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Welcome, it's Dr. Carlson.
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Today, things have changed so fast in the United States
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that it's hard to understand exactly what is happening.
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And one of the reasons it's hard to understand
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what's happening is that we don't have words
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for what is happening.
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You can't understand something unless you can describe it.
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Words are the first step to understanding.
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So the country began to change in very obvious ways
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right around the time George Floyd died,
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Memorial Day two years ago in Minneapolis.
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And all of a sudden, you saw large groups of people
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acting in what seemed to be perfect synchronicity
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with one another as one,
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and then trying to enforce a uniformity of opinion
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on the rest of the country.
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And the rest of the country,
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for the most part, went along with it.
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Nothing like this had ever happened in America,
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certainly not in our lifetimes.
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What were we watching?
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Something new and different for sure,
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also something self-evidently threatening
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to our most basic freedoms and to our human dignity.
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So what was it?
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Well, it wasn't really until December of 2021
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in a broadcast, the Joe Rogan experience
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that a doctor called Robert Malone described in words,
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what we may have been watching.
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Here was that clip, which instantly became famous.
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What the heck happened in Germany in the 20s and 30s?
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Very intelligent, highly educated population,
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and they went barking mad.
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And how did that happen?
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The answer is mass formation psychosis.
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When you have a society that has become decoupled
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from each other and has free-floating anxiety
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in a sense that things don't make sense,
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we can't understand it,
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and then their attention gets focused
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by a leader or a series of events
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on one small point, just like hypnosis.
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They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.
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So Malone goes on to attribute that idea
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at the core of his description,
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something called mass formation,
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to an academic in Belgium called Matthias Dismet,
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who wrote a book on it actually
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called The Psychology of Authoritarianism.
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I wanna put a quote up on the screen
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that gets to the nut of what he's describing,
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and we're quoting.
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Mass formation is in essence a kind of group hypnosis
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that destroys individuals' ethical self-awareness
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and robs them of their ability to think critically.
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This process is insidious in nature.
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Populations fall prey to it unsuspectingly.
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To put it in the words of Yuval Noah Harari,
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most people wouldn't even notice the shift
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towards totalitarian regime.
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We associate totalitarianism mainly with labor,
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concentration, and extermination camps,
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but those are merely the final bewildering stage
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of a long process.
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So those words come from, as we just said,
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a Belgian academic called Matthias Dismet,
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who we are honored to have join us on the set now
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to describe what all of us have been watching
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for the last two years.
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But Professor, thanks so much for coming on.
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Thank you for inviting me.
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Is it a little strange to find out
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that you're famous in the United States?
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Yes, a little bit, a little bit, yes, yes.
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So 10 years ago, I think this would have been considered
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a kind of esoteric academic theory,
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relevant to your specific study,
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but not really relevant to the society that we live in.
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And all of a sudden, you've so perfectly described
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what the rest of us have been watching.
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So before we get into it,
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tell us who you are and where you're from
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and how you wound up concluding this.
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Oh, yes, well, I'm from Belgium, as you said.
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I'm a professor in clinical psychology at Ghent University.
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I also have a master's in statistics.
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And that's actually how I- In statistics?
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In statistics, yes.
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Oh. Yeah.
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I did a PhD on methodological problems
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in academic research.
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Started my PhD in 2003 when it became clear
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that up to 85% of the academic papers is seriously flawed.
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That's what my PhD was all about.
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And then when the Corona crisis started,
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I immediately started to study the statistics a little bit.
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And I immediately got the impression
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that the mathematical models in the statistics
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that were used dramatically overrated
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the dangerousness of the virus.
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And then, in my opinion, a few months later,
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by the end of May, 2020,
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this was actually proven beyond doubt.
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At that moment, the initial mathematical models
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on which the Corona measures were based,
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the models issued by Imperial College
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predicted that by the end of May, 2020,
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in a country, in a small country such as Sweden,
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about 60,000 people would die
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if the country didn't go into lockdown.
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And Sweden didn't go into lockdown,
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and only 6,000 people died.
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And at that moment for me,
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in the first week of the Corona crisis,
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I published two opinion papers
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in which I tried to warn people
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that there was something dangerous out there,
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and I wasn't referring to the virus.
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The title of the first paper was
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the fear of the virus is more dangerous
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than the virus itself.
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And strangely enough, I tried to show people
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in what way the statistics were wrong,
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and everybody seemed to care about it.
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And everybody continued to buy into the narrative.
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And even when, by the end of May, 2020,
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it was proven beyond the shade of a doubt
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that the mathematical models had been dramatically wrong,
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the narrative continued,
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and the society continued to behave
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as if the mathematical models had been right.
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And that was the moment for me
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when I switched my perspective.
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At that moment, I decided to focus
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on the psychological mechanisms
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why an entire society couldn't see anymore
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that the narrative they believed in
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was blatantly absurd in many respects.
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And it took me one or two months
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before I could, in my opinion, pinpoint it,
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and before I started to understand
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that what we were dealing with
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was a large-scale process of mass formation,
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which is like a kind of group formation,
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which has some very strange effects
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at the level of individual psychological functioning.
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The most important being, probably,
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that people who are in the grip of such a process,
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in one way or another,
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lose all capacity to take a critical distance
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of what the group believes in,
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and this can go extremely far.
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Like during the revolution in Iran in 1979,
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which was a large-scale process of mass formation in Iran,
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people started to believe
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that the portrait of the Ayatollah,
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whom they considered their leader,
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was printed on the surface of the moon.
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And when there was a full moon in the sky,
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they typically were standing in the streets
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showing each other where exactly
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you could see the portrait of the Ayatollah.
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That's the first strange effect
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at the level of individual psychological functioning
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of a process of mass formation.
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The second one?
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And Iran in 1979 was not a backward, remote country.
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It was a very westernized, very well-educated,
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sophisticated country.
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Of course, the level of education doesn't play any role,
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even not the intelligence, even more.
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The higher the level of education,
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the easier, the more vulnerable people are for mass formation.
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Okay, let me just back up a step.
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So you said in 19, rather in 2003,
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you began your PhD, and your main focus was the fact,
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and you described it as a fact,
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that 85% of academic papers had serious flaws within them.
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So 85% is the overwhelming majority.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Academic papers are the basis of academia,
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so I mean, that's a shocking.
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So maybe that was the first example you saw
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of mass formation, because how could they not fix that?
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Yes, well, I published a small book about that,
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in which I tried to show in a very tangible
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and concrete and simple way
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why most research methods impossibly
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can lead to valid results.
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And what I noticed was,
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my examples were really clear and tangible.
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Everyone who wanted to see it could see
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that the methods could only lead to flawed results.
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And to my surprise, only about 5% of my colleagues
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wanted to open their eyes and wanted to see
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what they were showing, and the rest didn't want it.
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And that was the moment when I started to think
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about what could possibly explain
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why people became so blind.
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And that was the moment when I first started
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to be interested in mass formation.
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And exactly the same process repeated itself
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in the Corona crisis.
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I immediately noticed, like, look, the statistics
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and these mathematical models can be right.
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I tried to show it, didn't work,
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and then started to think about
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what psychological processes could explain that.
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And I stumbled upon, or I tried to re-articulate
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material mass formation in public space then.
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We had the same experience.
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What exactly? In the United States,
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in the, on the show, in the spring of 2020,
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it became clear that the original
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Appurna College predictions,
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which were the basis of our public policy
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here in the United States were completely wrong,
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and nobody cared.
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In fact, they reacted with hostility,
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if you pointed it out.
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Absolutely.
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So, okay, so, just to predicate here, the background.
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You pointed to 1979 as an example,
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where this happened in another country
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with a large group of people.
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Is this a feature of history?
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Have we seen this a number of times?
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Mass formation has existed as long as mankind exists.
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So there is, like, we have, we've had the Crusades,
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the Witch Hunts, the French Revolution,
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then the mass formations in the Soviet Union,
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the mass formations in Nazi Germany.
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So it has existed as long as mankind exists,
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but for a specific reason,
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the mass formations became stronger and stronger
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and stronger throughout the last few hundreds of years.
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And that's interesting, because,
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it's because in the first half of the 20th century,
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the masses became so strong,
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that led by certain leaders,
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they could seize control of the state apparatus.
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And that's how totalitarian states emerge.
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Yes.
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Totalitarian states, Hannah Arendt says,
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are always diabolic pact between the masses
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and their leaders.
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It's a diabolic pact between the masses and their leaders.
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And in this way, like a completely new kind of state emerges,
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which is completely different from a classical dictatorship.
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In a classical dictatorship,
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there is a small group of people, a dictatorial regime,
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who has such an aggressive potential
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that people are so scared of them,
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that they can impose unilaterally
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their social contract to society.
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Yes.
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But the totalitarian state
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emerges in a completely different way.
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In a totalitarian state,
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there is first the process of mass formation,
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which is a process through which
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a certain part of the population,
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usually about 30%,
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fanatically starts to believe in a certain ideology.
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And this phenomenon can be created artificially
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through indoctrination propaganda.
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And just to pause,
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do you think that number can be as low as 30%?
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Yes, usually it is not higher than 30%, yes.
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That's scary.
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That's scary because, yes,
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but there is always 60 or 65% of the people
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who do not really go along with the narrative,
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but who will never speak out,
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who will always choose the easy way
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and go along with the people,
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with this group of people
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that seems to have the loudest voice.
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And that's why in the end,
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up to 95% or even sometimes even more,
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go along with the totalitarian narrative,
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with a narrative that led to the mass formation.
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And there is then an additional 5%
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that doesn't go along with it,
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that tries to speak out.
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And that's extremely important.
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If you understand the mechanism of mass formation,
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if you really understand it,
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then you know what this small group should do.
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If it makes the wrong analysis,
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it will be destroyed in the end.
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The chances are very high that it will be destroyed.
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If it starts from the correct analysis,
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it will survive.
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That's why it is so extremely important
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to understand how this mechanism works.
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Because I've just mentioned that mass formation
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makes individuals completely blind
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for everything that goes against what the group believes in.
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But there is two other characteristics
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that are also extremely important.
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And the first one is
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that when people are in the grip of mass formation,
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they seem to lose all awareness
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of their individual interests.
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They are prepared to radically self-sacrifice.
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That's extremely strange.
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And then the third characteristic,
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which is the most problematic,
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is that people in a mass formation
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become radically intolerant for dissonant voices.
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And in the ultimate stage of the mass formation,
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they will typically start to destroy everyone
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who doesn't go along with the masses,
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and they will do so as if it is their ethical duty to do so.
