Great read! I recommend taking ~10 minutes of your time to check it out. In past 2+ years I became even more fascinated by human nature/psychology watching the world and it's people respond to COVID. This article talks about two phenomenon: Mass Formation (which I had heard of) and Mimetic Contagion (which I had not heard of). Makes a lot of sense on how folks responded or continue to respond.

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As Professor Desmet of the University of Ghent describes, under conditions of mass formation, people buy into a narrative not because it is true, but because it cements a social bond they desperately need.

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In addition to the mass formation theory, the insights of Stanford Professor Rene Girard, one of the 20th Century's greatest thinkers, on mimetic contagion and the scapegoating mechanism are helpful to understand this phenomenon. In many ways, this complements the mass formation account. Girard saw that we imitate not only one another's behaviors, but one another's desires. We end up wanting the same thing(s), e.g., "I need to be first in line for the vaccine, which will let me get my life back."

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https://brownstone.org/articles/the-psychology-of-mimetic-contagion/

There are group setting studies where study participants when alone answer a simple question correctly 99% of the time, but in a setting of 3 others who choose the same wrong answer, the study participants copy the group and answer incorrectly over 70% of the time. Basically, people care a lot more about being aligned, or at least appearing to be aligned with group think than they do about truth.

Similar to everyone remebers the movie Shazam staring the actor Sinbad

So to summarize 9 out of 10 people
Are sheep and need to be loved by fellow sheep to provide self worth in this life.

Heard stuff like that before. It's like an instinct. The need to be in a group for survival.

Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

bmks270 said:

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There are group setting studies where study participants when alone answer a simple question correctly 99% of the time, but in a setting of 3 others who choose the same wrong answer, the study participants copy the group and answer incorrectly over 70% of the time. Basically, people care a lot more about being aligned, or at least appearing to be aligned with group think than they do about truth.

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Sort of my theory on trivia nights at bars or wherever. I've always been a fan of smaller teams of 2 or 3 people total. Sure, with larger teams that's more ideas, and maybe a better chance of getting a right answer on a more difficult question. But with larger teams, you have more of a possibility of getting into little bickers about an answer, or you'll have a teammate that everyone else trusts more or looks to and they'll chose his or her answer even though it could be wrong. With smaller groups, it's less bickering.

Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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Why?

This explains the behavior of deviants. A deviant cannot be happy existing in the margins because of the inherent human desire to belong to a group. However, the deviant is also not willing to conform to the standards of the non-deviant so he/she is driven to create more deviants and legitimize the deviancy in order to satisfy the need to feel normal and accepted.

I would also contend that the more severe the deviancy from the normal, the more dramatic the effort to normalize and grow the deviancy will become.

Jeeper79 said:

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Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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Why?

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Leftism focuses on the collective, conservatism focuses on the individual. Under an extreme left economic system, the fruits of labor belong to the collective. Under extreme conservatism, the fruits of labor belong to the individual.

Conservatism is about getting everyone to leave you alone, leftism is about getting everyone to agree with you.

Jeeper79 said:

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Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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Why?

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Because humans are largely wired to put their faith in something higher/bigger than themselves. You see the atheistic left increasingly embracing their political ideologies as their religion and behaving like blindly faithful and devout zealots. When told to jump by their pagan religious leaders, they don't even have to ask how high. They will ridicule and even hurt others who aren't jumping. They are simply less independent and FAR more susceptible to mass formation psychosis. This lack of independence would naturally make them more vulnerable to mimetic contagion as well. They mimic other fellow zealots and find kinship and comfort in being like minded lemmings.

Conservatives and Christians are far more likely to be independent and to put their faith in God over man. It's largely why this country was founded in such a unique and ground breaking form. Where rights came from God...where the government was designed to be the servants of the citizenry...not our controlling overlords.

From the onset of COVID, even before things became hyper political, liberals were FAR more likely to be blindly compliant to whatever their overlords commanded of the populace.

Crichton hit on quite a bit of this in State of Fear:

"Even if you don't believe in any God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious."

"When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power."

"I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences."

"The world was not how you wanted it to be. The world was how it was."

"We need a new mechanism to fund research. Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done. And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. This is not a good system for research into those areas of science that affect policy. Even worse, the system works against problem solving. Because if you solve a problem, your funding ends. All that's got to change."

"For the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM."

