Carefully Cultivated Delusional Hysteria: A Tool that must be Continuously Exercised

 

Last week I posted about the “carefully-cultivated ‘state of anguish’ – a sort of delusional hysteria” that was created and nurtured around Never Trumpism and then used to rig the 2020 presidential election. Clearly, a side strain of this was also cultivated to maximize the hysteria around COVID-19 for the same purpose. But, if you think the totalitarian types are prone to just put such useful tools away after they have proven so useful and effective, you are sorely mistaken. Thus, the well-conditioned minds of so many among us continue to be manipulated by round after round of more hysteria porn to the point that current postings postulating that “40% of the country is mentally ill” are likely more right than wrong:

https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1473993695443697675

I clearly have no medical background but the term “collective psychosis” does not seem at all out of place:

…fear-mongering from the government and national media has pushed people to detach themselves from reality when it comes to assessing risk profiles regarding the coronavirus. That’s now playing out in the form of completely asymptomatic individuals rushing to jam up emergency rooms in Vermont. …

This isn’t the overwhelming of hospitals we were promised by the left. Rather, it’s the exact opposite, with people who aren’t even sick showing up to take resources away because they’ve been convinced that COVID is still highly deadly for 45-year-olds in good health. Even older people who are asymptomatic should not be going to the ER. Rather, they should live their life. Unless they actually get sick, what is there to treat?

It’s insanity and completely unnecessary. ..

[But] the hysteria will continue. It’s too important to the left’s cause.

This tool of control has been fully activated but it must be exercised to keep it so. The Pavlovian response of the subjects must be exercised to ensure the swift and reliable action when needed. The left cannot trust that if they let it sit idle until next summer that it will rise on cue. So, yes, the hysteria will continue…

…but expect things to get out of hand at times. Most of the media coverage will be aimed at the Doubters of the Narrative (i.e. Enemies of the Party) but I suspect it will be the headlines of stoolies and enablers of that narrative enjoying the power they believe they have that will solidify in the hearts and minds of We the People. Exhibit A (Language Warning):

https://twitter.com/ATLUncensored/status/1474552407707242498

From the link:

Her mania doesn’t make a lot of sense. If she felt threatened by the man for not wearing a mask, why is she not wearing her mask up on her face herself? The whole time, the mask is sitting on her chin. And then, why is she getting so close to him and then hitting him? Not exactly the best way to avoid getting a virus if that were her concern. Now, she looked like she was a bit out of it and perhaps she was indulging in adult libations. But it didn’t make a lot of sense, that’s for sure.

Of course, it will not make sense. It is not mania. It is not rational. It is the perception of power…power over the lesser citizens among them. And this is grotesque.

Deeper into the abyss of the Anti-Intellectual Era in America we go and the bottom is more than three years away. Hang on, it is going to be one hell of a ride.

Good day.

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  1. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    Is She single?

    • #1
  2. Kevin Schulte Member
    Kevin Schulte
    @KevinSchulte

    Did I see a glint of green digits scrolling in her eyes ?

    • #2
  3. Ole Summers Member
    Ole Summers
    @OleSummers

    Jimmy Carter (View Comment):

    Is She single?

    if not ….. it is only a matter of time

    • #3
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Only 40% mentally ill?  Whatever % voted for Biden, those are the mentally ill.

    • #4
  5. Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler Member
    Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler
    @Muleskinner

    Image how destructive this could get if the Karens came to believe that the ‘Rona is a Chinese bio weapon?

    • #5
  6. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    That’s the Christmas spirit, too!

    • #6
  7. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Yes. This is a problem. As long as they confine their fretting to themselves and their immediate victims, it’s not a problem . . . except it is, because it feeds into the general “Stay Safe” mentality that makes people less obsessive think “I don’t want to go back to the office” or “Cases surging, best not go to the store today.”

    On the other end of the spectrum: I saw “West Side Story” in the theater tonight, and in front of me sat a woman with a loud, wet, hacking, productive cough. She had to haul up a lung-ball every eleven minutes or so. Two other members of her party had occasional wet coughs. None of them wore a mask. I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    • #7
  8. Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler Member
    Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler
    @Muleskinner

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    On the other end of the spectrum: I saw “West Side Story” in the theater tonight, and in front of me sat a woman with a loud, wet, hacking, productive cough. She had to haul up a lung-ball every eleven minutes or so. Two other members of her party had occasional wet coughs. None of them wore a mask. I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?