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To refer to the revolution in Iran again,
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I was talking to this woman in Iran,
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Shoreh Fishtali,
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this conversation is available on the internet.
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She told me, and she has seen with her own eyes,
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how in the last stage of the mass formation,
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a mother reported her son to the state,
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how this mother hung the nose
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around the neck of her son when he was on the scaffold.
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And when he was hung,
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she claimed to be a heroine for what she had done.
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That's the end stage of mass formation.
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And this end stage-
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A mother killing her own son.
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Yeah, and if you understand the mechanism,
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as I explained it in my book,
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The Psychology of Totalitarianism,
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it's perfectly logical why that happens.
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But, and that's why it is so extremely important.
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This last stage of mass formation can be prevented.
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If the small group who doesn't go along
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with the mass formation makes the right choice,
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it has to make the right choice.
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It has, and then this choice has everything to do
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with whether it will choose to speak out
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or whether it will remain silent.
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If it doesn't speak out,
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it will be destroyed because the masses will move
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to the last stage.
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So it's just quintessential for this group
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to continue to speak out in a honest, sincere way.
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And all this follows from the mechanism of mass formation.
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If you understand it,
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you will see why the people who do not go along with it
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have to speak out.
14:06.540 --> 14:07.900
And that's what they explain in my book.
14:07.900 --> 14:10.260
I will have this phenomenon of mass formation,
14:10.260 --> 14:12.260
which is a kind of group formation,
14:12.260 --> 14:15.180
emerges under very specific conditions.
14:15.820 --> 14:18.380
The first and the most important condition is always
14:18.380 --> 14:21.500
that many people have to feel disconnected
14:21.500 --> 14:23.940
from the natural and social environment.
14:23.940 --> 14:25.980
And that was definitely the case
14:25.980 --> 14:28.540
just before the Corona crisis started.
14:28.540 --> 14:30.060
The number of lonely people peaked.
14:30.060 --> 14:33.340
Up to 40% of the population worldwide reported
14:33.340 --> 14:36.820
not to have one meaningful relationship
14:36.820 --> 14:39.700
and to only connect to other people through the internet.
14:39.700 --> 14:41.820
And from this follows the second condition.
14:41.820 --> 14:43.180
If people feel disconnected
14:43.180 --> 14:45.300
from the natural and social environment,
14:45.300 --> 14:46.980
they will typically start to struggle
14:46.980 --> 14:49.180
with lack of meaning making.
14:49.180 --> 14:51.220
To give an example from the situation
14:51.220 --> 14:52.820
just before the Corona crisis,
14:52.820 --> 14:56.500
60% of the people worldwide reported
14:56.500 --> 14:57.740
that they considered their job
14:57.740 --> 14:59.820
to be a so-called bullshit job.
14:59.820 --> 15:02.740
That means a job without purpose or meaning.
15:02.740 --> 15:06.460
And in this state, if people feel socially disconnected
15:06.460 --> 15:08.340
and they feel a lack of meaning making,
15:08.340 --> 15:09.780
they will typically start to suffer
15:09.820 --> 15:13.340
from something very specific at the affective level.
15:13.340 --> 15:14.660
They will feel confronted,
15:14.660 --> 15:17.500
they will be confronted with so-called free-floating
15:17.500 --> 15:19.580
anxiety, frustration, and aggression.
15:19.580 --> 15:23.380
That means a kind of anxiety, frustration, and aggression
15:23.380 --> 15:25.820
that is not coupled to a mental representation,
15:25.820 --> 15:28.220
a kind of anxiety, frustration, and aggression
15:28.220 --> 15:31.700
in which people don't know what they feel anxious,
15:31.700 --> 15:33.580
frustrated, and aggressive for.
15:33.580 --> 15:35.940
And that state is extremely aversive.
15:35.940 --> 15:36.980
If you feel anxious,
15:36.980 --> 15:38.660
and you don't know what you feel anxious for,
15:38.700 --> 15:41.340
you have the feeling that you cannot control your anxiety.
15:41.340 --> 15:43.340
If you feel frustrated and aggressive,
15:43.340 --> 15:44.900
and you don't know what you feel frustrated
15:44.900 --> 15:47.580
and aggressive for, you cannot take it out to someone.
15:47.580 --> 15:49.140
And all the frustration and aggression
15:49.140 --> 15:51.260
piles up in your psychological system
15:51.260 --> 15:54.420
and leads to a certain very aversive tension.
15:54.420 --> 15:57.700
And in this state, if the population is in this state,
15:59.340 --> 16:01.460
something very specific might happen.
16:01.460 --> 16:03.340
If under these conditions,
16:03.340 --> 16:06.580
a narrative is distributed through the mass media,
16:06.620 --> 16:09.140
indicating an object of anxiety,
16:09.140 --> 16:11.580
and at the same time, providing a strategy
16:11.580 --> 16:13.740
to deal with that object of anxiety,
16:13.740 --> 16:16.700
for instance, the lockdowns to deal with the virus,
16:16.700 --> 16:19.980
concentration camps to deal with the Jews,
16:19.980 --> 16:22.460
witch hunts to deal with the witches, and so on.
16:22.460 --> 16:23.860
If under these conditions,
16:23.860 --> 16:25.940
a narrative is distributed, disseminated
16:25.940 --> 16:27.460
through the mass media,
16:27.460 --> 16:29.180
indicating this object of anxiety,
16:29.180 --> 16:30.940
and a strategy to deal with it,
16:30.940 --> 16:32.940
then there might be a huge willingness
16:32.940 --> 16:34.500
to participate in a strategy
16:34.500 --> 16:36.540
to deal with the object of anxiety,
16:36.540 --> 16:40.660
no matter how absurd this narrative is,
16:40.660 --> 16:43.140
simply because in this way,
16:43.140 --> 16:45.660
people feel that they can control their anxiety.
16:45.660 --> 16:47.300
They feel that they have something
16:47.300 --> 16:49.580
to direct their frustration and aggression on.
16:49.580 --> 16:52.660
So that's the first extremely important step.
16:52.660 --> 16:54.140
And then follows the second one,
16:54.140 --> 16:56.140
which is the really dangerous step.
16:56.140 --> 16:59.500
Because so many people participate at the same time
16:59.500 --> 17:02.340
in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety,
17:02.380 --> 17:04.660
they feel connected again.
17:04.660 --> 17:07.020
It is as if their loneliness disappears.
17:07.020 --> 17:09.060
They feel full of solidarity.
17:09.060 --> 17:10.020
And that's the point.
17:10.020 --> 17:11.900
They have the feeling that they fight
17:11.900 --> 17:15.460
this collective heroic battle with the virus,
17:15.460 --> 17:17.220
and they will consider everyone
17:17.220 --> 17:19.460
who doesn't go along with them as an egoist,
17:19.460 --> 17:21.260
as someone who lacks all solidarity.
17:22.140 --> 17:24.660
And that in itself, the strange thing is,
17:24.660 --> 17:26.460
you could say, well, what's the problem?
17:26.460 --> 17:29.020
People felt lonely, and now they feel connected again.
17:29.020 --> 17:29.860
So what's the problem?
17:29.860 --> 17:31.300
But there is a problem,
17:31.300 --> 17:34.980
because a mass is a group that is formed
17:34.980 --> 17:38.220
not because people connect to each other.
17:38.220 --> 17:40.380
A mass is a group that is formed
17:40.380 --> 17:42.380
because each individual separately
17:42.380 --> 17:44.100
connects to the collective,
17:44.100 --> 17:47.180
meaning that the famous solidarity of the masses
17:47.180 --> 17:50.060
is never a solidarity with other individuals.
17:50.060 --> 17:52.420
It's a solidarity with the collective.
17:52.420 --> 17:54.500
And the longer the mass formation exists,
17:54.500 --> 17:57.140
the more everyone demands
17:57.140 --> 18:01.260
that everyone sacrifices all his personal interests
18:02.260 --> 18:03.340
for the collective.
18:03.340 --> 18:05.060
And that's exactly the reason why,
18:05.060 --> 18:06.940
in the corona crisis, for instance,
18:06.940 --> 18:09.260
everyone was talking about solidarity.
18:09.260 --> 18:11.620
And at the same time, we accepted
18:11.620 --> 18:13.860
that if someone got in an accident on the street,
18:13.860 --> 18:15.900
we were no longer allowed to help him.
18:15.900 --> 18:17.500
At the same time, we accepted
18:17.500 --> 18:22.540
that if our parents were dying
18:22.540 --> 18:23.900
somewhere in a nursing home,
18:23.900 --> 18:25.500
that we were no longer allowed to visit them.
18:25.500 --> 18:29.500
So it was all, everyone had to sacrifice everything
18:29.860 --> 18:31.380
for the sake of the collective.
18:31.380 --> 18:35.980
So mass formation is extreme collectivism.
18:35.980 --> 18:37.020
It's extreme collectivism.
18:37.020 --> 18:40.980
It's the balance between individualism and collectivism
18:40.980 --> 18:43.300
that goes completely in a direction.
18:43.300 --> 18:44.180
But there's no actual, I mean,
18:44.180 --> 18:46.940
but at the same time, the people who encourage it
18:46.940 --> 18:50.740
discourage the formation of individual relationships
18:50.740 --> 18:51.620
between people.
18:51.620 --> 18:52.540
Always.
18:52.540 --> 18:54.940
So the government in this country,
18:54.940 --> 18:58.540
the Biden administration was encouraging children
18:58.540 --> 19:01.620
to turn in their parents to law enforcement
19:01.620 --> 19:04.380
if they said something that deviated from the explanation,
19:04.380 --> 19:06.860
from the corona narrative online.
19:06.860 --> 19:09.900
So they're breaking apart solidarity between people.
19:09.900 --> 19:11.100
Of course. Of course.
19:11.100 --> 19:12.820
That is always a feature of it.
19:12.820 --> 19:15.300
The strange thing is that this happens spontaneously.
19:15.300 --> 19:18.860
In every group which has an extremely strong group identity,
19:18.860 --> 19:20.660
all the energy will be sucked away
19:20.660 --> 19:22.020
from the bonds between the individuals.
19:22.020 --> 19:23.820
For instance, in a military commando,
19:23.820 --> 19:25.260
if they have to do something dangerous,
19:25.260 --> 19:26.340
they will typically demand
19:26.340 --> 19:27.900
that there are no sexual relationships
19:27.900 --> 19:29.780
between the members of the group.
