Corona - a lesson in mass madness?

"Can you please pull your mask over your nose?" a young man at Hamburg station asks me. "Make sure you get vaccinated. Get your children vaccinated," the relatives recommend.  Grandma in the care home is no longer allowed to be visited. People are afraid to go outside and lock themselves in their homes. They wear masks, even in the forest and alone in the car. One man puts his sheep in syringes in the field and photographs them from above. Others want to print the bosses of pharmaceutical companies on banknotes. In hospitals, vital operations are postponed and staff start dancing. In his New Year's address, the Federal Chancellor calls three times for vaccination. Opinions differ. Friends are suddenly enemies. People are defamed, denounced, insulted, sued and dismissed. How can this be? How can the sudden change in the population's behavior be explained?

The mass 

Human behavior can take on abnormal, irrational and inhuman forms. This applies to the behavior of individuals as well as to the behavior of groups and masses of people. The masses, as Gustave Le Bon writes in his Psychology of the Masses, tend to act, not to reason. Suspicion immediately becomes certainty, aversion becomes hatred. Anyone who contradicts the convictions of the masses becomes their enemy. [1]

The individual, who was previously a peace-loving, rational citizen, loses his conscious personality in the masses, forgets his real interests and his reason becomes clouded. Together with the others, he feels powerful and is completely absorbed in the fight for the realization of an internalized idea, usually instilled from outside. The masses are an easily seduced, blind force. An external stimulus, a gripping clear image, a violent emotional movement stirs them up and drives them to impetuous behavior.

The globally disseminated images of dead bodies, coffins and corpse transports in spring 2020 led to  to fear and panic. It was transmitted from person to person and spread. The images were more powerful than reason and reality. The resulting masses succumbed to the feelings they triggered and thus to an illusion.

Just a few weeks later, the statistics showed that the risk of the virus was relatively low and only the group of older people was exposed to an increased risk. However, the images had already had their effect. Fear blocked the view of reality. The psychological mass had been created.

The prerequisites for the emergence of a psychological mass

A healthy, contented community living with clear values and goals is less easily deceived and is difficult to tear away from its accustomed life. In contrast, a society in which fears already exist, in which people live alienated from themselves, nature and their fellow human beings, is susceptible to mass formations.

This vulnerability, which is based on a psychologically unstable state of society as a whole, was already evident in many countries before coronavirus. The conditions were therefore excellent: An education system in which people get caught up, which distracts them from their true nature and inclination and often lands them in bullshit jobs. [2] An existential fear that sets him exclusively economic goals. The concentration of life on work and consumption, which can create a feeling of abandonment and a lack of interest in shaping the world. The technology and mass media that surround him, narrowing the space for his individual development and the formation of his own values. A lack of time, which leads to a lack of or disrupted relationships, makes people insecure, dissatisfied and anxious. 

Matthias Desmet, following Hannah Arendt, calls this the socially atomized state. [3] Society is destroyed into the smallest particles. People feel empty, isolated and abandoned. They develop fear, frustration and aggression, the cause of which they cannot name. Like a feather floating in the air, they are blown by the wind of the media, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the opposite. He lacks values, goals and deep interpersonal relationships that give him stability.

In a society of this kind, people long for a bond. Despite isolation and  Alienation, he remains human, remains a community being. If, in his emptiness and inner turmoil, he comes across an idea that could end his loneliness, he immediately jumps at it. 

The mass delusion and its characteristics

Collective and belief in victory 

The idea of defeating the coronavirus fell on fertile ground. It was finally possible to do something good, to fight for a common cause, to end the separation and come together again. But was what emerged really a new community?

Curfews and compulsory masks were imposed, social distancing rules were put in place, public facilities and even playgrounds were closed. People became even more physically separated than they already were. Instead of a healthy community, a substitute community emerged, a sick collective of frightened and panicked individuals. This collective was based solely on the fear of death and the conviction of the absolute necessity to achieve victory over a virus by any means necessary. 

Blindness to reality and absolute truth

For Hermann Broch, who processed his own experiences and observations of the Third Reich in his mass delusion theory, these behaviors are important identifying features of a psychotic delusion. [4] Blinded to reality, the individuals who had become the masses laid claim to the absolute truth. The deadly danger of a virus propagated by the media and government had to be warded off with the help of a so-called vaccination.

That was the truth, which was pretended and constantly repeated with all means of propaganda. The masses did not see that the vaccination was not a conventional vaccination but a new type of mRNA treatment. Freed from any doubt and trusting in the government, they continued to strive towards their unattainable goal in the irrefutable conviction that they were doing the right and good thing.

