Top-Expert REVEALS: EU in Grip of Deadly Mass-Formation | Prof. Mattias Desmet

## Mass formation and totalitarianism The conversation with Prof. Mattias Desmet centers on a blunt but unsettling diagnosis: whole societies can slide into psychological states in which a sizeable minority seizes emotional and moral primacy, creating a social dynamic that is radically impermeable to dissent. Desmet’s account reframes totalitarianism not merely as a set of institutions or brutal leaders but as a group-level psychological metamorphosis—what he calls “mass formation”—that makes large-scale fanaticism, self-sacrifice, and mutual surveillance possible. This lens helps explain why otherwise thoughtful people can endorse policies or narratives that, from other vantage points, look clearly self-destructive. Mass formation, in Desmet’s usage, is a collective process that restructures individual cognition. When groups cohere around an emotionally charged narrative, critical distance collapses. Facts that contradict the group story are ignored or reinterpreted; opposing voices are treated as existential threats; and members of the in-group become willing to accept sacrifices, including loss of civil liberties or even lives, to preserve the shared story. The psychological transformation is as much about identity and meaning as about information: the ideology provides emotional relief from isolation and confusion, and this emotional function cements loyalty. ## Totalitarianism vs dictatorship One of the clearest corrective in the exchange is the distinction between totalitarianism and classical dictatorship. A dictatorship depends on instruments of coercion: a monopoly on violence and the fear it elicits. Totalitarianism, by contrast, is sustained from within the populace through the internalization of an all-encompassing ideology by a motivated segment of society. Desmet points out that historical totalitarian regimes—Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia—did not merely rule by force; they rode on the back of mass formations that made many citizens willing enforcers and informants. This difference has practical consequences for how these systems emerge and persist. In a classical dictatorship, compliance is often external and instrumental: people obey because the cost of disobedience is high. In a totalitarian setting, compliance is internalized and affective: agents of the regime believe they are doing the right thing. That internalization breeds a different kind of social surveillance—neighbors reporting neighbors, family members betraying kin—not because they are coerced directly but because they have been persuaded, emotionally and ideologically, that betrayal is virtuous. The result is a social fabric transformed into an instrument of control. ## War narratives and media power The conversation moves naturally from theory to the present: Desmet argues that Europe’s current public mood over conflict with Russia illustrates the power of mediated narratives. When broad swathes of a population absorb a single, emotionally potent story—about imminent threats, moral clarity, and heroic response—policy decisions that risk catastrophic outcomes suddenly gain popular legitimacy. The media environment amplifies this effect by repeatedly broadcasting the same frames, giving the impression of consensus and inevitability. Mass communication technology heightens the effect Desmet describes. In the twentieth century, radio and television created synchronous publics; in the digital age, social media and 24/7 news cycles accelerate and fragment narratives while still privileging viral, emotionally charged content. Repetition, emotional arousal, and networked reinforcement make corrective facts hard to introduce once a mass formation has started. Desmet uses the recent wars and the COVID era as examples where repetition and moral framing produced behavioral and attitudinal patterns that resisted ordinary counterargument. ## Education propaganda and democracy Perhaps the most provocative claim concerns the role of education. Contrary to intuition, Desmet suggests that higher formal education—especially when it produces conformity of thought and a shared intellectual habit—can increase vulnerability to mass formation. Educational systems that emphasize standardized responses, reward conformity, and disincentivize genuine independent thinking can create citizens who are superb at operating within a given mainstream narrative and poorly equipped to interrogate it. This is not an indictment of schools as malicious institutions, but a critique of what modern mass schooling often accomplishes unconsciously: it socializes people into common frameworks, standard modes of reasoning, and accepted moral dictionaries. Those same skills make large populations more receptive to coordinated messages later in life because they already share the cognitive scripts that propaganda exploits. For a functioning democracy, this suggests a double task: improving media literacy and cultivating educational practices that nurture critical independence rather than merely efficient conformity. ## Mechanics of mass formation Desmet unpacks a set of psychological mechanics that together create fertile ground for mass formation. Loneliness and social atomization are central. As communities fragment and social ties weaken, individuals experience existential anxieties—meaninglessness, lack of belonging—that ideological narratives can fill. A compelling story that promises moral clarity and group belonging has enormous psychic appeal; it reduces uncertainty and replaces isolation with communal purpose. Another mechanical element is proportion: Desmet points to a critical mass—often a minority of 20–30 percent—whose intense commitment can impose its logic on the wider society. This minority, highly motivated and emotionally invested, doesn’t need a majority to create a totalitarian dynamic; their fanaticism is contagious, their intolerance toward dissent coercive, and their readiness to report or punish nonconformity creates a chilling effect. The dynamic is self-reinforcing: the more dissent is suppressed, the more the group’s story appears unchallenged, and the more people join in to avoid being ostracized or targeted. Interpersonal processes—guilt, shame, pride, fear—are the micro-level levers that keep the formation intact. Propaganda or rhetoric works not only by transmitting claims but by managing feelings: it casts opponents as parasites or traitors, gives in-group members roles as heroic actors, and channels diffuse anxieties into a focused political program. Once those emotional