19:29.780 --> 19:32.340
Simply because this relationship between the members,
19:32.340 --> 19:34.580
this strong relationship could threaten the group
19:34.580 --> 19:36.620
in a dangerous situation.
19:36.620 --> 19:37.900
These members could choose for each other
19:37.900 --> 19:39.660
instead of for the group.
19:39.660 --> 19:41.420
So that happens in every group
19:41.420 --> 19:44.300
with a very strong group identity spontaneously
19:44.300 --> 19:46.060
and then amassed to an extreme extent
19:46.060 --> 19:47.700
and amassed all solidarity,
19:47.700 --> 19:51.180
all the love between the individuals is sucked away
19:51.180 --> 19:53.780
and it's all injected in the love
19:53.780 --> 19:55.860
between the individual and the collective.
19:55.860 --> 19:58.580
And that's why in the end, even the strongest bond,
19:58.580 --> 20:00.420
the bond between the mother and her child
20:00.420 --> 20:02.380
completely impoverishes
20:02.380 --> 20:05.900
and even mothers report their sons to the state
20:05.900 --> 20:07.980
and get them killed if they feel
20:07.980 --> 20:09.300
that they are not loyal enough to the state.
20:09.300 --> 20:11.620
So it's natural.
20:11.620 --> 20:14.180
It's a psychological process that is very logical
20:14.180 --> 20:16.860
but that is extremely dangerous.
20:16.860 --> 20:18.980
And that's exactly why we have to try to understand it
20:18.980 --> 20:21.980
and have to try to understand what we can do about it.
20:21.980 --> 20:23.740
So what we can do about it,
20:23.740 --> 20:25.380
first of all, the hair on my arms is standing up
20:25.380 --> 20:27.780
because you've so precisely described
20:27.780 --> 20:30.740
what we've all just seen, I mean, precisely
20:30.740 --> 20:33.020
because it sounds like this is a feature of human nature.
20:33.020 --> 20:35.260
People are this way always.
20:37.420 --> 20:41.060
Can you think of examples where mass formation was stopped
20:41.060 --> 20:43.260
before it became totalitarianism
20:43.260 --> 20:46.060
by a small group of people standing up and saying no?
20:46.060 --> 20:47.700
Oh, definitely, definitely.
20:50.340 --> 20:52.300
The first totalitarian systems in history
20:52.300 --> 20:55.100
were the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
20:55.780 --> 20:58.620
And they were the first half of the 20th century
20:58.620 --> 21:00.820
in the first half of the 20th century.
21:00.820 --> 21:04.060
But there were trends towards totalitarianization
21:04.060 --> 21:05.540
at several places in the world.
21:05.540 --> 21:07.340
And in most places, they stopped.
21:07.340 --> 21:08.180
Well, all through Europe.
21:08.180 --> 21:09.020
Yeah, yeah.
21:09.020 --> 21:09.860
They stopped.
21:09.860 --> 21:12.700
And the reason, the problem in the Soviet Union
21:12.700 --> 21:16.420
and in Nazi Germany was that the resistance
21:16.420 --> 21:20.500
at a certain moment decided to go underground
21:20.500 --> 21:23.420
and to stop speaking out in public space.
21:24.300 --> 21:28.620
Around 1935, in Nazi Germany, and within six months
21:28.620 --> 21:31.780
in both countries, the destruction campaigns started.
21:31.780 --> 21:34.020
Within six months, the destruction campaigns started.
21:34.020 --> 21:37.980
So there is an almost perfect correlation
21:37.980 --> 21:42.660
between the resistance that stops to speak out
21:42.660 --> 21:47.660
and the start of the atrocities and cruelties in a country.
21:48.100 --> 21:50.180
Simply because if you understand the mechanism,
21:50.180 --> 21:54.500
then you know mass formation is a kind of hypnosis.
21:54.500 --> 21:55.620
It's identical.
21:55.620 --> 21:57.020
It's exactly the same.
21:57.020 --> 22:00.300
In a hypnotic procedure, there is someone, a hypnotist,
22:00.300 --> 22:02.540
who focuses the attention of someone else
22:02.540 --> 22:04.460
on one aspect of reality.
22:04.460 --> 22:05.980
For instance, an object that is swinging
22:05.980 --> 22:07.820
on a chain or something.
22:07.820 --> 22:12.260
And once the attention is focused on that one aspect
22:12.260 --> 22:14.820
of reality, all the rest of reality disappears.
22:14.820 --> 22:17.740
All the rest of reality, it is as if the rest of reality
22:17.740 --> 22:19.300
doesn't exist anymore.
22:19.300 --> 22:23.260
And this mechanism is extremely strong.
22:23.260 --> 22:26.020
You can, a simple hypnotic procedure is sufficient
22:26.020 --> 22:28.980
to focus someone's attention so much on one aspect
22:28.980 --> 22:32.260
of reality that the person won't notice anymore
22:32.260 --> 22:35.100
that there is a surgeon who cuts through the skin,
22:35.100 --> 22:37.420
through the flesh, the flesh even straight
22:37.420 --> 22:40.300
through the breastbone to perform an open heart operation.
22:40.300 --> 22:42.740
That happens all the time in a university hospital
22:42.740 --> 22:43.780
in Belgium.
22:43.780 --> 22:45.820
There is a professor, Elisabeth Vermeufil,
22:45.820 --> 22:48.300
who uses this simple procedure to focus
22:49.020 --> 22:50.820
patient's attention on something,
22:50.820 --> 22:53.780
and then the surgeon can do no matter what he wants,
22:53.780 --> 22:57.180
cut through the breastbone, the patient won't notice it.
22:57.180 --> 22:59.380
So that's the power of this mechanism
22:59.380 --> 23:01.700
of the focusing of attention.
23:01.700 --> 23:03.940
Exactly the same happens in a mass formation.
23:03.940 --> 23:07.580
First, people start to deal with all kinds of emotions
23:07.580 --> 23:10.620
that are no longer coupled to mental representations.
23:10.620 --> 23:13.500
And then all these emotions, all this anxiety
23:13.500 --> 23:16.780
are focused on one point, and consequently,
23:16.780 --> 23:19.860
the people don't notice anymore that they lose everything,
23:19.860 --> 23:21.140
that they lose their health, their wealth,
23:21.140 --> 23:23.140
the future of their children, and so on.
23:23.140 --> 23:25.620
That's exactly what happens in a mass formation.
23:25.620 --> 23:28.500
So once you understand that the mechanism
23:28.500 --> 23:31.260
of mass formation is a kind of hypnosis,
23:31.260 --> 23:32.660
you understand that it is a phenomenon
23:32.660 --> 23:36.060
that is always provoked by the voice of someone,
23:36.060 --> 23:38.380
the readers of the masses who use indoctrination
23:38.380 --> 23:41.140
and propaganda to continue the mass formation,
23:41.140 --> 23:44.260
and then you also understand that if you want
23:44.300 --> 23:46.100
to disturb the mass formation,
23:47.060 --> 23:48.580
then you have to continue to speak out,
23:48.580 --> 23:51.740
that the dissonant voices have to continue to speak out.
23:51.740 --> 23:53.500
If the dissonant voices, if the people
23:53.500 --> 23:55.540
who do not go along with the masses,
23:55.540 --> 23:59.180
continue to speak out, they won't succeed
23:59.180 --> 24:00.780
in waking up the masses.
24:00.780 --> 24:02.620
Sometimes someone will wake up,
24:02.620 --> 24:04.540
but usually the people will continue
24:04.540 --> 24:06.340
to be in the grip of the mass formation.
24:06.340 --> 24:09.500
But that doesn't mean that their speech has no effect.
24:09.500 --> 24:10.500
Not at all.
24:10.500 --> 24:13.500
Their speech will constantly disturb the hypnosis
24:13.500 --> 24:16.900
to a certain extent, and it will prevent the hypnosis
24:16.900 --> 24:20.100
to become so deep that the people become convinced
24:20.100 --> 24:21.540
that they have to destroy everyone
24:21.540 --> 24:23.020
who doesn't go along with them.
24:23.020 --> 24:25.220
From the 19th century onwards,
24:25.220 --> 24:28.420
scholars like Gustave Le Bon have described that,
24:28.420 --> 24:29.980
that the people who are not in the grip
24:29.980 --> 24:32.860
of the mass formation have,
24:32.860 --> 24:35.380
that their speech has exactly this effect.
24:35.380 --> 24:38.700
It doesn't wake them up, but it disturbs the mass formation,
24:38.700 --> 24:41.500
and it makes sure that it doesn't go so deep
24:41.540 --> 24:43.780
that the masses start to commit atrocities.
24:43.780 --> 24:46.900
And in this way, that's from a strategical point of view,
24:46.900 --> 24:48.860
quintessential, in this way,
24:50.060 --> 24:51.540
what will happen is the following.
24:51.540 --> 24:54.100
The masses are always self-destructive,
24:54.100 --> 24:57.020
and they will slowly exhaust themselves.
24:57.020 --> 25:00.180
They will exhaust themselves and destroy themselves
25:00.180 --> 25:03.300
before they destroyed the people
25:03.300 --> 25:05.420
who do not go along with them.
25:05.420 --> 25:06.860
So once you understand that,
25:06.860 --> 25:09.380
you understand that the first and foremost
25:09.420 --> 25:12.020
strategical principle that you have to follow
25:12.020 --> 25:14.580
is that you have to continue to speak out.
25:14.580 --> 25:18.580
And at the same time, it's also an ethical principle.
25:18.580 --> 25:19.420
As a human being-
25:19.420 --> 25:20.380
Yes, it is an ethical principle.
25:20.380 --> 25:21.500
It's an ethical principle.
25:21.500 --> 25:23.860
As a human being, you have the ethical duty
25:23.860 --> 25:27.380
to articulate these words that seem sincere and honest to you,
25:27.380 --> 25:29.540
no matter what the consequences are.
25:29.540 --> 25:31.740
And if you do that, we have numerous examples
25:31.740 --> 25:36.740
described by Solzhenitsyn, by Primo Levi, by Viktor Frankl.
25:37.260 --> 25:40.220
If you do that, something wonderful will happen.
25:40.220 --> 25:43.620
If you stick to your ethical principles,
25:43.620 --> 25:45.780
when the world dehumanizes,
25:45.780 --> 25:49.700
you go through a very fast process of mental evolution,
25:49.700 --> 25:52.860
a very fast process of mental evolution as a human being.