"I study the ecology of thought. And how it has led to a State of Fear."

"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known."

"If you believe in nothing, you'll believe in anything."

bmks270 said:

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There are group setting studies where study participants when alone answer a simple question correctly 99% of the time, but in a setting of 3 others who choose the same wrong answer, the study participants copy the group and answer incorrectly over 70% of the time. Basically, people care a lot more about being aligned, or at least appearing to be aligned with group think than they do about truth.

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Yes, the data supports this on many issues.

COVID was really a fascinating phenomenon in revealing the difference in mindset between the left and the right. Ostensibly, COVID was a non-political issue at it's core (ignoring for now all the lies we know about now), yet it didn't take long to see great differences in human behavior that happened to fall seemingly inexplicably along left/right lines on a scientific issue which should not have had a great political component.

Of course it eventually became a very political issue, but the behavior differences preceded the obvious political instrument it became later on.

Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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I don't understand the reasoning of this. Perhaps you were meaning to assert that individuals involved in a religion have a stronger tie to their "believed" truth then a-religious persons. That stronger tie gives them the confidence to stand firm in what they believe even if that outcasts them. Their loyalty to the religion could however just be thought of as a group that they always identify with even when not physically present. So they are still largely participating in a group social structure it just manifests itself differently.

Interestingly the Jewish tradition where scapegoat derives is one where the sinner would bring 2 goats, one to be sacrificed and another sent off into the wilderness bearing the sin and the sinner forgiven and sins forgotten.

At least that's how I remember it.

How many goats do we need to sacrifice in this country?

Rene Girard is the man!

People, especially those with limited capacity for critical thought, are basically lemmings.

Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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It's evenly distributed. It has nothing at all to do with politics or beliefs.

Religion has its own sense of conforming to belong. I'm not sure I'd cast that stone.

This is why Ds vote D no matter what. And why twitter is valuable. Too many are plugged in and can't leave. Kinda like Apple and Disney.

96AgGrad said:

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Religion has its own sense of conforming to belong. I'm not sure I'd cast that stone.

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Of course it does. That's Rene Girard's point. The vast majority of religious find their origin in memetic desire and sacred violence. He shows how this is different with Christianity in that Jesus Christ exposed the scapegoat mechanism for what it truly is. This is why the Western world is haunted by the cross.

Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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So to summarize 9 out of 10 people
Are sheep and need to be loved by fellow sheep to provide self worth in this life.

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This is exactly why it only takes around 5-10% of a population who are incorruptible or intolerant of other views to change a population. The sheep always follow along.

Jeeper79 said:

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Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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Why?

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Well, the majority of you think a man can get pregnant, so…

Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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So to summarize 9 out of 10 people
Are sheep and need to be loved by fellow sheep to provide self worth in this life.

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Well yes, if you are a leader you need followers. While the exact ratio of 1:10 leader to followers is arguable, the notion that leaders make up a minority of the population is not. If everyone was a leader, no one would be a leader.

It is important therefore to acknowledge the burden placed on leaders. There battle is largely high risk as they are expected to rise up against a majority. They are however compensated by the potential of high reward should their efforts prove fruitful.

Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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So to summarize 9 out of 10 people
Are sheep and need to be loved by fellow sheep to provide self worth in this life.

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Yep.

Just like in Nazi Germany, there were 5% of people doing/orchestrating the evil, 90% going along with it, and 5% risking their reputations and lives to fight against it.

This is how it's always worked and why freedom of speech is so important.

Once you can silence the latter 5% then you have total control on narrative formation and the 90% will blindly follow.

Look. I'm still seeing people wear masks. That's all you need to know.

Serotonin said:

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Detmersdislocatedshoulder said:

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So to summarize 9 out of 10 people
Are sheep and need to be loved by fellow sheep to provide self worth in this life.

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Yep.

Just like in Nazi Germany, there were 5% of people doing/orchestrating the evil, 90% going along with it, and 5% risking their reputations and lives to fight against it.

This is how it's always worked and why freedom of speech is so important.

Once you can silence the latter 5% then you have total control on narrative formation and the 90% will blindly follow.

