I have to admit I’m dumbfounded that there are so many supporters of Desmet, supporters who perhaps haven’t read his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. I’ve read Desmet and watched some interviews, and I’ve also read Breggin’s criticism of Desmet and a very interesting, thorough, and well-referenced critique of Desmet found here.
What’s happening with this debate is rather disturbing, with so many either saying that Desmet’s ideas don’t matter, or they do but it’s a matter of opinion and Breggin should’ve shut up, etc., etc. Or worse, they say that Desmet is right.
All of this is so bizarre because Breggin is correct, and this is a matter of logic and history. It’s not even hard to see this: Desmet’s work is contradictory and doesn’t accord with what really happened during Nazism or Stalinism or Covid-19, when terror was inflicted on the population, deliberately. We’re being “nudged” or instructed or persuaded that Desmet is correct, and a certain doctor with a certain large substack following is, it seems, the main actor in this promotion of a completely inadequate theory of the psychology of totalitarianism, such that this doctor is now attacking Breggin, mainly for his attacks on Desmet.
I see this as a form of censorship that proves what “mass formation” is really about: terrorizing those who dissent from the orthodoxy (yet Desmet would say that this terror is simply a manifestation of our latent anxiety come to fruition and usurped by others who share our anxiety.) Censorship takes many forms; a lawsuit will do nicely to warn others off of criticizing the new champion of the idiocy that we, the people, somehow hypnotize ourselves into mass formations of terror while the people abusing us are, according to Desmet, also engrossed in this very same mass formation.
Of course they are: they created it. That’s why they’re engrossed in it. Desmet says: no, no, no, there’s nothing sinister going on, all of this sprang up because we were some sort of robotic mechanistic thinkers prior to Covid just waiting for authorities to dictate to us and alleviate our anxiety. We complied because we were waiting for a master (chapter 5 of his book) and not because institutions deliberately scared the hell out of us by ignoring sound data on Covid, viciously censoring dissenting opinions, and insisting that everyone was going to die if we didn’t lock down and destroy the social fabric— a strategy which, in years prior to Covid, would’ve been considered insanity by public health officials for a virus with an infection fatality rate very close to that of the flu, and whose worse effects were inflicted not on the young and working-aged folk but on the very elderly who were out of the workforce.
Funny how we all seemed to have a chance to come up for some fresh air when the suffocating ideas of Desmet were thrust on us, ideas that turn the real world on its head in order to exonerate any evil that might be playing out.
On Desmet
Got a chance to read your post here and it’s very interesting. As I mentioned before, I loved his book with the exception of his dismissal of a massive conspiracy. It did seem naive or perhaps misunderstood but perhaps it was more nefarious as you and others believe. I did think about how I know several people in the medical field who are going along with the official narrative and they certainly are NOT part of a conspiracy. At least they are not knowingly part of a conspiracy yet they are falling in line with all the deadly protocols including toxic treatments, early treatment denial and administering the clot shot. So Desmet’s points even in the chapter on conspiracy theories held some truth on some level in my mind. Another example, I don’t think most people who work at the CDC have any clue what’s going on and how nefarious it is. Desmet for another point (in my book anyway). Do I believe that people are sitting around in dark rooms, smoking cigars and plotting to take over the world? Yes. I actually do. Although maybe the room is well lit and they are eating grass fed beef with organic arugula salad instead of smoking cigars. Chinese style social credit scores or CBDCs are certainly on their agenda.
I have yet to read the Breggin’s book. It somehow feels outdated considering the speed of which new information comes out on the daily but I’m sure it has a lot of timeless gems.
I read Desmet’s response to the Breggins and it sounded like he wanted to speak with them about the ideas that they critiqued in his book. From his account, the Breggins would not engage with him at all. I have not followed this saga very closely because it’s honestly not that important to me but it seems like childish behavior not to agree to talk about these ideas with him. It would be different if they had just mentioned his work in passing or something. It also seems to me that if they review his work and make some strong statements about it and then refuse to speak with him about it, he is less suspicious than they are. I’ve noticed through the pandemic that those wishing to push their ideas on others are those who generally won’t discuss controversial topics. That’s just a general observation of course. The Breggins seem like genuinely good people so it was puzzling to me that they would behave this way. Perhaps I don’t know enough details.
The only thing that made this situation over the top ridiculous is the 25 mil lawsuit. I can’t make heads or tails of it. But there are dozens and dozens of oddities about the whole pandemic situation. I’ve been listening to quite a variety of interesting theories as to what is going on overall from the beginning. I take what I like and sit with it, what sounds honest and what rings true, and I keep the parts I don’t agree with or aren’t sure of in the back of my mind until more information comes out to confirm or deny the theories. It’s all I can do with the vast amount of theories floating out there. Is there graphene in the “vaccines”? Hydrogel? Nanobots that self assemble? Will everyone vaccinated die within 3-5 years? Is 5G lethal? I don’t know. But I appreciate all those willing to discuss the outlandish ideas because many of them eventually turn out to be true, even if in ways not expected.
I’ll end by saying that I think Desmet taps into some very sophisticated observations and I appreciate them. I don’t worship his ideas or live by every word of his book. Maybe I’m playing the fool or maybe I’m being rational. Time will tell I guess.
It is unfortunate that you believe Desmet's thoughts are "suffocating". But, I read too many Substack posts and now this allows me to delete one.