25:52.860 --> 25:55.940
You start to become stronger and stronger and stronger
25:55.940 --> 25:57.540
as a human being at the mental level.
25:57.540 --> 25:59.900
And sometimes, even at the physical level,
25:59.900 --> 26:01.820
if you read Solzhenitsyn,
26:01.820 --> 26:04.860
he gives us wonderful examples of how in the gulags,
26:05.300 --> 26:09.340
most people started to act in a beast-like manner.
26:09.340 --> 26:10.180
Yes.
26:10.180 --> 26:12.460
But there were some, a small minority,
26:12.460 --> 26:14.620
who went in exactly the opposite direction,
26:14.620 --> 26:20.220
who in this pool of darkness chose to try to represent humanity
26:20.220 --> 26:23.020
and who became more and more determined
26:23.020 --> 26:25.180
to stick under all conditions,
26:25.180 --> 26:28.660
no matter how difficult it was, to their ethical principles.
26:28.660 --> 26:31.820
And Solzhenitsyn gives these wonderful examples
26:31.820 --> 26:33.660
in which he describes how these people
26:33.820 --> 26:35.900
very often survived the concentration camps
26:35.900 --> 26:37.380
and became even stronger
26:37.380 --> 26:41.340
while most others died within a few weeks or a few months.
26:41.340 --> 26:43.460
Of course, that's not a guarantee.
26:43.460 --> 26:47.820
But I think that if we understand that,
26:47.820 --> 26:50.180
we understand that the process of mass formation
26:50.180 --> 26:51.700
and everything that happens now
26:51.700 --> 26:54.540
in a certain way has meaning and purpose.
26:54.540 --> 26:58.980
It should motivate us to understand
26:58.980 --> 27:02.140
the value of ethical principles for a human being.
27:02.180 --> 27:05.180
It should make us more determined to continue
27:06.980 --> 27:08.660
to live according to ethical principles
27:08.660 --> 27:11.660
while the rest of the world leaves them behind.
27:11.660 --> 27:12.500
So...
27:13.660 --> 27:14.500
Let me just say,
27:14.500 --> 27:17.260
this is one of the most amazing conversations I've ever had,
27:17.260 --> 27:18.980
and I'm so grateful that you're here, and I mean that.
27:18.980 --> 27:19.820
I'm grateful that you're here.
27:19.820 --> 27:22.420
I feel like you're speaking directly to our country.
27:23.780 --> 27:28.100
What is the difference between the people who go along,
27:28.100 --> 27:29.860
which is the majority, it sounds like,
27:29.860 --> 27:32.180
and the smaller percentage who decide,
27:32.180 --> 27:34.940
no, I'm gonna say what I believe is true no matter what.
27:37.340 --> 27:40.140
What makes people decide to take one path or the other?
27:40.140 --> 27:41.980
And can you predict it ahead of time?
27:41.980 --> 27:43.300
No, you can't.
27:44.860 --> 27:46.380
From the 19th century onwards,
27:48.260 --> 27:51.140
from the moment psychologists have been studying
27:51.140 --> 27:52.780
the phenomenon of mass formation,
27:52.780 --> 27:55.380
it has been remarked and observed time and time again
27:55.380 --> 27:57.860
that every time a mass emerges in a society,
27:57.860 --> 27:59.980
there is a small group who doesn't go along with it,
27:59.980 --> 28:03.260
but the small group is extremely diverse and heterogeneous.
28:03.260 --> 28:04.100
Yes.
28:04.100 --> 28:06.460
And nobody seems to know what connects these people.
28:06.460 --> 28:07.300
I've noticed this.
28:07.300 --> 28:09.500
Which characteristic these people share.
28:09.500 --> 28:11.340
But in one way or another,
28:11.340 --> 28:16.340
they all make this fundamental decision,
28:16.580 --> 28:19.220
a decision that cannot be reduced to anything else.
28:19.220 --> 28:22.860
They make this decision to choose for truth speech
28:22.860 --> 28:25.100
instead of choosing the easy way
28:25.100 --> 28:26.860
and going along with a narrative
28:26.860 --> 28:28.060
where everybody believes in,
28:28.060 --> 28:31.220
but of which everybody actually knows
28:31.220 --> 28:33.940
that it is utterly absurd and unethical.
28:33.940 --> 28:35.460
So because the mass formation,
28:35.460 --> 28:36.780
you know, that's very interesting.
28:36.780 --> 28:38.940
The reason why people buy into the narrative
28:38.940 --> 28:40.220
that leads to mass formation
28:40.220 --> 28:43.580
is not because they think that the narrative is correct.
28:43.580 --> 28:44.900
Not at all.
28:44.900 --> 28:47.220
The reason why they buy into the narrative
28:47.220 --> 28:50.380
is because it leads to this new social bond,
28:50.380 --> 28:53.300
because it makes them feel connected again.
28:53.300 --> 28:56.340
Because loneliness is the most painful state.
28:56.380 --> 28:57.820
We don't know it, but it is like that.
28:57.820 --> 28:59.900
We don't realize it, but it is like that for a human being.
28:59.900 --> 29:00.940
And it wants to escape.
29:00.940 --> 29:02.620
It wants this new social bond.
29:02.620 --> 29:04.700
And the reason why people buy into it
29:04.700 --> 29:07.940
is because it leads to all these psychological advantages.
29:07.940 --> 29:11.180
It gives, it couples the anxiety to an object.
29:11.180 --> 29:13.460
It provides an object at which people
29:13.460 --> 29:15.580
can direct their frustration and aggression.
29:15.580 --> 29:17.220
It leads to this new connectedness.
29:17.220 --> 29:19.500
So that's the reason, this new social bond
29:19.500 --> 29:22.220
and the effective advantages is the reason
29:22.220 --> 29:24.740
why people continue to go along with the narrative,
29:24.740 --> 29:27.100
no matter how absurd it becomes.
29:27.100 --> 29:28.540
We could even say more.
29:28.540 --> 29:31.620
It's just the same like people in a football stadium
29:31.620 --> 29:32.580
all sing the same song,
29:32.580 --> 29:34.260
not because they think it's the most beautiful song
29:34.260 --> 29:35.100
in the world.
29:35.100 --> 29:37.300
No, it's because the song connects them
29:37.300 --> 29:38.660
with the other people.
29:38.660 --> 29:43.220
And so, and you could even say more.
29:43.220 --> 29:46.020
The more absurd the measures become,
29:46.020 --> 29:47.260
for instance, the Corona measures,
29:47.260 --> 29:49.420
the more they will be applauded
29:49.420 --> 29:50.780
by this part of the population
29:50.780 --> 29:53.020
that is really in the grip of the mass formation.
29:53.060 --> 29:58.060
Simply because the measures have the function of a ritual.
29:58.220 --> 29:59.740
And what is a ritual?
29:59.740 --> 30:03.020
Ritualistic behavior is always behavior
30:03.020 --> 30:04.540
that has no pragmatic meaning
30:05.580 --> 30:08.220
and that demands a sacrifice from the individual.
30:08.220 --> 30:11.340
A sacrifice through which the individual shows
30:11.340 --> 30:14.340
that the collective is more important than itself.
30:14.340 --> 30:16.900
So people without knowing it,
30:16.900 --> 30:18.860
we live in a time in which we think
30:18.860 --> 30:21.460
the materialist view of man in the world
30:21.460 --> 30:23.980
believes that rituals have no meaning and no function,
30:23.980 --> 30:25.980
but they are essential for us.
30:25.980 --> 30:28.460
And in totalitarianism, without knowing it,
30:28.460 --> 30:30.620
people engage completely in rituals,
30:30.620 --> 30:32.060
but they don't realize it.
30:32.060 --> 30:35.380
And these rituals are rituals of death.
30:35.380 --> 30:39.660
People sacrifice, blindly sacrifice everything
30:39.660 --> 30:43.060
just to escape their profound feeling
30:43.060 --> 30:44.820
of social atomization,
30:44.820 --> 30:46.940
to escape their profound feeling
30:46.940 --> 30:49.620
of loneliness and disconnectedness.
30:49.620 --> 30:53.220
It's a kind of suicidal ritual that is committed.
30:53.220 --> 30:57.820
And that's exactly why many people expected
30:57.820 --> 30:59.020
that if the rituals became,
30:59.020 --> 31:01.980
if the coronal measures became more absurd,
31:01.980 --> 31:03.580
that people would start to wake up,
31:03.580 --> 31:05.220
but that usually didn't happen.
31:05.220 --> 31:06.060
No.
31:06.060 --> 31:08.220
No, simply because people don't understand
31:08.220 --> 31:10.500
that unconsciously these measures
31:10.500 --> 31:12.260
have the function of a ritual.
31:12.260 --> 31:14.620
And the more absurd they are,
31:14.620 --> 31:18.140
the purer they fulfill their function of a ritual.
31:18.140 --> 31:19.300
That's exactly right.
31:19.300 --> 31:21.780
The more unlikely, the more compelling.
31:21.780 --> 31:23.300
Yep, indeed.
31:23.300 --> 31:25.140
So then you have to get, I mean,
31:26.820 --> 31:28.580
I think this is, again,
31:28.580 --> 31:31.820
one of the most amazing conversations I've had ever,
31:32.940 --> 31:35.380
but it does raise the question of motive.
31:35.380 --> 31:38.660
Like, why did Robespierre do that?
31:38.660 --> 31:40.620
Why did Lenin do that?
31:40.620 --> 31:41.660
Why did Hitler do that?
31:41.660 --> 31:43.740
Why did our own government,
31:43.740 --> 31:46.340
not all of whom are evil, a lot of good people,
31:47.180 --> 31:49.140
why did they do this?
31:49.980 --> 31:51.540
Well, we have answered the question, I think,
31:51.540 --> 31:53.700
why the population goes along with the narrative,
31:53.700 --> 31:55.500
because there are all these psychological problems
31:55.500 --> 31:57.100
and they are solved by the mass formation.
31:57.100 --> 31:59.300
But the second question is, why does the elite do it?
31:59.300 --> 32:00.460
Yes.
32:00.460 --> 32:03.340
And I think throughout the last few hundreds of years,
32:03.340 --> 32:07.020
we have seen two things developing alongside each other.
32:07.020 --> 32:11.300
On the one hand, the population got in a state
32:11.300 --> 32:13.380
where it became more and more vulnerable for mass formation.
32:13.380 --> 32:16.060
And this simply has to do with our mechanist,
32:16.060 --> 32:17.980
rationalist view on man and the world.