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Not sure F16 is ready to talk about the latter 5%. It was discussed a few weeks ago on F49 if you want to check out the thread though, it's kind of interesting.

texagbeliever said:

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Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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I don't understand the reasoning of this. Perhaps you were meaning to assert that individuals involved in a religion have a stronger tie to their "believed" truth then a-religious persons. That stronger tie gives them the confidence to stand firm in what they believe even if that outcasts them. Their loyalty to the religion could however just be thought of as a group that they always identify with even when not physically present. So they are still largely participating in a group social structure it just manifests itself differently.

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That thing you call "manifests itself differently" is what is known as Judeo-Christian principles the basis of western civilization.

Our existential enemy china and the ccp cannot defeat us until they have broken the bond western culture has with Judeo-Christian principles.

F the ccp and anyone in our country who embraces or shills for those evil bas***ds.

geoag58 said:

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texagbeliever said:

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Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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I don't understand the reasoning of this. Perhaps you were meaning to assert that individuals involved in a religion have a stronger tie to their "believed" truth then a-religious persons. That stronger tie gives them the confidence to stand firm in what they believe even if that outcasts them. Their loyalty to the religion could however just be thought of as a group that they always identify with even when not physically present. So they are still largely participating in a group social structure it just manifests itself differently.

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That thing you call "manifests itself differently" is what is known as Judeo-Christian principles the basis of western civilization.

Our existential enemy china and the ccp cannot defeat us until they have broken the bond western culture has with Judeo-Christian principles.

F the ccp and anyone in our country who embraces or shills for those evil bas***ds.

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I think you are missing my point. I think Christianity is essential to a free society as it creates a strong rock that binds people to better cultural truths. What I wanted to point out was that it is not right side leaders, left side sheep. Such thinking is an illusion that is brought on by a bias of one side thinking they are better and above the simpleton pitfalls of the other. It is better to be mindful of the actual condition. Doing so helps one realize how important Christianity is on our society and how beneficial a healthy church is.

bmks270 said:

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There are group setting studies where study participants when alone answer a simple question correctly 99% of the time, but in a setting of 3 others who choose the same wrong answer, the study participants copy the group and answer incorrectly over 70% of the time. Basically, people care a lot more about being aligned, or at least appearing to be aligned with group think than they do about truth.

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Interesting. I wonder how much of the phenomenon is due to a desire to align with group think vs a lack of confidence in the subject of their own knowledge and intelligence.

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The anger of the new social mass gets directed precisely against the people who do not want to participate in the mass formation, who reject the basis for the new social bond. For months, with high profile figures from the President to public health officials lamenting the "pandemic of the unvaccinated," it became clear who was the designated target: those who declined social distancing, mask wearing, vaccination, or other covid measures.

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Look at the chart below from 2018 to see how the social mass forms. Then they gaslight by labeling anyone who is neutral as an extremist. For example, Musk will allow all voices to participate in twitter, therefore he is a dangerous extremist.

"He who fights with sheep should be careful lest he thereby become a sheep. And if thou gaze long into propaganda, the propaganda will also gaze into thee."

I don't agree with the premise of the OP, even if every other poster in the thread does.

texagbeliever said:

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geoag58 said:

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texagbeliever said:

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Boo Weekley said:

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Makes sense that this type of mentality would be FAR more prevalent among non-religious people on the left.

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I don't understand the reasoning of this. Perhaps you were meaning to assert that individuals involved in a religion have a stronger tie to their "believed" truth then a-religious persons. That stronger tie gives them the confidence to stand firm in what they believe even if that outcasts them. Their loyalty to the religion could however just be thought of as a group that they always identify with even when not physically present. So they are still largely participating in a group social structure it just manifests itself differently.

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That thing you call "manifests itself differently" is what is known as Judeo-Christian principles the basis of western civilization.

Our existential enemy china and the ccp cannot defeat us until they have broken the bond western culture has with Judeo-Christian principles.

F the ccp and anyone in our country who embraces or shills for those evil bas***ds.

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I think you are missing my point. I think Christianity is essential to a free society as it creates a strong rock that binds people to better cultural truths. What I wanted to point out was that it is not right side leaders, left side sheep. Such thinking is an illusion that is brought on by a bias of one side thinking they are better and above the simpleton pitfalls of the other. It is better to be mindful of the actual condition. Doing so helps one realize how important Christianity is on our society and how beneficial a healthy church is.

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I almost edited my post to include how Judeo-Christian thought recognizes each individual has a relationship with the Creator and only come together based upon the shared belief of each individual believer not from any dogma the state may attempt to enforce.