Enemy image and disinhibition

Anyone who contradicted the certainty of faith, doubted the government's measures, the lockdowns, the effectiveness of the mRNA or did not wear the mask became the enemy. They were blamed for the misery that was primarily caused by the measures enacted by politicians and therefore self-inflicted.

Hermann Broch, himself a Jew, experienced during the Second World War how an ostracized group, the Jews, was created, marginalized and ultimately expelled and murdered. He described the disinhibition and the resulting acting out of hate instincts as a further characteristic of mass madness. When a mass of people panic, they search for the causes and usually suspect them to be in a minority of the population. By freeing themselves from this minority, they want to free themselves from their own fear, even if they are not aware of it. [4]

The ostracized group of the corona era was the group of the unvaccinated. They were the appendix that had to be removed to save the whole. They were the enemy. Members of this group  were rats and pests that caused the virus to spread and jeopardized victory. They were publicly insulted, discriminated against, ostracized, denounced and defamed. They were sued, imprisoned or lost their jobs. They were the real victims, but they were turned into perpetrators. 

Silent panic

For fear of being counted among this group, of persecution and condemnation, even many people who were rather skeptical about the conviction cowered. The social pressure and the feeling of being threatened by a lack of protection and rights made the majority compliant. 

Kurt Baschwitz called this state silent panic. People do not admit to themselves that they are acting or not acting under fear, pressure and coercion, but instead allow injustice to happen and tolerate violence and crime without doing anything. Conscious of agreeing with many others, the person next to them, who doubts or has a different opinion, is thought ill of. He becomes a victim. [5]

In the closed and autonomous system of the coronavirus narrative, questioning was impossible. Trapped in a constricted logic, the masses refused to think beyond the boundaries of this logic. Instead, they unquestioningly accepted unrealistic norms in the form of political measures that culminated in school closures, curfews, lockdowns and the plan to introduce compulsory vaccination. Hermann Broch sees this acceptance as the real delusion. A social group that accepts and concretizes unrealistic norms is in a state of mass delusion.

Language

Although this behavior appears abnormal, irrational and strictly subjective from the outside, it is logical and justified for the masses of those convinced. Measures that violate the Basic Law, human rights and the principles of humanity of democracy are suddenly perceived as democratic and solidary.

The feeling of solidarity in the vaccinated group was countered by intolerance and hatred of the unvaccinated. It manifested itself in a brutalization of behaviour and radicalization of language. Critics and protesters were labeled as "swearers", "lateral thinkers" or "corona deniers" and defamed in the public media. Up to this point, the word "lateral thinker" had a thoroughly positive meaning.

In addition to swear words, numerous other new creations and changes to the meaning of existing words emerged. The Leibniz Institute for the German Language counted a total of 2,500 neologisms during the coronavirus period. [6] Language is constantly changing. However, a sudden and massive change is a sign and indication of psychological and social upheaval.

Victor Klemperer analyzed the language of National Socialist madness. He described numerous abbreviations and neologisms and showed how their stereotypical repetition influenced the masses. [7]

The medicalized but subconsciously understood language of the Corona era kept people in their dream of fighting and defeating a virus. The daily announcement of the current "incidence" kept people on tenterhooks, causing tension and hope. The field of vision narrowed and all attention was focused on one topic alone.

The media-spread goal of "flattening the curve" had to be achieved with the help of "lockdowns", "social distancing", "vaccination" and "boosters" and the wearing of "FFP2 masks". The new terms unfolded their power, penetrated the subconscious, created feelings and changed the behavior of the masses.

Symbol and ritual

Wearing a mask became a ritual, the mask a magical symbol. It symbolized belonging to the collective and was simultaneously an expression of fear and panic as well as hope for the end of panic. Regardless of its rationally verifiable uselessness, the mask became an irrational duty and the obedient majority followed the principle of fulfilling this duty. 

Mask-wearing, tested, vaccinated and boostered people were given concrete advantages. They were allowed to go to swimming pools, restaurants and abroad. Some had themselves vaccinated simply because of these advantages. 

Breaking into the legal system

Meanwhile, the pressure on the doubters and critics grew and grew. For them, the law lost its validity. They were punished and arrested,  dismissed or sued. 

In the belief in the vaccination narrative, unequal treatment is seen as just retribution. It is the victim's own fault, as they could have been vaccinated. The fact that vaccination is a voluntary medical intervention and that compulsory vaccination violates the human right to physical integrity was forgotten. 

There was no longer any real justice. Instead, the "source of infection" of the unvaccinated had to be combated. Democracy and the rule of law were paralyzed and allowed the legal system to be broken into at the expense of the unvaccinated and skeptics.