32:17.980 --> 32:21.980
Something in our rationalist scientific ideology
32:23.780 --> 32:26.820
disconnects people from their social natural environment.
32:26.820 --> 32:29.780
That's what I describe in detail, really in detail,
32:29.780 --> 32:31.780
in the first five chapters of my book.
32:31.780 --> 32:35.860
I describe how it is our obsession
32:35.860 --> 32:38.500
with rational understanding, our delusional belief
32:38.500 --> 32:40.980
that the mystery of life, the essence of life
32:40.980 --> 32:43.900
can be understood and reduced to the categories
32:43.900 --> 32:45.460
of our own rational thinking.
32:45.460 --> 32:48.860
It's that delusional belief of the human being
32:48.860 --> 32:50.620
that disconnects it from its environment
32:50.620 --> 32:53.020
more and more and more and more.
32:53.020 --> 32:55.100
And that's exactly the reason
32:55.100 --> 32:57.820
there was more and more disconnectedness in the population.
32:57.820 --> 33:01.220
That led to the mass formation,
33:01.220 --> 33:03.500
which became stronger and stronger and stronger,
33:03.500 --> 33:05.140
and in the end made it so strong
33:05.140 --> 33:07.460
that totalitarian states could emerge.
33:07.460 --> 33:10.460
But at the same time, another process happened
33:10.460 --> 33:13.100
at the level of the elite, this mechanist,
33:13.140 --> 33:15.580
rationalist view on man and the world,
33:15.580 --> 33:19.900
created a new elite, an elite which rationally
33:19.900 --> 33:23.860
tried to understand the psychological processes
33:23.860 --> 33:28.380
in a society and then used this rational understanding
33:28.380 --> 33:31.540
to manipulate and control the population.
33:31.540 --> 33:34.660
And that's why immediately after the French Revolution,
33:34.660 --> 33:38.220
that means after the fall of the Ancien Régime in France,
33:38.220 --> 33:40.340
immediately we saw the emergence
33:40.340 --> 33:42.620
of modern indoctrination and propaganda.
33:42.660 --> 33:44.220
Napoleon was the first one who established
33:44.220 --> 33:47.700
a bureau d'opinion publique, a kind of office for propaganda.
33:47.700 --> 33:50.780
And then in the beginning of the 20th century,
33:50.780 --> 33:54.420
like 100 years later, we saw already
33:54.420 --> 33:56.900
these enormous propaganda machineries
33:56.900 --> 33:59.420
of the First World War, and it became worse
33:59.420 --> 34:02.060
in the Second World War, and now it's even much, much,
34:02.060 --> 34:03.300
much more worse.
34:03.300 --> 34:07.220
Our entire public space is saturated
34:07.220 --> 34:10.260
with indoctrination propaganda constantly,
34:10.260 --> 34:11.660
simply because, it's strange,
34:11.660 --> 34:14.180
if you read the works of the founding fathers
34:14.180 --> 34:15.460
of indoctrination propaganda,
34:15.460 --> 34:17.740
such as Lippmann, Trotter, Bernays,
34:17.740 --> 34:20.780
and you hear how these people think in the following way.
34:20.780 --> 34:24.740
They say, well, since modern democracy,
34:24.740 --> 34:27.500
the political leaders are not true leaders anymore.
34:27.500 --> 34:30.540
They have to be elected, meaning that they have to follow
34:30.540 --> 34:35.340
the masses, so they can never control the masses.
34:37.100 --> 34:38.340
And at that moment, they decided,
34:38.340 --> 34:40.660
and you can read this literally in the works
34:40.860 --> 34:43.620
of the people I just mentioned, Lippmann, Trotter, Bernays,
34:43.620 --> 34:46.420
at that moment, these guys decided,
34:46.420 --> 34:51.420
we have, we need constantly to manipulate the masses,
34:51.880 --> 34:55.020
or otherwise, they will govern the country
34:55.020 --> 34:57.180
and not the politicians, or not us.
34:57.180 --> 35:00.980
So the elite relied more and more and more
35:00.980 --> 35:03.660
on indoctrination propaganda, manipulation,
35:03.660 --> 35:05.980
psychological operations, brainwashing,
35:05.980 --> 35:07.620
and so on of the population,
35:07.620 --> 35:11.740
just to manipulate the masses from behind.
35:11.740 --> 35:14.940
To subvert democracy, to end the promise of democracy,
35:14.940 --> 35:15.940
which is the people rule.
35:15.940 --> 35:16.980
Of course, of course, of course.
35:16.980 --> 35:18.500
That's the problem.
35:18.500 --> 35:20.520
Exactly, so why do they do it?
35:20.520 --> 35:21.980
Well, why do they do it?
35:21.980 --> 35:25.300
You know, that question should be answered, I think,
35:25.300 --> 35:26.580
in a very nuanced way.
35:26.580 --> 35:29.460
Many people think that totalitarianism is all about power
35:29.460 --> 35:30.660
and that it's all about the money,
35:30.660 --> 35:32.540
and to a certain extent, that's true.
35:32.540 --> 35:35.220
But the ultimate motivation of totalitarian leaders
35:35.220 --> 35:37.100
is always ideological in nature.
35:37.780 --> 35:38.940
It's ideological.
35:38.940 --> 35:41.820
Stalin actually believed in Marxism.
35:41.820 --> 35:43.860
Of course, and he wanted to sacrifice everything,
35:43.860 --> 35:45.180
all his money and all his power,
35:45.180 --> 35:48.340
if he could just reshape society
35:48.340 --> 35:52.220
according to his Marxist ideas.
35:52.220 --> 35:55.100
That's so typical for totalitarian leaders.
35:55.100 --> 35:56.900
They want to sacrifice everything.
35:56.900 --> 35:58.540
And they actually believe it, though.
35:58.540 --> 36:02.340
They usually don't believe the narratives they use,
36:02.340 --> 36:04.580
but they believe the ideology blindly.
36:04.580 --> 36:06.940
So like in this case, I think here and now,
36:07.780 --> 36:09.540
in our situation, for me, the ideology at work
36:09.540 --> 36:12.340
is a technocratic, transhumanist ideology.
36:12.340 --> 36:17.340
And in order to impose this ideology to society,
36:20.420 --> 36:24.300
they use, people use, the elite uses,
36:24.300 --> 36:27.980
the large global institution uses all kinds of narratives
36:27.980 --> 36:29.820
to convince, to try to entice the people
36:29.820 --> 36:31.380
to go along with this ideology.
36:31.380 --> 36:33.660
And these ideologies, well, these narratives
36:33.700 --> 36:34.940
are like the climate narrative
36:34.940 --> 36:39.940
or the terrorism narrative or the corona narrative.
36:39.940 --> 36:44.620
And usually, the totalitarian leaders
36:44.620 --> 36:46.340
usually don't believe,
36:47.940 --> 36:50.180
they fanatically believe in their ideology.
36:50.180 --> 36:51.820
They really believe that their technocratic,
36:51.820 --> 36:54.500
transhumanist ideology will create like a new paradise
36:54.500 --> 36:55.900
for the human being.
36:55.900 --> 36:59.100
But they usually don't believe the narratives they use.
36:59.100 --> 37:02.700
They believe so blindly and fanatically in their ideology
37:02.700 --> 37:06.100
that they think it is justified to lie, cheat,
37:06.100 --> 37:08.540
and manipulate the population to convince them
37:08.540 --> 37:13.540
to accept all these ideological changes
37:13.820 --> 37:15.580
they try to impose to society.
37:15.580 --> 37:16.900
So we have to distinguish, I think,
37:16.900 --> 37:18.820
if you ask the question, why they do so,
37:18.820 --> 37:21.100
in the end, I really believe they do so
37:21.100 --> 37:26.020
because they believe they have this obsessional drive
37:26.020 --> 37:29.780
to impose their ideological fiction to society.
37:29.780 --> 37:31.660
That's the root cause, I think,
37:31.660 --> 37:34.540
or the root motivation of totalitarian leaders.
37:34.540 --> 37:36.420
And I know that's not very popular.
37:36.420 --> 37:38.180
Most people prefer to believe
37:38.180 --> 37:39.980
that it's all about the money, that it's all about-
37:39.980 --> 37:41.900
No, no, no, no, because I know some of them.
37:41.900 --> 37:44.660
And I agree with you 100%
37:44.660 --> 37:47.340
that there's a sincerity at the bottom of it.
37:48.300 --> 37:51.500
So how far along is the West
37:51.500 --> 37:55.620
in what appears to be this move toward totalitarianism?
37:55.620 --> 38:00.620
Well, you know, in 1951, Hannah Arendt said
38:00.740 --> 38:05.740
that we've seen the collapse of fascist totalitarianism,
38:06.140 --> 38:08.340
she said, and we will soon witness the collapse,
38:08.340 --> 38:10.260
the collapse of communist totalitarianism,
38:10.260 --> 38:13.500
but she said a new totalitarianism will emerge,
38:13.500 --> 38:15.580
the ultimate totalitarianism,
38:15.580 --> 38:18.060
and that is the technocratic totalitarianism,
38:18.060 --> 38:22.660
a kind of totalitarianism which is not led by gang leaders
38:22.660 --> 38:24.140
such as Stalin and Hitler,
38:24.300 --> 38:27.820
but which is led by dull bureaucrats and technocrats.
38:27.820 --> 38:28.740
And I think-
38:28.740 --> 38:30.020
Hannah Arendt wrote that in 1951?
38:30.020 --> 38:32.180
In 1951, she wrote that.
38:32.180 --> 38:33.460
I mentioned it in my book.
38:33.460 --> 38:38.460
And that technocratic totalitarianism
38:38.460 --> 38:40.860
is the ultimate manifestation
38:40.860 --> 38:43.300
of the kind of ideology I just referred to,
38:43.300 --> 38:47.060
this kind of materialist, mechanist ideology,
38:47.060 --> 38:50.020
which believes that the entire universe
38:50.020 --> 38:53.860
is like a set of elementary particles, atoms, and molecules
38:53.860 --> 38:55.700
that all interact with each other,
38:55.700 --> 38:57.860
and according to the laws of mechanics,
38:57.860 --> 39:01.740
and that can be perfectly understood in a rationalist way.
39:01.740 --> 39:06.060
If you start from such a view on men and the world,
39:06.060 --> 39:09.580
then the logical conclusion is that this universe machine
39:09.580 --> 39:13.180
and this machine-like society should be led
39:13.180 --> 39:15.820
not by democratically elected politicians,
39:15.820 --> 39:20.820
but by technocratic experts who possess the rational knowledge
39:20.820 --> 39:25.820
to make the machine run as smoothly as possible.
