The Psychology of Totalitarianism

How and why people willingly give up their freedom, legitimising how governments continue to take it

In his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, author and world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet describes a society led by technocrats and pundits who control the masses through an incomplete but well-crafted narrative. The world is in the grips of “mass- formation”, meaning a dangerous, collective type of hypnosis, as we bear witness to loneliness, free-falling anxiety, and fear, giving way to censorship, loss of privacy, and surrendered freedoms. It is all spurred on by a singular, focused crisis narrative that relies on a destructive group consensus. Desmet eloquently deconstructs the societal conditions that systematically silence dissonant voices in order to promote a single minded collective psychosis.

Read in 14 min.

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Many useful tips to:

Understand that governments often play on people’s emotions to assert and maintain authority.
Take a closer look at the psychological methods that drive us to adhere to a given belief system.
Open our eyes to the fact that totalitarianism is not as distant a possibility as we might like to think.

The author of the book:

Mattias Desmet is a professor of psychology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Desmet focuses on the mechanisms that regulate the re-education of the masses. He has published several articles in specialised journals on this topic, and is one of the founders of the Single Case Archive, a database that collects and catalogues studies related to psychotherapy.

IDEA CHIAVE 1/9

Humans have reaped enormous benefits from advances in science and technology, but these developments have also made us fragile and more isolated

We live in a mechanistic world, meaning a world that responds to a principle of causality. According to this mechanism, everything around us responds to absolute rules, and derives from a cause-effect relationship. Basically, most people believe that only science matters, and that there is no higher power. Science has enabled human beings to make colossal achievements, and to enjoy the use of artificial light, radio, television, cars, and the internet. For hundreds of years, people had to learn to adapt to their surroundings, and in the modern era it is the complete opposite. Our world is now shaped by humans, for humans. As a result, we all live more comfortable lives. The thing is, there are also quite a few disadvantages, the first of them being our disconnection with nature. Artificial light and the clock have broken the natural rhythm with which our days used to be organised. Our daily lives are no longer governed by the rising and setting of the sun, but other dynamics linked to work or other needs prevail.

Industrialisation has forever broken the connection between humans and nature. Even the relationship between people has been seriously compromised. The TV, radio, and internet endanger human interactions on a daily basis, which are becoming ever more fleeting, superficial, and flat. Technology has made us lazier; we no longer seek other people’s company, we don't think we need them anymore, because there is always a screen at our disposal that can entertain, distract and amuse us.

Progress has indeed made people’s lives more comfortable, but it has also made them feel powerless and isolated. All this has given rise to a society that the philosopher Hannah Arendt would call atomised, which means made up of lonely and alienated individuals. Individuals who, for the very reason that they have become lonely and alienated from one another, become the perfect victims of totalitarian regimes.

The key ideas of "The Psychology of Totalitarianism"

01.

Humans have reaped enormous benefits from advances in science and technology, but these developments have also made us fragile and more isolated

02.

Trust in a society that relies almost exclusively on data and statistics is misplaced, because even numbers can be biassed

03.

In modern totalitarianism, the world is led by people who focus on data, and who are slowly eroding individual rights

04.

Totalitarianism finds fertile ground in a disorientated, angry population

05.

The story told by an authoritarian regime selectively omits important aspects of the truth, but it is convincing and attractive to the masses

06.

Totalitarian leaders are not monsters, their intentions are good

07.

A totalitarian regime needs to create an enemy at which the population can direct its anger

08.

Quotes

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Take-home message

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