Human sacrifice

It can be assumed that many people would have liked to separate themselves from this renegade group for good. The fact that it did not come to that is due to this group of those who remained normal, those who were not convinced, those who questioned. It was relatively large and prevented worse things from happening through its public dissent, its walks, its appeal to reason and humanity.

Nevertheless, countless human casualties resulted. Politicians have been issuing new measures with the aim of vaccinating the entire population without weighing up the possible consequences. Economic lockdowns are causing global upheaval, corporate insolvencies and countless deaths from hunger in developing countries. Induced fear, feelings of guilt and isolation have psychological consequences. Mass administration of mRNA injections, legitimized only by emergency authorization, can have unpredictable side effects. 

Human sacrifice is the result of the mind going astray, caught up in an irrational theology of values. It is not seen or rationalized. Belief in the corona narrative rationalized the persecution of critics as a legal retaliation. It was supposedly carried out in the name of humanity and justice as well as in the name of science.

Science and media

The Robert Koch Institute became a political institution and any real, truth-seeking and therefore necessarily lateral-thinking scientists were discredited. Epidemiologists, the specialists for pandemics and epidemics, were rarely consulted to assess the situation. Instead, the government used and instrumentalized science solely for its own purposes.

There was no public criticism from the established media. Forgotten was their task of critically examining political decisions, forgotten the obligation to independence and diversity of opinion. Whether it was public radio, television or renowned daily newspapers - with a few exceptions, they all marched toe-to-toe with the political line. Platforms such as Twitter and YouTube censored dissenting opinions on a grand scale. They all excelled in the conformity of their reporting.

And so the coronavirus myth grew stronger, sprouting ever more insanity. Parents kept their children at a distance or locked them in the nursery. They were vaccinated because they could supposedly infect grandma. Meanwhile, she died alone in the home. Anyone with a positive PCR test was quarantined and monitored by the health authorities. The countless group dances were a particularly clear sign of people's psychotic state. Dance rage is a result of despair, helplessness and suffering. It already occurred in the Middle Ages as a result of the misery of the plague. [8] 

Ways out of the mass delusion and the present

Prevention and avoidance

"Not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself is the greatest danger to man. For the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst natural disasters," wrote C.G. Jung at the beginning of the last century. Humanity has continued to grow. We live in the age of 8 billion. How can we prevent the masses from becoming a monster that eats its own children again and again in the future? 

The signs listed in this text and other clear signs of a social delusional state are well known. They can be scientifically processed, used and disseminated. Recognizing mass phenomena in good time can lead to warning, prevention and avoidance of their emergence and the victims associated with them. Taking measures to combat and contain them can become a political task. 

When the first signs appear, a public warning would be issued and it would be pointed out that there is a risk of a mass formation developing. The symptoms would be recognized, adequate countermeasures would be initiated and the population would be prevented from slipping into this state. If people know about something, if they are aware of it, then they can recognize and classify it. They do not succumb to it powerlessly and helplessly. The probability that they will remain rational increases. 

If it were possible to raise general awareness of the vulnerability of the human psyche, this would be a real step forward for humanity. Self-reflection and the recognition of one's own weakness and mental instability would make people stronger. Becoming aware of our susceptibility to believing in irrational narratives and the knowledge of the cruel consequences - that would be a bitterly needed new enlightenment.

If, on the other hand, the delusion is not recognized as such, or is supported and fuelled by the media and politics, there is no end to it and it leads to the acting out of hatred against minorities, to a reign of terror, totalitarianism and thus to countless victims.

In-depth causes 

If the causes remain - isolation, unrationalized fear, frustration and aggression, uprooting and alienation - then the susceptibility to mass delusion also remains.

The coronavirus period has further exacerbated these causes. The loss of friends, arguments within families due to differing opinions, the division of the population into opponents and supporters alongside the focus on wage labor and consumption has increased many people's sense of abandonment and insecurity. They were deprived of the opportunity to act for themselves, to participate in the world. They sat isolated in their homes as living corpses, as Hannah Arendt called stateless people intimidated by terror measures. Resignation and a feeling of powerlessness spread.

In this situation, people lose their sense of community, their interest in helping to shape society and their sense of shared responsibility. For Hannah Arendt, these are the prerequisites for the spread of totalitarian ideas. [9]

The psychological instability of the majority of the population has them grasping at any straw, no matter how fragile, that politics holds out to them. Instead of freeing themselves from this delusion, they are fleeing into a new one. People long for leadership because they can no longer lead themselves. Their neglected individuality does not allow this and makes them fickle and susceptible to new delusional ideologies and ideas of victory. There is currently a real danger that these people, who may form the majority, will fall prey to an ideologically influenced leader figure.