39:27.420 --> 39:29.700
So that's the delusional belief of the technocratic system.
39:29.700 --> 39:31.180
It's a logical consequence
39:31.180 --> 39:34.180
of our rationalist, mechanist view on men and the world.
39:37.620 --> 39:42.340
The real enemy for me is not the elite, it's that ideology,
39:42.340 --> 39:45.460
that ideology, that rationalist view on men and the world,
39:45.460 --> 39:48.780
that on the one hand created a new kind of population
39:48.780 --> 39:51.180
which was so vulnerable for mass formation,
39:51.180 --> 39:54.380
and on the other hand, created an elite
39:54.380 --> 39:56.940
which delusionally started to believe
39:56.940 --> 39:59.540
that it could manipulate, cheat, control,
39:59.540 --> 40:02.700
try to steer everyone in society.
40:02.700 --> 40:06.580
So the root cause of the problem is this mechanist ideology,
40:06.580 --> 40:10.420
which always presents itself as science,
40:10.420 --> 40:12.740
but which has nothing to do with science.
40:12.740 --> 40:16.820
But how did you, I mean, given your job description,
40:19.100 --> 40:20.820
you're a prime candidate for believing that.
40:20.820 --> 40:22.340
Everyone in your world believes that.
40:22.340 --> 40:23.900
Why don't you believe that?
40:23.900 --> 40:24.740
I have no idea.
40:26.740 --> 40:29.420
I was never a great talent to believe
40:29.420 --> 40:31.220
what other people believed.
40:31.220 --> 40:35.940
In one way or another, I always try to think with my own head
40:35.940 --> 40:38.900
and I always, I think like, well.
40:40.340 --> 40:41.460
What does your parents do?
40:41.460 --> 40:42.900
What world were you raised in?
40:42.900 --> 40:45.420
Why did you, were you told it was important
40:45.420 --> 40:46.260
to think for yourself?
40:46.260 --> 40:48.500
I will tell you something about my parents.
40:49.140 --> 40:51.340
My father didn't want me to go to university
40:51.340 --> 40:53.580
because he said, you will see, he said,
40:53.580 --> 40:57.940
the institute that pretends to represent the truth
40:57.940 --> 41:01.580
in society, you won't find much truth there, he said.
41:01.580 --> 41:05.820
And so I decided to go to university against his will.
41:05.820 --> 41:07.140
Had he gone to university?
41:07.140 --> 41:11.460
No, but he was a very intelligent person
41:11.460 --> 41:14.620
who read a lot, really a lot, every day
41:14.620 --> 41:16.380
in the morning and the evening,
41:16.380 --> 41:19.580
but who had like a contempt for all kinds of degrees,
41:19.580 --> 41:20.420
academic degrees.
41:20.420 --> 41:22.500
He said like, the only reason why you should gather
41:22.500 --> 41:27.340
knowledge is because you have a passion to know,
41:27.340 --> 41:29.340
a real passion for knowledge and not because you want
41:29.340 --> 41:30.860
to have a certain degree.
41:30.860 --> 41:33.980
And he also, in his opinion, a human being had to work
41:33.980 --> 41:38.420
with its hands and then also read and learn
41:38.420 --> 41:39.260
something in its spare time.
41:39.260 --> 41:40.740
I think I would like him.
41:40.740 --> 41:42.460
Maybe, yeah, maybe.
41:42.460 --> 41:44.220
So but then, but I went to university
41:44.260 --> 41:46.820
and actually now that I'm gonna become a professor,
41:48.540 --> 41:53.740
I could understand the more and more that I'm happy
41:53.740 --> 41:58.740
that I went to university, but I'm also disappointed
42:00.420 --> 42:05.420
in, in, in, I don't think that,
42:09.740 --> 42:13.380
well, maybe that holds for applies to society in general,
42:13.420 --> 42:17.380
but I don't think that most people are motivated
42:17.380 --> 42:19.700
by a search for truth.
42:23.820 --> 42:28.540
How you become very public with these views
42:28.540 --> 42:31.540
and the response to them, at least online,
42:31.540 --> 42:34.700
has been enormous and you become famous in this country.
42:34.700 --> 42:36.700
Anyway, I have no idea how you're regarded in Belgium,
42:36.700 --> 42:39.900
but how do your colleagues at the university feel
42:39.900 --> 42:41.060
about what you've said?
42:42.060 --> 42:44.060
Most react in a very defensive way.
42:46.580 --> 42:51.580
I have to say that the dean reassured me that
42:54.700 --> 42:57.060
I had the right to express my opinion.
42:57.060 --> 43:00.620
It was clear that they were not happy with it,
43:00.620 --> 43:02.220
but I was not fired or something.
43:05.780 --> 43:08.980
But even before the Corona crisis, well,
43:09.340 --> 43:12.420
most people at university were already angry with me
43:12.420 --> 43:15.460
just because I exposed the problems with research
43:15.460 --> 43:17.580
in a way that most of them didn't like.
43:20.700 --> 43:23.740
So for me, I was well prepared for the Corona crisis
43:23.740 --> 43:25.180
in many respects.
43:25.180 --> 43:28.220
I was used to swim against the tide.
43:31.660 --> 43:34.780
So everything about, or virtually everything about,
43:34.780 --> 43:37.980
our response in the West to Corona
43:38.020 --> 43:41.140
has been exposed as incorrect, at best,
43:41.140 --> 43:42.700
fraudulent, at worst.
43:42.700 --> 43:44.860
So we know how wrong everybody was.
43:46.220 --> 43:48.780
Does that change the public's mind?
43:50.300 --> 43:51.900
I don't think so.
43:51.900 --> 43:54.220
Maybe for a small percentage of the people,
43:54.220 --> 43:58.980
it changes their mind, but most of them, in a strange way,
43:58.980 --> 44:01.020
will continue to buy into the narrative
44:01.020 --> 44:02.780
for the reasons that I just mentioned.
44:02.780 --> 44:05.060
And then the problem is that there's this phenomenon
44:05.060 --> 44:06.100
of mass formation.
44:07.060 --> 44:07.900
Well,
44:11.300 --> 44:15.700
mass formation, the cause of mass formation is loneliness,
44:15.700 --> 44:19.900
but mass formation itself, if you think about the mechanism
44:19.900 --> 44:22.300
that I just explained, because it sucks all this energy away
44:22.300 --> 44:24.940
from the social bond, creates even more loneliness.
44:24.940 --> 44:29.620
And that puts society in a condition
44:29.620 --> 44:32.180
where it is even more vulnerable for mass formation.
44:32.180 --> 44:34.620
So if one large scale mass formation emerges,
44:35.020 --> 44:37.180
there is a good chance that a second one will emerge,
44:37.180 --> 44:40.980
which might be even more powerful.
44:40.980 --> 44:44.140
And if we really want to get rid
44:44.140 --> 44:45.820
of this process of mass formation,
44:47.620 --> 44:49.500
we really will have to do something.
44:49.500 --> 44:52.500
We really have to move beyond this rationalist view
44:52.500 --> 44:53.340
on man and the world.
44:53.340 --> 44:55.300
I mean it, that's the ultimate cause.
44:55.300 --> 44:57.740
As long as we continue to believe
44:57.740 --> 45:00.300
that we can reduce the mystery of life around us
45:00.300 --> 45:02.020
to our rational understanding,
45:02.020 --> 45:05.860
we will continue to disconnect from our environment
45:05.860 --> 45:08.500
and we will continue to be vulnerable for mass formation.
45:08.500 --> 45:10.300
So what is the accurate position?
45:10.300 --> 45:13.020
If we're telling, our leaders are telling themselves,
45:13.020 --> 45:16.060
I can fully understand people,
45:16.060 --> 45:18.060
they're merely collections of atoms
45:18.060 --> 45:21.140
and I can guide them toward utopia.
45:22.300 --> 45:24.580
What should be our attitude toward people?
45:24.580 --> 45:26.260
What's the correct way to view?
45:28.300 --> 45:30.580
We will have to educate them in such a way
45:30.580 --> 45:35.580
that they start to see that they start to develop
45:36.580 --> 45:41.580
the capacity to connect to the world in a different way.
45:41.900 --> 45:43.100
I will quote René Thom,
45:43.100 --> 45:45.900
one of the most famous mathematicians of the 20th century
45:45.900 --> 45:48.460
and one of the founders of complex dynamical systems theory.
45:48.460 --> 45:52.420
He said, this part of reality
45:52.420 --> 45:54.260
that can be understood in a rational way,
45:54.260 --> 45:56.340
and he was a scientist, a top scientist,
45:58.100 --> 45:59.740
this part of reality that can be understood
45:59.740 --> 46:02.060
in a rational way is very limited.
46:02.060 --> 46:05.300
And the rest of reality, we can only understand
46:05.300 --> 46:07.500
by empathically resonating with it.
46:07.500 --> 46:09.580
And what René Thom said there,
46:09.580 --> 46:12.300
he by empathically resonating with it.
46:12.300 --> 46:17.180
So he differentiated between two different kinds of knowledge,
46:17.180 --> 46:20.300
a rational knowledge and a kind of resonating,
46:20.300 --> 46:22.820
empathic knowledge of what happens around us.
46:22.820 --> 46:24.460
And there were so many traditions
46:24.460 --> 46:27.300
in which they were aware of the differentiation.
46:27.300 --> 46:29.580
For instance, the samurai tradition in Japan
46:30.420 --> 46:31.860
said that if you learn the martial arts
46:31.860 --> 46:34.460
or no matter what other art or no matter what other craft,
46:34.460 --> 46:39.140
there first is the rational technical aspect of it.
46:39.140 --> 46:40.500
First, you learn techniques
46:40.500 --> 46:42.580
which you can understand in a rational way.
46:42.580 --> 46:45.540
But when you practice these techniques for a long time,
46:45.540 --> 46:48.140
you will start to develop something else,
46:48.140 --> 46:52.020
something that transcends all rational understanding.
46:52.020 --> 46:56.580
You will start to develop a certain feel
46:56.580 --> 46:58.180
with the art you practice.
46:58.180 --> 47:01.620
And everyone who learns a craft knows this.
47:01.620 --> 47:03.460
First, you can try to understand rationally
47:03.460 --> 47:05.300
what you have to do, but slowly,
47:05.300 --> 47:07.140
you start to feel what you have to do.