circuits are activated, counterfactual information loses persuasive power because the disagreement is experienced as an attack on identity, not as a debate over propositions. ## Breaking the spell with sincerity If mass formations are sustained by affective and identity-based energies, counteracting them requires more than fact-checking; it requires rebuilding social relations and offering authentic alternatives to the emotional functions the ideology serves. Desmet highlights sincerity as a strategic and ethical antidote. Sincerity here means honest, nonperformative communication that restores trust: individuals speaking honestly about doubts, losses, and uncertainties can puncture the performative confidence of mass narratives. Practically, sincerity combines three moves. First, create spaces where people can express private worries without fear of moral condemnation. Second, model intellectual humility—acknowledging complexity rather than offering simplistic certainties. Third, prioritize relational repair: rebuilding small-scale communities that offer belonging without ideological strings. These interventions are not glamorous and they take time, but they attack the scaffolding of mass formation by satisfying people’s needs for connection and meaning in ways that do not involve submission to a totalizing story. ## Truth reality and the observer 00: The exchange concludes by touching on episte

EU in Grip of Deadly Mass-Formation | Prof. Mattias Desmet It‘s not just the leaders of the EU who want to go to a suicidal war with Russia. The psychosis has long reached even the streets of Berlin, Brussels and Paris. Mass-Formation is the psychological phenomenon to understand why entire nations are suddenly willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING for a deadly ideology. Unfortunately, the EU is far down the road. Today I speak with Dr. Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology in Belgium and author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, about mass formation, totalitarianism, propaganda, loneliness, free speech, war narratives, and the emotional pull of group belief. The discussion covers the difference between dictatorships and totalitarian states, the role of education and media, and sincerity as a way to resist mass hypnosis. Links: Mattias Desmet Substack: https://words.mattiasdesmet.org/ The Psychology of Totalitarianism: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-psychology-of-totalitarianism/ Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch: https://neutralitystudies-shop. fourthwall.com Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:50 Mass formation and totalitarianism 00:10:02 Totalitarianism vs dictatorship 00:18:18 War narratives and media power 00:20:30 Education propaganda and democracy 00:32:18 Mechanics of mass formation 00:43:40 Breaking the spell with sincerity 00:50:40 Truth reality and the observer 00: 57:42 Final thoughts and where to follow #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutralized Studies. I'm Pascal Lottaz, and I'm joined today by Dr. Matthias Desmet, a professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium, a practicing psychotherapist, and one of the world's leading scholars on the theory of mass formation, as well as the author of the wonderful book *The Psychology of Totalitarianism*. Matthias, welcome. #Mattias Desmet Thank you for having me, Pascal. #Pascal It's great having you. You are one of the voices that was very, very important during the COVID-19 mass formation. You are the person who championed that kind of interpretation. And you wrote this very important book trying to make sense psychologically of some of the tendencies that we've been seeing going on in Europe, in society. Can we maybe talk a little bit about this? Can we start with the concept of mass formation and how it links up with totalitarianism? -- 1 of 18 -- #Mattias Desmet Yes, that's a good point to start. Well, you know, I started doing a PhD at Ghent University in Belgium back in 2003. And I was supposed to do classical research in psychology where I would investigate the associations between certain personality traits and depressive symptoms. You know, it might seem like a strange point to start going into the topic of totalitarianism, but you will see it is related. So I started to do classical research in psychology, and after a few months, I had a feeling that these research methods that I was supposed to use, where I would measure the psychological characteristics and then compute statistical correlations between them, actually could not possibly lead to valid results. And because when I measured the same psychological characteristic, for instance, a personality trait, in three different ways, the results were often completely different. And I asked my PhD promoter whether, rather than doing this classical research in psychology, I could just investigate the validity of research methods in psychology. And I was granted permission to do so. And then, when I was investigating these research methods in psychology, after about two years, the replication crisis started in the sciences, which actually showed that the vast majority of published research papers are false. And there was this famous paper, of course, by John Ioannidis, which was titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False." So this problem I stumbled upon in psychology turned out to be quite widespread in the sciences. Like, more than 85% of the papers cannot be reproduced, which means that they actually have no scientific validity at all. And the strange thing was, on the basis of the results of my PhD, I published my first book, a very small book. I don't have a copy with me here now, but it's a very small book titled *The Pursuit of Objectivity in Psychology*. And I made it clear, I think in a very clear way, in such a way that even a child maybe could understand, when it sees certain examples, that the research methods in psychology cannot possibly lead to valid conclusions. And the strange thing was, at that moment, that every time I gave a presentation or a lecture about this phenomenon, where I really presented the audience with these very simple examples showing that, for instance, the measurement methods in psychology are not reliable and not valid, and that they contain too much measurement error to do meaningful statistical inference, every time I presented this, I could see the same thing. A few people in the audience, maybe a few percent, like two or three percent, were very enthusiastic and wanted to know more. But more than 90 percent, or at