Is America experiencing mass psychosis?

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/america-mass-psychosis/

In 2020, 34 percent of Republicans and independents who lean to the right surveyed by Pew Research Center agreed that it was "probably" or "definitely true" that powerful people intentionally planned the COVID-19 outbreak. Eighteen percent of Democrats and left-leaners agreed, too. That same year, results from a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey found that approximately three-quarters of Republicans did not trust the 2020 presidential election results.

It should go without saying that these kinds of beliefs are fantasy, not rooted in any rational fact or evidence. Hence, someone observing from afar the rise in conspiratorial beliefs and pseudoscience might characterize a vast swath of the American public as delusional. From the COVID-truther movement to people believing the 2020 presidential election was rigged, it appears that the body politic is — to put it mildly — no longer on the same page.

Given the perturbed psychological state of so many Americans, it is worth asking if something is happening — psychologically speaking — that is causing many Americans to live in very different realities.

Psychologists say yes; and, moreover, that what is happening was actually predicted long ago by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Indeed, Jung once wrote that the demise of society wouldn't be a physical threat, but instead mass delusion — a collective psychosis of sorts.

*snip*

[cilla4progress]

1. I believe so.

Indubitably

[bottomofthehill]

2. In a word, YES

[elleng]

3. Yes.

[Wicked Blue]

4. I think climate change is affecting us

in ways we don't yet understand.

[cilla4progress]

31. I have anticipated for years

that the collapse of our ecosystem is and would cause insanity, essentially.

You especially see it expressed through greed.

Like these billionaires and their personal spaceships.

[Disaffected]

5. Seems probably true for

most definitions of "mass" and "psychosis".

Probably something to do with Darwin's theory.

[Joinfortmill]

6. FoxNews, QUANON, Right Wing Podcasters

And other Conspiracy nuts.

[certainot]

30. the party of Limbaugh is now headless and they don't know what to think or do without him

it's not fox or podcasts - they used to rely on and parrot Limbaugh, and read his scripts, as have been modern republican politicians or staffs who want scripts to win elections.

they're not 'conspiracies' if they're repeated all over the country on 1500 radio stations, endorsed by the local businesses and university and pro sports, without challenge from the left while we listen to music

with his 3 hrs Limbaugh set the tone on 600 of the loudest radio stations on the planet. whoever fed him could control buzz from 1500 radio stations. for thirty fucking years while democrats ignored it that buzz moved the country 15 pts right and excused the corporate corruption and bigotry racism and ignorance and sexism. Limbaugh's genius was in rationalizing the fascism and stupidity on the right and spinning daily events so that dems were always bad, it was always our fault somehow.

now their leader is gone and he's not there to excuse and explain trumps crimes. the GOP is walking off a plank and someone tell that motherfucker Manchin he's got no leverage, there's no way GOP can cheat enough to win senate or congress, and with cruz and Hawley and a bunch of congress getting subpoenas, and global warming triggers going off, his future is fucked.

someone tell the manchin asshole if he delays global warming action he's going to be blamed for a lot of death and destruction resulting from delaying it for even another year

[leftstreet]

7. Maybe true for people who follow news and politics

In the real world, most people don't

[Nevilledog]

8. They get it on Facebook

[leftstreet]

10. Right. And lots of FB people just read and roll their eyes

Everyone has the weirdo or two who follows this stuff like a fundamentalist

Most people don't

The media's been trying to convince us we're a "divided country" for some time now. But I don't think it reflects real world concerns and conversations

[Hassler]

9. Not America, but 20% of Americans, the Trumpanzees, yes.

[Hugin]

11. When you're nodding off a decades long bender on meth/the oxyies ...

I guarantee seeing strange things. Roll in news as entertainment and it's a given.

So, what's for dinner? I'm starving.

[OAITW r.2.0]

12. If you pine for the "good old days" that never really existed....

reality today must be very unbearable. My take is most of the people who vote Republican are voting against today's reality...with no reasoned thought as to why they think this way.

[Hugin]

14. That is the most sensible explanation I've read so far...

Because, it includes why I seem to be immune.

I don't recall any 'good old days'.

[Boomerproud]

13. Yes

I'm starting to get whiplash.

