"Propaganda is one of the features of society. It has existed in different forms all over history, but in modern times it has taken an especially vicious role by taking a shape that looks like a form of social dementia. If you think about it, propaganda has all the characteristics that signal dementia in an individual.
— Lack of Empathy (“They are human animals”)
— Simplified concepts and lack of in-depth analysis (“War on Terror”)
— Refusal to accept different ideas (“You are Putin’s troll”)
— Indifference to other people’s suffering (“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”)
— Focusing on oneself (“My country, right or wrong”)
— Rigid behavior and inability to change course (“Better dead than red”)
— Obsessions (Bringing them democracy, wokeism, face masks, and many more)"
Social dementia is such a good term for these things.
Societies should be caring and look after the needs of all people, and we're so far away from anything like this in the western world.
Just more wars, including a brutal and ongoing genocide that western governments are supporting, and austerity causing hunger, homelessness and ill health at home. Not to mention the ongoing development of fossil fuels during a climate crisis.
I disagree to this justification "has existed in different forms all over history, but in modern times it has taken an especially vicious role by taking a shape that looks like a form of social dementia." The school you went, or the one I did is also a source of propaganda. Modern propaganda cannot work without ‘education’… thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda.
Not so sure... certainly you are right that propaganda is much more effective with people who are trained at school to listen and to ask no questions. But propaganda is much more ancient than that. I found the first examples in the 2nd book of the Iliad. That's why I wrote "different forms."
Hi Ugo...what about Francisco Franco (Spain), Pinochet (Chile) or Juan Domingo Peron (Argentina). All ruthless dictators or torchbearers of the Euro-style-dictatorship. This dementia label does not work, as an answer to power that corrupts in any way it can, and has in the past. By this "dementia logic" even current leaders like Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu etc are all demented? No. They are vicious, powerful and clever, and always backed by the Oligarch and the rest of the petty-bourgeois. Alas, without propaganda there is no education, which is fundamental to direct people towards whatever direction.
The separation between evil and demented is thin. Both have the same problem: lack of empathy. Which I think describes well leaders such as Netanyahu, Modi, and many others. They are not demented (probably) but they lack empathy (surely). Mussolini may have been both demented and evil: the two things moving in concert in destroying his original low empathy abilities. Margherita Sarfatti's description of him seems to me a masterful insight on his personality.
Sure, that mass murderers lack empathy right. We can include every American President during the last 30-40 years in the same list of evil or demented. What is the point of creating differences between these folks, since all of them created conditions, which lead to the sacrifice of innocent people, in the quest to create so called "Pure Nations". To me, Mussolini and Hitler have become like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck of an overall Imperial structure which has the entire world reeling under violence, tyranny and or evil.
It would be interesting to find out if people scoring high in narcissism, sadism, psychopathy or Machiavellianism (the dark tetrad personality traits) are more likely to get demential diseases than people who score lower. That is an alternative hypothesis to what I think you are proposing, that a society in its decline stages is more likely to produce demented leaders? Perhaps it is just producing more dark tetrad leaders who when they get old, show dementia? Does the frequency of demented leaders decrease with the age of a civilization?
Good point, but I don't think we have enough data. The only thing that I might imagine is that declining society tend to become older and, of course, dementia is more probably in old people than in younger ones. Maybe.
If you look at psychological traits, the dark tetrad is strong linked to lack of empathy, but psychologist usually doesn't future analyze the biological causes (we have some general relation to familiarity and genetics) that's also why we didn't have any drug to boost empathy or contrast that aberrations as we have for other psychological conditions: depression, borderline disorders and a lot of others have drugs that help to mitigate the effects!
Dementia, as Bardi testify, kill empathy, opening to the surfacing of the dark tetrad that is always part of humans.
During the Nuremberg Trial, the usual defenses were "I didn't know" and "I was following orders" and the second one is revealing the most extreme callousness and lack of empathy, a quite shocked judge is sometimes quoted saying "evil, I think, is the absence of empathy"....
Today, probably we can find something similar in some form of scam and faking that harm others for get fast revenue, some of the most explicit can be found online and are "made in China" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA78KBYNEbw&ab_channel=ChinaInsiderwithDavidZhang) but I suggest to look also to ourselves to understand that is a common problem.
Dementhia is a pathology that is related to age but also to a lot of other causes (stress too...) so really is quite common in mild forms probably, socially the effects are quite accepted and encouraged: "more assertive, more willing to take risks, less interested in hearing suggestions, and often unwilling or unable to change course" seem the desctiption of some successfull CEO or manager and the lack of empathy is a BONUS!
LOL, way to make an extremely weak case, "He was relatively young (62) when he was killed, and a post-mortem examination of a fragment of his brain didn’t reveal evident damage,"
"Propaganda is one of the features of society. It has existed in different forms all over history, but in modern times it has taken an especially vicious role by taking a shape that looks like a form of social dementia. If you think about it, propaganda has all the characteristics that signal dementia in an individual.