    • #8
  9. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    That’s the risk of freedom. There’ve been jerks in theaters for as long as there’ve been theaters. 

    • #9
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    That’s the risk of freedom. There’ve been jerks in theaters for as long as there’ve been theaters.

    Seems like if it’s sufficiently annoying, it justifies asking management to ask them to leave, and/or getting a refund.  Same as if they were constantly chatting, or talking on their phones…

    • #10
  11. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Only 40% mentally ill? Whatever % voted for Biden, those are the mentally ill.

    40% is probably a high estimate of actual Biden voters but the mentally ill Covidiot number is much higher, and probably includes plenty of Trump voters. I see plenty of morons still playing the Covid game and ain’t no way there are that many Biden voters. 

    • #11
  12. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    You ever see “the people of Wal-Mart”?  Not picking on WallyWorld, but it’s more than 40%.  There are plenty of moderately-functional adults who are still plain crazy.  Look at what people wear and their insane body mass, not just how they otherwise conduct themselves.  I’d say easily 66% of the country has serious mental issues, just from what I can gather walking down the street.  You know how bad things are?  I live in the vicinity of DC, and things on that score are actually *better* here.  Lower tolerance for overstuffed froot loops here.  Fewer morbidly obese turds.  You have to drive ten miles away to find a big box store full of shambling, hulking, bags of protoplasm.  But Gosh, there they are, and half of them don’t seem to speak English, and half of the ones who do probably cannot read beyond grade-school.  They know some grown-up words, fine, but they cannot unpack a sentence that isn’t spoken to them.

    Ugh.

    • #12
  13. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    That’s the risk of freedom. There’ve been jerks in theaters for as long as there’ve been theaters.

    Seems like if it’s sufficiently annoying, it justifies asking management to ask them to leave, and/or getting a refund. Same as if they were constantly chatting, or talking on their phones…

    Or tell them yourself. 

    • #13
  14. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    That’s the risk of freedom. There’ve been jerks in theaters for as long as there’ve been theaters.

    Seems like if it’s sufficiently annoying, it justifies asking management to ask them to leave, and/or getting a refund. Same as if they were constantly chatting, or talking on their phones…

    Or tell them yourself.

    So they can wait for you to leave, and smash your car, or worse?

    That’s what management is for.  And they are the management’s rules, after all.

    • #14
  15. Douglas Pratt Coolidge
    Douglas Pratt
    @DouglasPratt

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Yes. This is a problem. As long as they confine their fretting to themselves and their immediate victims, it’s not a problem . . . except it is, because it feeds into the general “Stay Safe” mentality that makes people less obsessive think “I don’t want to go back to the office” or “Cases surging, best not go to the store today.”

    On the other end of the spectrum: I saw “West Side Story” in the theater tonight, and in front of me sat a woman with a loud, wet, hacking, productive cough. She had to haul up a lung-ball every eleven minutes or so. Two other members of her party had occasional wet coughs. None of them wore a mask. I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    Moving farther away from them is the option most of us would choose if moved to action. In this day and age, I can imagine others hauling out cans of Lysol and spraying down the offenders.

    • #15
  16. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    James Lileks (View Comment): …On the other end of the spectrum: I saw “West Side Story” in the theater tonight, and in front of me sat a woman with a loud, wet, hacking, productive cough. She had to haul up a lung-ball every eleven minutes or so. Two other members of her party had occasional wet coughs. None of them wore a mask. I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    What I believe you touch on here is where the actions to control and manipulate society with this hysteria have also driven us toward a low trust society. There are strange dynamics and spectrums here too. Last month I caught myself rolling my eyes at a double masked lady getting on the plane in LA. But then I thought it through a bit a realized I know absolutely nothing about her and her situation. She may or may not be one of the “mentally ill” discussed here and she may or may not have a perfectly good reason for being overly protective of her health or someone close to her. Who am I to judge?

    In your situation, I wonder how much you would have noticed the hacking lady in the theater two years ago. Maybe you would have just mentally noted the lady and family in front of you with chronic allergies or terrible (yet common) colds and then watched the show without the elevated blood pressure. To you they are clearly socially obtuse but to them, maybe, they were just acting like free Americans who shouldn’t have to self isolate every time their allergies (or emphysema or whatever) acts up for a couple of days or weeks.