47:07.140 --> 47:09.540
And that's the moment where you start to resonate
47:09.540 --> 47:10.380
with what you are doing.
47:10.380 --> 47:13.500
It's this resonating knowledge, which is so important,
47:13.500 --> 47:16.340
which also is this resonating knowledge,
47:16.340 --> 47:21.340
which makes you feel the object that you're making in a craft
47:23.460 --> 47:25.620
or which makes you feel the art that you're performing
47:25.620 --> 47:26.820
or that makes you feel the object
47:26.820 --> 47:30.660
that you're studying in a scientific study and so on.
47:30.660 --> 47:33.300
And it's, as soon as you're connected in this way
47:33.300 --> 47:36.980
with the object, you start to get in touch
47:36.980 --> 47:39.620
with the eternal principles of humanity
47:39.620 --> 47:42.420
and with the eternal ethical principles
47:42.420 --> 47:44.100
of our existence as a human being.
47:44.100 --> 47:48.500
And it are these principles that can be the true cornerstone
47:48.500 --> 47:50.380
of a human living together,
47:50.380 --> 47:52.380
a really fruitful human living together.
47:52.380 --> 47:54.140
Now, since a few centuries,
47:54.140 --> 47:57.780
we believe that rational knowledge should be the cornerstone
47:57.780 --> 47:59.380
of a human living together
47:59.380 --> 48:01.260
and of our existence as a human being.
48:01.260 --> 48:02.820
That's an illusion.
48:02.820 --> 48:05.340
Rational knowledge is always extremely relative
48:05.340 --> 48:08.180
and never really touches the real.
48:08.180 --> 48:10.500
Rational knowledge circles around the real.
48:10.500 --> 48:12.580
Are you guys listening to this?
48:12.580 --> 48:17.300
Sorry, this is just, what you're saying is the truest thing.
48:18.620 --> 48:19.740
Sorry, I'm getting excited.
48:19.740 --> 48:20.580
No, no.
48:21.380 --> 48:24.140
Rational knowledge could not touch
48:24.140 --> 48:26.140
the truth of human experience.
48:26.140 --> 48:27.500
I think that's what you just said.
48:27.500 --> 48:28.540
That's what I said.
48:30.180 --> 48:32.420
Nobody acknowledges that.
48:32.420 --> 48:33.260
Why?
48:34.380 --> 48:39.380
Because it's the illusion of complete rational understanding
48:39.700 --> 48:41.620
is so enticing for a human being.
48:41.620 --> 48:45.780
It makes him believe that he is almighty.
48:45.780 --> 48:47.300
It makes him believe that he will be able
48:47.300 --> 48:48.740
to explain everything,
48:48.780 --> 48:51.380
that he will be able to understand everything,
48:51.380 --> 48:53.100
that he will be able to manipulate everything,
48:53.100 --> 48:54.220
to control everything.
48:54.220 --> 48:57.660
It makes him believe that he will be able to live forever,
48:57.660 --> 49:00.700
to live eternally and eternal happiness.
49:00.700 --> 49:02.900
If you read the books of someone like Yuval Noah Harari,
49:02.900 --> 49:06.300
then you see what this transhumanist ideology,
49:06.300 --> 49:07.860
which is only the contemporary version
49:07.860 --> 49:09.860
of the mechanist ideology, really believes.
49:09.860 --> 49:12.060
It believes that man can become God.
49:12.060 --> 49:13.460
That's the problem.
49:13.460 --> 49:14.860
True rational understanding.
49:14.860 --> 49:18.220
And that's, of course, it's extremely enticing
49:18.220 --> 49:19.900
for a human being to believe that.
49:19.900 --> 49:22.900
But at the same time, it's what destroys life
49:22.900 --> 49:24.940
because the essence of life,
49:24.940 --> 49:28.460
and all seminal scientists have concluded exactly that.
49:28.460 --> 49:33.460
They said, you can understand rationally something of reality.
49:34.060 --> 49:36.820
Think of people such as Max Planck, Niels Bohr,
49:36.820 --> 49:39.300
Heisenberg, Schröder, Bohr, everyone,
49:39.300 --> 49:41.460
all seminal scientists concluded the same.
49:41.460 --> 49:44.140
You can understand a certain part of reality rationally,
49:44.140 --> 49:46.820
but the essence of life, I give many examples in my book,
49:46.820 --> 49:50.820
the essence of life escapes rational understanding,
49:50.820 --> 49:53.500
meaning that strictly logical,
49:53.500 --> 49:57.340
meaning that if you reduce life to rational understanding,
49:57.340 --> 49:58.980
you kill the essence of life.
49:58.980 --> 49:59.820
Yes.
49:59.820 --> 50:01.100
Inevitably, inevitably.
50:01.100 --> 50:02.300
And that's why it's so destructive.
50:02.300 --> 50:03.140
That's what we see now.
50:03.140 --> 50:06.260
We see a radical destruction of life.
50:07.220 --> 50:09.300
Are you a man of religious faith?
50:09.300 --> 50:12.460
I was an atheist when I was 18 years old,
50:13.380 --> 50:15.700
from my 16 to my 20 years old,
50:15.700 --> 50:19.700
because just, I didn't like it to be an atheist,
50:19.700 --> 50:22.660
but I really believed like, okay,
50:22.660 --> 50:25.980
what would the universe be if not a system
50:25.980 --> 50:27.700
of material particles, of atoms,
50:27.700 --> 50:30.260
that interact according to the laws of mechanics?
50:31.220 --> 50:32.580
There is just no possibility
50:32.580 --> 50:34.380
that the universe could be something else.
50:34.380 --> 50:36.740
The universe is a material phenomenon,
50:36.740 --> 50:39.340
and it can be understood according to the laws of mechanics.
50:39.340 --> 50:41.340
It can be strictly rationally understood.
50:41.340 --> 50:45.500
And then slowly, while reading all kinds of
50:48.020 --> 50:48.980
scientific theories,
50:48.980 --> 50:51.820
I slowly started to see that the seminal scientists
50:51.820 --> 50:54.380
all started from this rationalist ideology,
50:54.380 --> 50:57.300
but that they all left it behind one by one,
50:57.300 --> 50:58.780
that they all concluded, no,
50:59.900 --> 51:02.500
the essence of the universe is not material in nature.
51:02.500 --> 51:05.260
No, you cannot understand it's not mechanist in nature.
51:05.260 --> 51:07.860
If you, like someone like Niels Bohr said,
51:08.220 --> 51:11.740
the Nobel Prize winning physicist
51:11.740 --> 51:14.900
who studied the elementary particles his entire life,
51:14.900 --> 51:17.860
he said, atoms, he studied atoms,
51:17.860 --> 51:19.780
the behavior of atoms his entire life,
51:19.780 --> 51:22.620
he said, when it comes to atoms,
51:22.620 --> 51:25.420
language can only be used as poetry.
51:25.420 --> 51:27.140
And he was dead serious.
51:27.140 --> 51:31.260
He said, this behavior of elementary particles
51:31.260 --> 51:33.380
is so intrinsically irrational,
51:33.380 --> 51:35.420
transcends all rational understanding
51:35.420 --> 51:39.020
that you need poetry or mystical discourse
51:39.020 --> 51:44.020
to resonate with it, to have a certain feeling with it.
51:44.020 --> 51:48.700
And for me, it took me until I was 35 years old,
51:48.700 --> 51:52.700
when I dived deep into the mathematical basis
51:52.700 --> 51:55.100
of complex dynamical systems theory,
51:55.100 --> 51:59.780
before I suddenly started to see
51:59.780 --> 52:01.460
that what we call reality,
52:01.460 --> 52:06.140
what we call the facts simply are not rational.
52:06.140 --> 52:07.340
They are not rational.
52:07.340 --> 52:09.220
Complex dynamical system theory,
52:09.220 --> 52:11.020
and it's a paradox, it's paradoxical,
52:11.020 --> 52:14.340
but it's what complex dynamical systems theory shows.
52:14.340 --> 52:17.780
This theory shows in a strictly rational way
52:17.780 --> 52:20.340
that the essence of life is irrational.
52:20.340 --> 52:23.980
Literally, that all complex dynamical phenomena in nature,
52:23.980 --> 52:26.180
and that's most phenomena in nature,
52:26.180 --> 52:29.460
behave like an irrational number in mathematics.
52:29.460 --> 52:31.660
They are unpredictable.
52:31.660 --> 52:33.780
For instance, a complex dynamical system,
52:33.780 --> 52:38.780
such as convection patterns and turbulence
52:40.020 --> 52:44.020
and fluid or gas can be described
52:44.020 --> 52:48.780
by a mathematical formula, by the Navier-Stokes equations.
52:48.780 --> 52:51.860
But even with these equations in your hand,
52:51.860 --> 52:55.260
you cannot predict one second in advance
52:55.260 --> 52:57.420
how this convection pattern will behave.
52:57.420 --> 53:02.300
So that completely breaks the illusion
53:02.300 --> 53:04.740
that we would ever be able to really predict life.
53:04.740 --> 53:06.260
We will never be able.
53:06.260 --> 53:10.340
Our rational understanding stumbles upon an absolute limit,
53:10.340 --> 53:12.060
and it's beyond that limit
53:12.060 --> 53:14.020
that the essence of life situates.
53:14.020 --> 53:17.740
It's the mystery of life transcends rational understanding.
53:17.740 --> 53:21.420
And if you continue to build that wall around you
53:21.420 --> 53:23.460
of logical reasoning,
53:23.460 --> 53:24.460
because logical reasoning
53:24.460 --> 53:25.780
is really building a wall around you,
53:25.780 --> 53:28.620
you connect the one logical idea to the other.
53:28.620 --> 53:32.300
And in this way, you isolate yourself from your environment.
53:32.300 --> 53:35.380
But as soon as you start to become humble enough,
53:35.380 --> 53:37.340
as soon as you start to become aware
53:37.340 --> 53:40.780
of the fact that your rational understanding is limited,
53:40.780 --> 53:44.380
it is as if literally all these logical building blocks
53:44.380 --> 53:46.540
slide away from each other a little bit,
53:46.540 --> 53:49.020
and as if the eternal music of life
53:49.020 --> 53:51.020
can go through the holes of the wall
53:51.020 --> 53:54.060
and can touch the strings of your body and your soul.
53:54.100 --> 53:56.740
And it is at that moment that you can start to resonate
53:56.740 --> 53:58.660
with the mystery of life around you,
53:58.660 --> 54:00.380
with the eternal spirit of life.