Opposition

Part of the population was not caught up in the coronavirus scare, which was ultimately only the fear of their own death. They remained reasonable and many people from this section went public, spoke their minds freely, founded initiatives, organized demonstrations, wrote articles or produced podcasts. They resisted the enormous pressure exerted by the majority, the media and politicians. They formed the opposition. 

Every effort was made to silence them. The fact that this was not successful is an extremely important and fortunate circumstance. Because if the opposition remains silent, the worst crimes are imminent. In a mass delusion, it is therefore precisely the group that has remained reasonable that matters. They can appeal to the powers of conscience of people caught up in delusion and fear. For everyone is capable of returning to reason and humanity. Man is secretly aware of his delusion. A piece of intactness, a piece of rationality remains and thus the ability to become aware of one's own aberration. [4]

Reappraisal and democracy

The rehabilitation of this group would be a first step towards coming to terms with the coronavirus era and defending democracy. "The democratic state can only exist if there is a group within it that is even more democratic than itself." [4] In a closed system of mass delusion, society sinks to a lower level of development, one that turns away from democracy. 

The cultural decline can currently be seen, for example, in the described collapse of the legal system and the brutalization and paganization of behaviour. The advocacy of war, willingness to use violence and lust for war that can be observed in many countries indicate a loss of humanitarian principles. Genuine peace goals no longer exist. Many states are moving towards totalitarianism. New laws are directed against the basic values of democracy, restrict civil liberties and further intimidate populations. 

Instead of demanding and promoting open enlightenment, people resist it. They feel attacked in their self-esteem and fight to maintain their own irrational convictions. However, hostility towards enlightenment is the clearest sign of the still persistent clouding of reason. The delusional person flees from knowledge. [5]

It is now the ethical duty of democracy to liberate people from delusion. This liberation is possible. With the help of equally clear images, words and figures that have caused the delusion, the suffering, the victims and the senselessness can penetrate the consciousness and end the delusion. The source of the contagion can be exposed. The delusion is lifted and the fear of corona can turn into a fear of one's own delusion. 

Anger, responsibility and guilt

In the already disappointed part of the population that has experienced injustice or empathized with it, i.e. that has found its way back to reason, has become wise through harm or has not been seized by fear and panic in the first place, feelings of revenge are already arising. People have lost loved ones, are damaged by mRNA or suffer from the psychological consequences of exclusion. 

This is understandable, but there is a risk that this group will fall into the same mindset as the group of vaccinated people who attacked them before. Their anger could erupt and turn into a delusional state. This is what makes a reappraisal with the aim of maintaining or restoring social peace so necessary. It can act as an outlet for the pent-up anger and prevent acts of revenge.

But who is the anger directed at? Who bears responsibility? Who acted deliberately?

Who is culpable? What conduct is punishable under criminal law?

For Hannah Arendt, every person who suppresses the human in themselves and thoughtlessly fulfills a false, deadly duty is guilty. For her, there is no excuse for participating. No one has the right to obey. Only a child obeys. Every adult human being must question their actions. [9]

But how can people who are frightened and manipulated by the media, who believe they are acting for humanitarian reasons, question their actions? Can people who have lost their reason, their personality and their view of reality out of fear and in the belief that obedience and the fulfillment of duty are necessary for survival be held accountable for their actions?

The man at the Hamburg train station who accosted anyone who wasn't wearing a mask properly? The relatives and friends who urged people to vaccinate their children? The doctor who even vaccinated at night, believing he was doing the right thing and protecting people? The presenter who publicly defamed unvaccinated people? The journalist who hated and incited? The artist who promoted vaccination?

This question is difficult to answer. From the point of view of mass psychology, the behavior of people infected by delusion can only be judged in the light of their mental aberration. They trusted the government and science, but in doing so they relinquished their own responsibility. According to Hannah Arendt, they should not have done so. For everyone is guilty themselves and especially when they transfer responsibility for their actions to others.

However, the people who were convinced by the coronavirus narrative in their fear were acting under special psychological conditions. They were no longer able to be rational and reasonable and their guilt is possibly limited to the extent that their ability to think was or still is limited.

It is therefore necessary to weigh up and differentiate on a case-by-case basis. People who were swept along by the mass delusion and believed they were doing the right thing were most likely the majority. In addition, there were people who recognized the aberration and injustice, but did not name either for reasons of convenience or as a result of the intimidation measures, but instead allowed it to happen in silence. The behavior of people who, against their better judgment, supported the corona narrative solely for career reasons or to maintain and exercise power must be judged differently. They had not lost their reason to fear and acted deliberately. 

