Petrified bedwetters and imagined victim complex, hate-mongering, keyboard fantasy bullies like @HBV, @caoimhaoin and @ProjectNoSex can feel free to laugh at this on the meltdown thread.
The cult of personality is both a very powerful thing and a very dangerous thing.
Western society promotes individualism and the cult of the self. There are both positive and negative implications arising from this. But when a powerful and charismatic individual emerges to âleadâ, people can fall in behind them unquestioningly, and any sort of critical thought on the part of the led can vanish.
Ordinary people have always found it difficult to understand complex issues. The last 15 years, going back to September 11th, 2001, have seen an attitude of negativity and despair pervade western societies. Adam Curtis has theorised that no longer are the major international issues of our time easy to understand, no longer can they be framed in a good versus evil narrative, and so ordinary people are confused. This engenders a pervasive attitude of negativity and despair in societies. The perception of threat is everywhere.
September 11th was initially framed as a straightforward good versus evil battle, but subsequent events mutated and developed into contradictory and confusing tangents. The US invaded Iraq, who were not involved in 9/11, in revenge for 9/11. The Saudis, who were involved in 9/11 (it was at least carried out by Saudis), were the westâs allies. The deposing of Saddam Hussein, which was supposedly a nudge to accelerate the overthrow of a dictator and let the âgood, freedom-loving peopleâ rise up in the way they had in Eastern Europe in 1989, instead mutated into a bloody civil war which is still going on today.
The Arab Spring, initially framed as a straightforward good versus evil battle and another event which was framed as a repeat of Eastern Europe in 1989, also mutated into various bloody and ongoing civil wars.
The Westâs allies in Syria turned out to be arguably as bad as the brutal dictator they were trying to depose. Then the almost cartoonishly evil ISIS arrived to complicate matters even further. Outside actors such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Kurds and the Arab Gulf states add yet more layers of complication. Fleeing civilians were the innocent victims while they were still in Syria, but once they reached European shores they were portrayed as a potential enemy. There were no longer any goodies and baddies, only destruction, only despair.
The global financial crash is similarly beyond the understanding of the ordinary person. Was it the banks, was it the government, was it corruption, was it globalisation, was it capitalism, was it âsocialismâ, was it even âthe lazy, good for nothing unemployedâ, was it even us, the âordinary peopleâ in some way who were to blame? Any narrative can be spun. But most of all, nobody wants to believe it was âusâ.
Since the rise of the INTERNET, information comes at us from all angles and overwhelms us. The ordinary person does not have either the time, the interest or the critical filters required to separate reality from lies and untruths. But the INTERNET is designed to promote our sense of self, and we feel we have to be part of the conversation, even if we are not equipped to comment knowledgeably. But our self also seeks out other like-minded people. We are individuals who also like to be part of a crowd. When angry individuals gather, a mob forms.
Anger creates fertile ground for the demagogue. Their confidence and charisma seduces people. They simplify all the complicated problems into easy to understand narratives. They blame others. It doesnât matter if the promises and the grand statements they make are based on lies. They are easy to understand. They seduce.
Donald Trump is not so much âthe art of the dealâ as âthe art of seductionâ. All dictators, demagogues and people who use their charisma and the cult of personality to âleadâ are similar in this way.
Hitler did it. Mussolini did it. Lenin did it. Thatcher did it. Chavez did it. Paisley did it. Ayatollah Khomeini did it. Putin does it. Farage does it. Michael OâLeary does it. Steve Jobs did it. Jose Mourinho does it. Eamon Dunphy does it. George Hook does it. Joe Brolly does it.
Some of those named are or were clearly a lot worse than others named but they all employed similar techniques (Iâm not comparing Brolly to Hitler, by the way). Brolly has written recently about Tony Robbins. Trump also reminds me of Robbins and the worst of that sort of charismatic cult of the self and the self-help, self-delusion industry surrounding it, as, occasionally, and ironically, does Joe himself. Itâs the power of the preacher.
US right-wing media has also employed the same techniques. Charismatic talk show hosts simplify narratives. They portray strength while also leading you, the âvictimâ. âOthersâ are to blame. Euphemistic language and lies are employed to fool people, to both explain things in âcommon senseâ to the ordinary person, and to fool them. In the US, euphemistic language means âstatesâ rightsâ, âwealth creatorsâ, âenhanced interrogation techniquesâ, âfreedomâ, âsmall governmentâ, âvoter ID lawsâ. âCommon senseâ is the ultimate euphemism."
And some things now no longer have to be cloaked. Itâs ârapistsâ, âcriminalsâ, âlock her upâ, âyouâre going to jailâ.
Oppressors and the powerful become âthe victimsâ. The genuinely victimised or powerless are portrayed as âthe oppressorsâ. âFree speechâ, âcommon senseâ and âtelling it like it isâ are invoked to justify vilification. When reasonable people challenge abhorrent views and genuinely âtell it like it isâ, the real oppressors are the first to take offence and hide behind their straw man version of political correctness (which the rest of the time they vilify). In reality the ones who loudly proclaim that they âtell it like it isâ are the easily offended, they are exact same people they claim to rail against. The supposed âPC brigadeâ of cliche are in reality the ones who tend to genuinely tell it like it is.
Extreme politics relies on that sort of charismatic power of seduction. Everybody has an inner bully. Simplifying matters, understanding the psychology of crowds and using that to create a seductive, easy to understand message based on blaming others can release that inner bully, or at least make a willing follower of the âhonest, charismaticâ bully. The follower becomes subsumed into an almost quasi-religious, cult-like social order led by the Pied Piper bully.
Itâs pretty much always doomed to fail and merely leave destruction behind it.