    Where is all of this heading? Physical assault by fellow citizens for lowering one’s mask to take a drink of water on a commercial flight is at least a possibility on rare occasions now. How long before one becomes a social outcast if some popcorn or a jujube goes down the wrong pipe in a crowed theater? (Do they stop the movie to escort the offender out or, at least, check for a recent negative COVID test result?) Additionally, will it depend on whether you is wearing a “Biden / Harris” button or a “Let’s go Brandon” T-shirt where you are when it happens to you?

    • #16
  17. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    I don’t watch the mainstream media at home (NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS, pick yer flavor), but watching it at Mom’s over the holiday.  It is one unending progressive propaganda stream.  Over and over.  The guests that are on the daily shows, the questions that are asked of them, the questions that are not asked, certainly colors and influences peoples’ perceptions of what reality is (meaning what the world is really like).  It’s a conveyor belt of falsehoods and misrepresentations.

    The results of that can be found in the various Karen experiences, people losing their minds on a flight and attacking other people over a mask, when masks have been conclusively proven, repeatedly, to be borderline useless.  And we have vaccines and treatments, with a tiny mortality rate, from Covid.

    There’s no fix for this.  I’m not sure how we throw a cold bucket of water onto the culture, to wake them up.  Creating victims where none existed.  Creating divisions where none existed.  Isolating and separating the people.

    It’s being done on purpose.  I know television ratings have dropped hilariously, and rightly so, but there are still people who consume this crap daily, with zero critical thought about what they’re being told or shown.  It influences them, it influences the culture, and influences relationships, people to people.

    The sick society we live in is not the racist or capitalistic one being touted on these shows.  It’s one that allows the sick to foster separations for their own gain, political and financial.  Politicians and media.

    • #17
  18. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Gazpacho Grande' (View Comment): …The guests that are on the daily shows, the questions that are asked of them, the questions that are not asked … It’s a conveyor belt of falsehoods and misrepresentations. …

    On two occasions in the last month or so I have passed through the den where someone had left the TV on while Meet the Press was airing. Having consumed all of five minutes of the show in that time, I can confidently conclude that one would be acquired negative IQ points for having watched an entire episode. The questions that were asked were mindlessly premised on the narrative and the repetition to fill time so as to not address other important issues was obvious. I’m not sure who the current host is (I quit watching such shows as of election night 2012) but…what an embarrassment. 

    • #18
  19. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    philo (View Comment):
    I quit watching such shows as of election night 2012

    Better late than never. 

    • #19
  20. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    NOTICE: This Member post has been promoted to the Main Feed. Content may have been edited / corrected from the original without attribution by Ricochet.

    (Somewhere along the line it seems we – or I – stopped getting notifications about promotions. For what it’s worth, that is/was an important feature to at least one of us.)

    • #20
  21. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Gazpacho Grande' (View Comment):
    I don’t watch the mainstream media at home (NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS, pick yer flavor), but watching it at Mom’s over the holiday.  It is one unending progressive propaganda stream.

    It’s not just there, it’s all media. The football podcast I listen to has droned on about Omicron/Megatron/whatevercon at the start of the podcast for three weeks.  The YouTube channels I follow are laced with “do your part” style ads. There is no sector that this collective insanity has not infected.

    • #21
  22. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):
      The YouTube channels I follow are laced with “do your part” style ads. There is no sector that this collective insanity has not infected.

    I haven’t seen any of that. Too bad. I’d like to waste the money of those who are putting them out. 

     

    • #22
  23. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):
    The YouTube channels I follow are laced with “do your part” style ads. There is no sector that this collective insanity has not infected.

    I haven’t seen any of that. Too bad. I’d like to waste the money of those who are putting them out.

    I’m sure there is a correlation between the type of show and the demographic they’re trying to brainwash. I watch a lot of channels about science/visual effects creators/tech tutorials/movie stuff/NFL etc. 

    • #23
  24. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    philo (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment): …On the other end of the spectrum: I saw “West Side Story” in the theater tonight, and in front of me sat a woman with a loud, wet, hacking, productive cough. She had to haul up a lung-ball every eleven minutes or so. Two other members of her party had occasional wet coughs. None of them wore a mask. I wasn’t worried, but mad: Maybe not sit in a crowded room with strangers who paid money and hack your fargin’ lungs out? I mean, who’s that socially obtuse at this point?