least many of them, got angry with me. And when I asked them, like, OK, but tell me, why would I be wrong? Can you show me? You know, I have a PhD in psychology, but also a master's degree in statistics, so I'm a statistician as well. And every time I asked them, like, show me, where is my statistical mistake? Where is the mathematical mistake in my line of reasoning? Nobody ever gave me an answer, because I think it was clear that from a mathematical point of view, I was right. And at that moment, I just started to become -- 2 of 18 -- fascinated by something very strange — that under certain conditions, very intelligent people, because my colleagues at the university are very intelligent people... They are highly intelligent people. But under certain conditions, highly intelligent people can buy into a narrative that is actually absurd. And no matter what you do, they will refuse to drop the narrative. They will continue to buy into it. So, somewhere around 2013 or so, I started to go into mass psychology because I started to become aware of the fact that this strange expert blindness, as I sometimes call it, this strange blindness of people under certain conditions, cannot be explained on the basis of individual psychology alone. You need to understand how people—and people's identity, people's cognitive functioning—is in the grip of psychological processes at the level of the group to which they belong. So that's where I got interested. And after a few years, maybe, I started to become aware that—so I started to read about mass psychology. And after a while, after a few years, I started to become aware of the fact that actually this phenomenon, for which I coined the term "mass formation"—the term was used by Gustave Le Bon as well, a few times, and Sigmund Freud as well, I think, used it a few times—but then I used it as the major term to indicate the strange phenomenon of group formation, which has this very strange effect at the level of individual psychological functioning. So, like mass formation—when people are in the grip of a mass formation, they will typically be incapable of taking a critical distance from everything the group believes in. And when the group believes in the most absurd things, people will buy into it, no matter how intelligent they are. They will become willing to radically self-sacrifice. That's another very strange characteristic of mass formation: people in the grip of a mass formation are willing to radically self-sacrifice. And then the most dangerous thing, of course, is that they will typically become radically intolerant of dissonant voices, of everyone who thinks differently. And like this strange phenomenon, I started to become aware of the fact that actually this phenomenon of mass formation is the basis of totalitarianism. The phenomenon of mass formation is what makes totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, which are, of course, the most famous examples. So the phenomenon of mass formation is what makes totalitarian states completely different from classical dictatorships. And most people mix up the two. Most people think that Nazi Germany was a dictatorship. Not at all. Or that the Soviet Union was a classical dictatorship. That's not true at all. It's completely different. And the difference is that in a totalitarian state, a totalitarian state at the psychological level is based on a mass formation, and a classical dictatorship isn't. #Pascal Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this can happen anytime again. So please consider subscribing not only here, but to my mailing list on Substack. That's pascallottaz.substack.com. The link's going to be in the description below. And -- 3 of 18 -- now back to the video. So you're viewing then the totalitarian state as something that goes psychologically much, much deeper than just the power structures, right, of the political power structures that are built. They essentially include this fanatic belief by a large number of the group into the core tenets of the group that exist. That's about it, right? And it's not just that the guy on the top has all the weapons and then is able to coerce everybody into submission. #Mattias Desmet No, no, exactly. That would be a classical dictatorship. Like in a classical dictatorship, there is this dictatorial regime which indeed, as you said, has all the weapons, and people are scared of the aggressive potential of the regime. And so they just accept that the dictatorial regime unilaterally imposes its social contract on them. That's a classical dictatorship. But a totalitarian state is something much, much, much, much more powerful at the psychological level. In a totalitarian state, a totalitarian state usually starts in the population. That means that a part of the population starts to believe fanatically in a certain ideology. For instance, the race theories, which were popular before the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany, or historical materialism, Marxism, which became very popular in the Soviet Union, in Russia, by the end of the 19th century. So first, the beginning of a totalitarian state is a process, a psychological process, where a certain part of the population, usually not much more than 20 to 30%—so it's not everyone, definitely not—like 20 to 30% of the population starts to believe fanatically in a certain ideology. And because of the emotional function this ideology has in this part of the population, a mass formation can emerge where people so fanatically believe in the ideology that they are incapable of seeing everything in reality which is in contrast or in conflict with that ideology. And where they start to believe so fanatically in it that they are willing to self-sacrifice, to sacrifice their lives for it. And where they start to feel very aggressive against everyone who doesn't buy into the ideology. So that's what's happening in a totalitarian state. And once this process of mass formation emerges in society, there is a chance that there are certain rhetorically gifted people who use it to seize control of the state apparatus. So they present themselves as Hitler did, as Lenin did. They present themselves as those who incarnate all the virtues of this ideology, and they use the masses to seize control. And then a state system emerges which, as Hannah Arendt very eloquently said in her *Origins of Totalitarianism*, has a huge secret police. Namely, this part of the population which blindly, fanatically buys into the state ideology and who are willing to report everyone to the state who doesn't buy fanatically into this ideology. So that