The person who deliberately causes fears or intensifies existing fears and plunges the masses into a fear psychosis in order to achieve certain goals is also fully culpable. He is the cause of the mass delusion and responsible for its consequences. 

Cui Bono?

In order to clarify whether these people exist and who they are in a capital-driven world, the following questions can be helpful: Who benefited from fear and political measures? Who benefited? Cui bono? Aren't the people who risked the health of billions of people and accepted their harm, including death, for the sake of profit actually responsible? Who were the financial profiteers? 

Were there people who exploited and abused their financial power? Did they buy politics, science and the media and manipulate them in such a way that their goal of generating enormous profits was realized? Have they used psychological laws to their own advantage and deliberately caused mass psychosis? If these people exist, and there are many indications that they do, they must be convicted and their behavior made a criminal offense in the future.

Guilt cannot be passed on to an authority. Even if it accepts responsibility voluntarily or under pressure. There is no free pass for crime. Therefore, those who, knowing about the side effects of a new mRNA treatment, nevertheless market it on a global scale, are responsible for the consequences of their actions. So if politicians have taken on this responsibility on paper, they are responsible to a considerable extent, but the effects of mRNA on human health are largely the responsibility of the manufacturers or the manufacturers' decision-makers.

Anyone who allows themselves to be instrumentalized by these manufacturers and thus harms the population is guilty. Anyone who concludes contracts for years in advance for pharmaceuticals whose benefits and necessity have not been proven is guilty. Anyone who adopts political measures or advocates compulsory vaccination simply so that a vaccine can be sold and billions of taxpayers' money can be justified is guilty. Anyone who organizes exclusion, coercion and violation of the law is guilty.

Disappearance and continuation of the madness

After a complete reappraisal, the actual course of events during the coronavirus years would be revealed, cause and effect would be clarified and people would become aware of their deception. The mass delusion would disappear at the same time as people became aware of the facts that caused it. [4] What was this fact? It was the fomenting and exploitation of a fear of a relatively harmless viral disease with the aim of selling a pharmaceutical product by the billions and exercising power. The fear thus loses its justification and the delusion disappears.

However, only the delusion that grew out of the coronavirus scare will disappear. Every new delusion needs to be dealt with separately. At present, it seems that the belief in victory has merely changed its enemy. Having failed to defeat the virus, the masses now want to triumph over Russia and the climate. The delusion continues.

This is not surprising. This is because, as explained above, the causes of the delusion are still well established, have deepened during the coronavirus period and are currently experiencing further intensification. Civil liberties are being further restricted by the government with the help of new laws and the expansion of surveillance by the secret service is further intimidating the population and silencing them.

The bureaucratic-technocratic machine is expanding. It is the epitome of the banality of evil, because it executes without humanitarian consideration. Its sole purpose is to be busy. It obeys and mindlessly fulfills its prescribed duty. [10] The state becomes oversized and the central and determining value. Mechanistic thinking prevails.

The majority of the media are not yet back on the side of the population. The RKI is still bound by political directives and is not independent. A genuine rule of law, equality before the law and the protection of civil liberties have not yet been restored. There is still an obligation to tolerate the coronavirus vaccination for Bundeswehr soldiers. Many people are still hostile towards each other or are stuck in their false collective bonds. The belief in victory has not yet been conquered. Fear of war and the climate continues to be stoked. 

Uncertainty therefore remains high and the essential, fundamental question to be asked is: How do we gain new security?

Renewal

If we don't want to stumble from one fear to the next, we need an idea. An idea that gives us stability and allows us to look positively to the future. This would not only protect us from irrational fears and the slide into mass delusion, but would also revitalize our culture.

This idea does not have to be new. Renewal can also mean re-founding something that already existed. For example, a liberal-democratic society whose values and norms have fallen by the wayside can be re-established. Democracy, justice, fraternity, freedom, equality and peace can once again become central and desirable values. 

A new beginning can also mean preventing a revolution that is not wanted by the majority and is fraught with great risks and dangers. Social upheavals in the name of climate protection or in preparation for war are such revolutions. 

As sovereigns, the population could fearlessly confront leviathanist policies and make concrete demands. They could confront mass madness not with fear, but with the knowledge of its causes. The creation of freedom from need, fear and coercion as a prerequisite for a life in humanity, human dignity and community in an open society - this could become a new delusion-free dream that would lead to a long period of normality and freedom of choice.

Meanwhile, the susceptibility to psychotic aberrations remains. This is because the human brain obviously tends to fall into fantastic states of belief and commit acts of madness. The ecstasy of the unleashed communal experience of a mass delusion seems too good for people to escape from in the long term.