Mass Psychosis

 An amazing video showed up on my Facebook feed today! It is called MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL. If you have 22 minutes (11 minutes at 2X), you might want to watch it now.

Assuming you have watched it, you probably noticed that the graphics implied the target psychosis was what might be called COVID mania. In my view, COVID mania is a mass psychosis, but so are the other "issues" that are driving the political narrative, including the immigration debate. But this is all politics offers us—one mass psychosis after another. We can call the two current most virulent strains The Great Reset Psychosis—which includes COVID mania and catastrophic climate change—and the MAGA Psychosis—which includes anti-immigration, China demonization, protectionism, and the belief that only Donald Trump can provide the antidote to the Great Reset Crisis.

That being said, those who suffer from these psychoses will most likely see the insanity of their opposition and deny that of their own. It takes a big person to realize their own behavior as insane. The real problem is that, having recognized that insanity, it is unlikely that the revelation will cause them to adopt a libertarian, classical liberal, or "live and let live" position, as politics virtually demands the adoption of a psychosis.

As long as people believe that the existence of the state is a benefit, and that it must be governed through politics, there will be no end of psychoses followed by death and destruction. 

“Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato”—Benito Mussolini

 Mussolini's fascist slogan, translated as "everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state," is the underlying theme of an article published by Mariana Mazzucato on Time Magazine's Web site as It's 2023. Here's How We Fixed the Global Economy.

This utopia, straight out of the fascist playbooks of the 1920s and 1930s, and possibly even owing an intellectual debt to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, will have its own Albert Speers bringing forth the next generation of fascist architecture. One wonders why this splendid utopia has not been brought forth in the past, as Bellamy's book projected; and why so many of the attempts to achieve heaven-on-earth have succeeded primarily in bringing hell-on-earth to the world in addition to the domestic population.

We only need to look to California, our own little laboratory of utopian social engineering, to observe the results of efforts that Mazzucato would endorse. Escalating homelessness, a failing high-speed rail project, and a power grid, due to an emphasis on renewables, that is inadequate to meet demand are just the high points for a state that is losing large numbers of businesses and citizens due to high costs, taxes, and regulations.

It leads one to wonder, who is it that really ignores empirical data? How is it that success stories like Hong Kong (created by John Cowperthwaite and described by Milton Friedman) and post-World-War-2 Germany (the German Wirtschaftswunder, heavily influenced by the economic liberal and Mont Pelerin Society member Ludwig Erhard) are ignored. And why is it that failures like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. are also ignored. At this moment, I believe it is due to our imaginations—our imaginations that make it possible to believe in a return to the Garden of Eden.

Liberal Fascism

I have just finished the book, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The book is quite informative, although not as well-written as I would like and somewhat weakened by the religious orientation that leaks through in a number of places.

Modern liberalism (not the extension of classical liberalism that I support) is clearly linked with the the ideology of fascism of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the author does not identify the neo-cons as heirs to this same ideology, as he himself is a contributor to "National Review" and a supporter their interventionist policy. However, the extensive research as reflected in the end notes is valuable to anyone who suspects that modern liberalism is not quite the compassionate philosophy projected on the Huffington Post.