— Lack of Empathy (“They are human animals”)
— Simplified concepts and lack of in-depth analysis (“War on Terror”)
— Refusal to accept different ideas (“You are Putin’s troll”)
— Indifference to other people’s suffering (“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”)
— Focusing on oneself (“My country, right or wrong”)
— Rigid behavior and inability to change course (“Better dead than red”)
— Obsessions (Bringing them democracy, wokeism, face masks, and many more)"
Social dementia is such a good term for these things.
Societies should be caring and look after the needs of all people, and we're so far away from anything like this in the western world.
Just more wars, including a brutal and ongoing genocide that western governments are supporting, and austerity causing hunger, homelessness and ill health at home. Not to mention the ongoing development of fossil fuels during a climate crisis.
Thanks for sharing this term, Ugo.
I disagree to this justification "has existed in different forms all over history, but in modern times it has taken an especially vicious role by taking a shape that looks like a form of social dementia." The school you went, or the one I did is also a source of propaganda. Modern propaganda cannot work without ‘education’… thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda.
Not so sure... certainly you are right that propaganda is much more effective with people who are trained at school to listen and to ask no questions. But propaganda is much more ancient than that. I found the first examples in the 2nd book of the Iliad. That's why I wrote "different forms."
Hi Ugo...what about Francisco Franco (Spain), Pinochet (Chile) or Juan Domingo Peron (Argentina). All ruthless dictators or torchbearers of the Euro-style-dictatorship. This dementia label does not work, as an answer to power that corrupts in any way it can, and has in the past. By this "dementia logic" even current leaders like Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu etc are all demented? No. They are vicious, powerful and clever, and always backed by the Oligarch and the rest of the petty-bourgeois. Alas, without propaganda there is no education, which is fundamental to direct people towards whatever direction.
The separation between evil and demented is thin. Both have the same problem: lack of empathy. Which I think describes well leaders such as Netanyahu, Modi, and many others. They are not demented (probably) but they lack empathy (surely). Mussolini may have been both demented and evil: the two things moving in concert in destroying his original low empathy abilities. Margherita Sarfatti's description of him seems to me a masterful insight on his personality.
Sure, that mass murderers lack empathy right. We can include every American President during the last 30-40 years in the same list of evil or demented. What is the point of creating differences between these folks, since all of them created conditions, which lead to the sacrifice of innocent people, in the quest to create so called "Pure Nations". To me, Mussolini and Hitler have become like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck of an overall Imperial structure which has the entire world reeling under violence, tyranny and or evil.
So, the onset and progression of dementia in an individual’s history would seem to follow the Seneca effect.
Indeed...
It would be interesting to find out if people scoring high in narcissism, sadism, psychopathy or Machiavellianism (the dark tetrad personality traits) are more likely to get demential diseases than people who score lower. That is an alternative hypothesis to what I think you are proposing, that a society in its decline stages is more likely to produce demented leaders? Perhaps it is just producing more dark tetrad leaders who when they get old, show dementia? Does the frequency of demented leaders decrease with the age of a civilization?
Good point, but I don't think we have enough data. The only thing that I might imagine is that declining society tend to become older and, of course, dementia is more probably in old people than in younger ones. Maybe.
If you look at psychological traits, the dark tetrad is strong linked to lack of empathy, but psychologist usually doesn't future analyze the biological causes (we have some general relation to familiarity and genetics) that's also why we didn't have any drug to boost empathy or contrast that aberrations as we have for other psychological conditions: depression, borderline disorders and a lot of others have drugs that help to mitigate the effects!
Dementia, as Bardi testify, kill empathy, opening to the surfacing of the dark tetrad that is always part of humans.
During the Nuremberg Trial, the usual defenses were "I didn't know" and "I was following orders" and the second one is revealing the most extreme callousness and lack of empathy, a quite shocked judge is sometimes quoted saying "evil, I think, is the absence of empathy"....
Today, probably we can find something similar in some form of scam and faking that harm others for get fast revenue, some of the most explicit can be found online and are "made in China" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA78KBYNEbw&ab_channel=ChinaInsiderwithDavidZhang) but I suggest to look also to ourselves to understand that is a common problem.
Dementhia is a pathology that is related to age but also to a lot of other causes (stress too...) so really is quite common in mild forms probably, socially the effects are quite accepted and encouraged: "more assertive, more willing to take risks, less interested in hearing suggestions, and often unwilling or unable to change course" seem the desctiption of some successfull CEO or manager and the lack of empathy is a BONUS!
LOL, way to make an extremely weak case, "He was relatively young (62) when he was killed, and a post-mortem examination of a fragment of his brain didn’t reveal evident damage,"
Really you just want to shit on fascists is all.