[GoCubsGo]

15. No, just seeing the results of our education system being gutted over the decades.

This is what happens when large portions of the population don't learn critical thinking skills and basic science. "Idiocracy" was a documentary, not a comedy.

[smirkymonkey]

16. If not a mass psychosis, which i believe we are, then definitely a mass "nervous breakdown".

Which is not really a a psychological term that is used anymore, but we are seriously losing it - so whatever that is called, that is what is happening to us.

[Midnight Writer]

17. Psyops.

[oasis]

19. +1,000,000

[Baked Potato]

20. Agreed. ⬆️⬆️

[uponit7771]

33. +1

[SheltieLover]

21. Carl Jung was a genius

So I would tend to agree.

[Igel]

22. Levada Center polling in the '90s and up to the present shows this kind of pattern.

It's not mass psychosis. It's distrust in the sources of authority and information.

As one title looking at the issue put it, "Nothing is true and everything is possible." All that's left for ascertaining truth is cognitive bias. Go with your gut.

Thing is, if you *do* believe in "mainstream sources" of authority and information, then the others are obviously mentally ill. Hence it's easy to think of it as mental illness, e.g., a psychosis. Empathy would stop that diagnosis. But empathy, like tolerance, is for one's in-group and has come close to meaning "appreciation".

[AZLD4Candidate]

23. The common folk always say they know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

[Hamlette]

24. it's not just the US, it's the whole world

anti vaxxers and anti maskers in Europe are just as crazy as here? What's up with that?

[AdamGG]

25. It's not psychosis. The voices in their heads are...

the surgically planned, systematic, coordinated bombardment of "non-mainstream" media, designed to elicit precisely this reaction.

It's Goebbels on a global scale.

[gab13by13]

26. I agree with your theory,

except the MSM is now a part of the problem. 99% of the people on DU don't know the difference between a fence and a wall.

The #1 thing I learned from college was to not blindly believe what I saw on TV or read in the newspaper but to think for myself, to use critical thinking.

Yes I read Ekhart Tolle's books about how our thoughts aren't who we are. Our thoughts are our ego trying to run our lives. We are the entity listening to our thoughts.

[Karadeniz]

27. This may be the scriptural take. How many different petri dishes... stone, sand, brambles,

Fertile soil... does scripture use to illustrate people's receptivity, recognition of soul values? I think four. Three examples don't have what it takes. So, Jesus's opinion might be that 75% of a population is stuck in brain/ego survival mode dictating their understanding and behavior. Ego survival mode doesn't care about truthfulness. It'll lie to itself to stay in its comfort zone. Ego survival mode demands it consider itself superior to others, finding no benefit to equal rights or justice. Ego survival mode loves competition, even if brute force or cheating is necessary to win. Jesus doesn't appear optimistic about introducing soul values to these types. Humility, lovingkindness, respect for others, generosity towards others, mental flexibility simply can't take root in a petri dish in which values of the Good are seen in much the same way as an invading virus.

[wnylib]

28. I do not believe that powerful people planned

the covid pandemic.

But consider this. Those who actually read the right wing think tank paper, PNAC (Project for a New American Century) from the early 2000s, might remember that it called for biogical warfare capable of targeting specific ethnic and racial groups. Such a project would require experimentation on living subjects. For security reasons, it would be kept secret.

So the idea of an intentional pandemic by powerful people is not as far fetched as it sounds. However, I do not believe that that is what is happening with covid. I am not a scientist in any field, let alone in biology. But I did have enough high school and college biology to understand that a viral pandemic can develop on its own without human creation or manipulation involved. It has happened in the past with viruses and bacteria - Bubonic Plague, smallpox, 1918 flu pandemic, 1957-58 flu pandemic. Before measles and chicken pox became known as "childhood diseases," that modt chikdren survived, they were initially much more deadly among Europeans of all ages. When they were spread by Europeans to the Americas and to Pacific islands, they were extremely lethal to the indigenous people of all ages who had not bern exposed before.

So, no, covid, an offspring of the original SARS virus, is not a plot by powerful people. But such fears are not too far fetched, either.

[Solly Mack]

29. K&R

[Mickju]

32. We aren't, but they are.

[LiberatedUSA]

34. Two of them.

You forget how many believe in an invisible being in the sky.