    What I believe you touch on here is where the actions to control and manipulate society with this hysteria have also driven us toward a low trust society. There are strange dynamics and spectrums here too. Last month I caught myself rolling my eyes at a double masked lady getting on the plane in LA. But then I thought it through a bit a realized I know absolutely nothing about her and her situation. She may or may not be one of the “mentally ill” discussed here and she may or may not have a perfectly good reason for being overly protective of her health or someone close to her. Who am I to judge?

    In your situation, I wonder how much you would have noticed the hacking lady in the theater two years ago. Maybe you would have just mentally noted the lady and family in front of you with chronic allergies or terrible (yet common) colds and then watched the show without the elevated blood pressure. To you they are clearly socially obtuse but to them, maybe, they were just acting like free Americans who shouldn’t have to self isolate every time their allergies (or emphysema or whatever) acts up for a couple of days or weeks.

    Where is all of this heading? Physical assault by fellow citizens for lowering one’s mask to take a drink of water on a commercial flight is at least a possibility on rare occasions now. How long before one becomes a social outcast if some popcorn or a jujube goes down the wrong pipe in a crowed theater? (Do they stop the movie to escort the offender out or, at least, check for a recent negative COVID test result?) Additionally, will it depend on whether you is wearing a “Biden / Harris” button or a “Let’s go Brandon” T-shirt where you are when it happens to you?

    Nicely done, I was trying to think of a good way to express the same thoughts but didn’t have a good handle on them.

    • #24
  25. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    UPDATE January 1, 2022: 

    ‘Mass Formation Psychosis’ — It’s Real, and It Was Purposely Caused by Biden and the Democrat Party

    … Mass Formation Psychosis, or “mass hypnosis” or “the madness of crowds,” as noted by TrialSiteNews, occurs when a large fraction of the population is completely unable to process new scientific data and facts, demonstrating that they have been misled or lied to.

    In the case of COVID-19, the no-longer-pandemic, Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden, and the Democrat Party, and the Democrat state media — principally CNN and MSNBC — have consistently misled, changed their stories, or outright lied to America about the effectiveness and adverse impacts of mandatory mask use, lockdowns, and genetic vaccines that cause people’s bodies to make large amounts of biologically-active coronavirus spike protein.

    Tens of millions of Americans, hypnotized by the left, have been and remain incapable of recognizing the lies and manipulation. …

    [Malone:] “When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other, and has free-floating anxiety, and a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it. And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis. They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.” …

    Go read the whole thing. And that reminds me that I have been meaning to go back through my copy of The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing …especially the sections on mass delusions.

    • #25
  26. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    philo (View Comment):
    [Malone:] “When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other, and has free-floating anxiety, and a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it. And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis. They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.” …

    You don’t say!

    • #26
  27. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    It is so depressing that I encounter individuals on this website who would never ever support the “science by consensus” talking points of Climate Change, but are over the top in their  eagerness to support “science by consensus” vaccine safety or COVID talking points.

    Neither Climate Change or COVID were my first rodeos. Rather, my involvement as a rather young, idealistic progressive who had to ally myself with Republicans here in Calif during the imposition of the MTBE mandates was my first move away from consensus science. (MTBE was a gas additive formed by a waste product we were supposed to put in our gas tanks, at 9% volume circa 1996 to 1999.)

    My fellow Democrats were all for it, as their marching orders were given to them by the mighty “environmentally concerned” Di Feinstein. (Who was hoping to make a lot of deals for her hubby Richard  Blum if she succeeded in the mandate being imposed.)

    Eventually 900 corporate-sponsored  studies were offered to the public as “proof” that MTBE was so safe “that your kids could brush their teeth with it.” Only one, the “Blue Ribbon Panel of MTBE Inquiry”  was shown to provide  serious indications that MTBE was going to present huge health problems to those exposed to it, as well as pollute half of the aquifers in California within ten years.

    But the one that showed indications that MTBE had no benefits and tons of risk was done independently. Gov Davis then banned the substance at that high rate of volume, and the public health and aquifers were saved.

    This ended for a while the squabble between the Dems who insisted that any of us who had witnessed indications of MTBE’s negative health effects were merely victims of a belief in “anecdotal evidence.” The Republicans and the real environmentalists won that battle.

    Now with the COVID con   we are right back where we were. 

     

     

    ####

     

     

    • #27
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