“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first…
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
Charles Mackay
“The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.”
Philip K. Dick
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death
The Neil Postman quote struck me particularly hard. If there’s a better synopsis of exactly where we are as a society I never heard it.
Despite apologies re “swarm intelligence,” democracy, utilitarianism, etc, no thinking is done by herds. Flattery via imitation is all massman, tribalman, gangster, is capable of. And all that amounts to is conformity to authority; any authority but one’s own. The payoff for which is a false sense of security. The audience is all. & that is the core of every cult•ure.