Saving Ourselves From Mass Movements

Stuart Whatley's The West is bored to death (New Statesman) seems to tread on what I wrote about in Philosophy, Theology: Personhood - the groupthink madness we are all living through. I feel that my not being involved in social media, to not living online, keeps me both immune from this groupthink and bewildered by it.

In fact, Maga and its illiberal, authoritarian analogues on the left exhibit many of the hallmarks of the “true believer” mass movements that the longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer documented in the early 1950s. Each, of course, reflects broader socioeconomic developments – from labour-market disruptions and rising inequality to declining social mobility and “elite overproduction”. But more to the point, each cultivates its base through the channels and activities that have come to dominate people’s free time and attention. If there is one thing that unites the most socially destructive constituencies of our time, it is that they are all “very online”.

Mass movements, like some ascetic religious sects, feed on their members’ self-contempt. Their followers are those who have nothing to offer themselves. When they look inward, they find a dusty hollow. The typical adherent is not only frustrated with his circumstances but also bored and unhappy with himself. His professional, social, or personal life offers only evidence of his impotence, and so he creates a new self through membership in the movement. Suddenly, he belongs to something.

The specific content of the movement is merely incidental. The unwanted self can be shed either through a self-diagnosis of some mental condition (a growing social-media trend), which brings initiation into a new community of the similarly afflicted; self-renunciation over historical wrongs; the adoption of a new identity or religion; or by pledging allegiance to a charismatic leader who promises to dismantle the institutions that have supposedly frustrated your will. Such behaviour tends not to be found among people who have arrived at healthy, enriching uses for their free, unstructured time.

Since the content of the movement is secondary, it can often lead to strange ironies. Maga’s traditionally masculine iconography seems to appeal to many; yet who eagerly follows an alpha leader, if not betas? Though many harbour grievances about economic injustice, they are far from destitute. The truly poor and desperate have neither the time nor the wherewithal to travel to rallies, participate in coups, or buy memecoins and other frivolous merchandise. They cannot afford all the paraphernalia required to play militia-man on the weekends.

The answer given in this essay is also much different than what I highlighted in my earlier post, and is conservative in a positive manner:

Yet solutions to the problem of leisure exist throughout our own wisdom tradition, which stresses the value of friendship (Epicurus), contemplation (Aristotle), and “other-regarding” public service (Cicero). These basic human goods have been severely eroded, producing an age of loneliness, inattention, and ginned-up tribalism; but each could be reclaimed with sufficient free time and a proper command over it. While there will always be demagogues, conspiracists, and cult leaders, they would have no purchase over a people who can find fulfilment in themselves.

I began my own way back from self-destruction by reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. It may also be a good start for you - just follow the link. 

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