limbaugh. Steve Bannon and Alex Jones surely are next on Trump's list of American heroes. I recognized that I was thinking about this too much. I needed to “turn off my mind, relax, and float downstream.” So I laid on the couch, and watched two old documentaries.

The shows were about Jim Jones, of Guyana infamy. Bad choices if one did not want to think about the Trump cult. Jones and Trump speak the same language. They share the same skill-sets, and though their paths are different, both will lead their flock to the lowest of elevations of the plain of Shinar.

The major difference between the two is that Jones had, as a young adult, actually done some good work with the poor and marginalized. But power went to his head, and he mistakenly mistook himself as the source of Good. This delusion and significant substance abuse combined to reduce him to Trump's level of being. He preyed upon people's weaknesses, and used some basic techniques to reduce his flock into sheep. The end result was much what Trump's path will lead to, without intervention.

Eventually I turned the television off. My dog Sam got off his chair as I got off the couch, He knocked three books off of a book shelf. As I picked them up, I noticed one was C.G. Jung's 1968, “Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice.” Immediately, I though this collection of his lectures would afford me a vacation from Trump.

After sitting down and opening the book, I was reminded that 23 years ago, my oldest daughter, then 3, decided to read my book. Crayon in hand, she made notes to herself and future readers, scribbling on almost every page of about a fifth of the book. Were Jung alive, I'd ask him what he saw in the lines and lopsided attempts at circles my daughter made.

Instead, I turned to the back of the book, without any scribbling on it. I went to Lecture Five, starting on page 151. I find Jung fascinating, and was convinced that this would allow me to let my mind wander where his lecture led the audience. Enough time wasted thinking of Trump, I thought. But then on page 183, he said that all of the things that happen consciously are merely the surface, that “what the unconscious really contains are the great collective events of the time.” In that part of the human mind, he said, “history prepares itself; and when the archetypes are activated in a number of individuals and comes to the surface, we are in the midst of history, as we are now.”

That sounded uncomfortably close to the current situation. Way too close. Jung went on to explain that as the groundwork was being set in place below the surface in Germany before WW2, he recognized ripples rising up in people's subconscious. As early as 1918, he wrote that the “blond beast” was rising from the collective unconscious of the German people. He knew that something terrible would change world history as a result.

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I didn't finish this last night, so I'll try to wrap it up this morning. I just saw a clip of Trump attacking Nancy and Mitt at the payer breakfast. It fits in with the theme of this essay in a curious way. Perhaps that is fitting for an non-curious specimen like Trump.

The sacred texts of the world generally fall into two types: the generally subjective interpretations of the group's history, and psychological road signs pointing the route to eventual enlightenment. Since we all know how the 2016 election was stolen, we will focus upon the latter. For sake of this discussion, one does not need to be “religious,” or “spiritual.” Indeed, while this encompasses religion and spirituality, it is also a form of humanism.

Today, for example, our understanding of brain chemistry allows us to recognize that people once considered to be “possessed” are suffering from mental illness. Columbia University's Professor of Clinical Psychiatry Michael Stone uses gradations of “evil” to rank violent criminals on a scale, though not in a religious context. Our understanding of human behavior is no longer defined, to use a Carl Sagan line, by shadows of forgotten ancestors.

Thus, when we view the unconscious group force that Trump is attempting to call forth in America today, it is the “monster” or “beast” that ancient texts speak of. It has risen and fallen throughout the tides of human civilization. It's not a red devil with a long tail, horns, and a pitchfork. No, today it's a fat old fool in a suit with a long necktie, blurting threats directed at anyone and everyone he deems as his enemy. It's the amoeba-brained republicans cheering, “Four more years.” It's the people who think Rush Limbaugh deserves a medal.

We are the conscious majority. Our resistance is the democratic response to the threat to the Constitution. Our duty is to render Trump and the cowards in DC soon-to-be forgotten missing links.

Peace H2O Man