54:00.380 --> 54:01.700
And it is exactly at that moment,
54:01.700 --> 54:03.660
I experienced that in my own life,
54:03.660 --> 54:08.300
that you can start to tolerate the idea of death and dying.
54:08.300 --> 54:12.940
And that's the most elementary disease of our society,
54:12.940 --> 54:14.220
because we believe,
54:14.220 --> 54:16.580
we are so obsessed with rational understanding,
54:16.580 --> 54:18.660
we don't know anymore what to do
54:18.660 --> 54:21.020
with the idea of death, dying, suffering.
54:21.020 --> 54:22.500
Yes, that's right.
54:22.500 --> 54:23.540
It's exactly right.
54:23.580 --> 54:26.700
And we deny it, we pretend it's not real.
54:26.700 --> 54:31.380
And that gives rise to great anxiety, don't you think?
54:31.380 --> 54:33.980
Of course, it leads to a certain anxiety,
54:33.980 --> 54:37.020
it leads to an incapacity to accept that life
54:38.020 --> 54:41.620
is risky sometimes, that we might lose something.
54:41.620 --> 54:44.060
It leads to, in a strange way,
54:44.060 --> 54:46.060
at the same time, people reduce this life
54:46.060 --> 54:47.380
to something completely,
54:47.380 --> 54:50.380
the rationalist ideology reduces this life
54:50.380 --> 54:52.380
to something completely meaningless,
54:52.380 --> 54:55.620
to a biochemical process in our brain,
54:55.620 --> 54:58.500
or to a biochemical process in our body.
54:58.500 --> 55:02.500
And at the same time, we cling to this life
55:02.500 --> 55:04.180
as if it is the only thing that counts.
55:04.180 --> 55:05.260
So that's a paradox.
55:05.260 --> 55:06.100
That's a paradox, of course.
55:06.100 --> 55:07.220
Yes, it is. It is a paradox.
55:07.220 --> 55:10.820
So where did it lead you from atheist to what?
55:13.700 --> 55:18.020
At least it led me to someone who understands
55:18.020 --> 55:23.020
that we should be humble enough to know
55:24.900 --> 55:29.340
that we will never, that our rational understanding
55:29.340 --> 55:31.740
is important, but that it is only the first stage
55:31.740 --> 55:34.300
and that it should never be the goal in our lives.
55:34.300 --> 55:36.020
There is something that transcends rational understanding
55:36.020 --> 55:37.540
that is much more important.
55:37.540 --> 55:41.300
And I also believe that it made me,
55:45.180 --> 55:47.420
I will quote Max Planck,
55:47.460 --> 55:49.620
also a Nobel Prize winning physicist.
55:49.620 --> 55:53.420
He said, I've spent my entire life in the laboratory
55:53.420 --> 55:56.380
investigating elementary particles.
55:56.380 --> 55:58.460
And I came to the conclusion
55:58.460 --> 56:01.780
that our rational understanding is extremely limited
56:02.740 --> 56:05.700
and that in the end,
56:07.940 --> 56:09.820
the only thing that counts
56:09.820 --> 56:12.660
is something that transcends rational understanding.
56:12.660 --> 56:17.180
And in the end, it's a contact with something
56:17.180 --> 56:19.460
that we can only resonate with.
56:19.460 --> 56:20.660
He said it in a very literal way.
56:20.660 --> 56:21.660
And he said, and that's something
56:21.660 --> 56:24.060
that transcends all rational understanding.
56:24.060 --> 56:26.820
I will be clear, he said, for me, is a personal goal.
56:26.820 --> 56:28.780
He said, a personal goal.
56:28.780 --> 56:32.540
So he said, in my experience,
56:32.540 --> 56:36.420
science ultimately arrives where religion once started
56:36.420 --> 56:37.980
in a contact with something
56:37.980 --> 56:40.020
that transcends all rational understanding.
56:40.020 --> 56:41.460
And that something, he said,
56:41.460 --> 56:42.980
that transcends all rational understanding
56:42.980 --> 56:44.340
for me is a personal goal.
56:44.340 --> 56:45.940
That was how Max Planck put it.
56:45.940 --> 56:46.980
It is a wonderful book.
56:46.980 --> 56:47.820
You should read it.
56:47.820 --> 56:48.660
It's so wonderful.
56:48.660 --> 56:51.220
It's a wonderful book in which he shows
56:51.220 --> 56:54.940
or in which he describes an experience
56:54.940 --> 56:58.220
that most seminal scientists have experienced.
56:58.220 --> 57:01.740
Namely that if you follow reason,
57:01.740 --> 57:04.980
and if you really push rational understanding to the limit,
57:04.980 --> 57:06.660
you suddenly arrive at the limit
57:06.660 --> 57:11.660
and it's there that the real journey of life starts.
57:11.820 --> 57:12.660
Yes.
57:16.260 --> 57:18.220
Do you have hope for the West
57:19.140 --> 57:22.780
that we can stop what seems inexorable, unstoppable?
57:22.780 --> 57:24.860
Of course, yes.
57:24.860 --> 57:26.020
I'm realistic.
57:26.020 --> 57:27.380
I'm realistic in the short term.
57:27.380 --> 57:29.180
I think that the years to come will be difficult years,
57:29.180 --> 57:30.220
very difficult years.
57:30.220 --> 57:31.060
How?
57:31.940 --> 57:34.140
I think that this technocratic system
57:34.140 --> 57:37.260
and this rationalist ideology will impose itself
57:39.460 --> 57:41.540
in a radical way to our society.
57:41.540 --> 57:43.700
Everyone who doesn't want to go along with it
57:43.700 --> 57:46.300
will be excommunicated, I think.
57:46.300 --> 57:49.860
But if this group makes the right choice,
57:49.860 --> 57:52.580
and the most important thing is definitely
57:52.580 --> 57:54.340
that it should choose to continue to speak out,
57:54.340 --> 57:55.180
I mean it,
57:55.180 --> 57:58.020
it should choose to continue to speak out,
57:58.020 --> 57:59.700
no matter how difficult it becomes,
58:01.220 --> 58:05.020
it will survive and it will, after a while,
58:05.020 --> 58:06.260
it will be able to
58:06.940 --> 58:07.780
um,
58:09.860 --> 58:14.860
deliver the real ethical principles
58:15.020 --> 58:18.300
that have the potential to organize a society
58:18.300 --> 58:20.700
in which human beings can live a life
58:20.700 --> 58:22.700
worthy of a human being.
58:22.700 --> 58:24.260
I think that will be,
58:24.260 --> 58:26.020
that's what awaiting us, I think.
58:26.020 --> 58:29.460
How deep is your commitment to saying
58:29.460 --> 58:31.620
what you believe is true?
58:31.620 --> 58:33.700
I mean, is there any circumstance
58:33.700 --> 58:35.620
where you would stop speaking?
58:35.620 --> 58:37.140
I don't think so.
58:37.140 --> 58:37.980
Period.
58:37.980 --> 58:39.580
Yes, I don't think so.
58:39.580 --> 58:42.300
What I experienced throughout the last two years
58:44.180 --> 58:46.060
showed me something that for me
58:46.060 --> 58:47.780
is the most important thing in life.
58:50.060 --> 58:51.500
I lost some things.
58:52.540 --> 58:54.700
I was, to a certain extent,
58:54.700 --> 58:58.220
kicked out of some academic commissions and so on,
58:58.220 --> 59:01.740
because people didn't want to be in the same
59:01.740 --> 59:03.660
academic group as me anymore.
59:03.660 --> 59:07.260
But the more I continue to speak out,
59:07.260 --> 59:10.340
and I always try to do so in a calm and quiet way,
59:10.340 --> 59:11.340
I think that's important.
59:11.340 --> 59:12.180
Yeah.
59:12.180 --> 59:16.580
We should try to speak out in a sincere and honest way,
59:18.140 --> 59:21.340
not because we are convinced that we are the only ones
59:21.340 --> 59:22.820
who know the truth or something,
59:22.820 --> 59:25.300
no, just because we want to live up
59:25.300 --> 59:28.260
to this ethical duty of articulating the words
59:28.260 --> 59:30.380
that to the best of your own understanding
59:30.380 --> 59:33.420
are true words, sincere words, and honest words.
59:34.180 --> 59:36.180
And while I try to do so,
59:36.180 --> 59:39.260
time and time again throughout the last two years,
59:39.260 --> 59:40.860
or two and a half years,
59:40.860 --> 59:45.860
I started to feel that how a soft, warm power
59:47.100 --> 59:49.500
becomes stronger and stronger in myself.
59:49.500 --> 59:54.500
And I started to feel that we indeed might lose a lot,
59:54.580 --> 59:56.580
but we shouldn't care too much about that.
59:56.580 --> 59:59.500
We should make sure that we don't lose the only thing
59:59.500 --> 01:00:01.900
that is really important for a human being.
01:00:01.900 --> 01:00:04.540
And I think that's exactly this feel
01:00:04.540 --> 01:00:06.980
with the eternal principles of life,
01:00:06.980 --> 01:00:09.620
with the eternal, you can call it no matter what you want,
01:00:09.620 --> 01:00:11.700
with what transcends all rational understanding,
01:00:11.700 --> 01:00:13.500
with truth, the truth.
01:00:13.500 --> 01:00:17.700
That's the only thing that we should really care of,
01:00:17.700 --> 01:00:19.140
and make sure that we don't lose it.
01:00:19.140 --> 01:00:21.740
All the rest is of secondary importance, I think.
01:00:26.060 --> 01:00:27.340
Really a remarkable conversation,
01:00:27.340 --> 01:00:29.540
and I want to thank you for coming all this way
01:00:29.540 --> 01:00:30.580
to have it with us.
01:00:30.580 --> 01:00:31.740
It's been a wonderful conversation,
01:00:31.740 --> 01:00:34.220
and I'm sure it's been seen by as many people
01:00:34.220 --> 01:00:35.420
as can possibly see it.
01:00:35.420 --> 01:00:36.660
Thank you very much for inviting me.
01:00:36.660 --> 01:00:37.500
Well, thank you.
01:00:37.500 --> 01:00:38.340
That's heartfelt.
01:00:38.340 --> 01:00:39.660
Thank you for listening to me.
01:00:39.660 --> 01:00:40.820
Remarkable.
01:00:40.820 --> 01:00:44.100
Matthias Dismat, an amazing man.
01:00:44.100 --> 01:00:45.540
Tucker Carlson, today's name of the show,
01:00:45.540 --> 01:00:47.300
three episodes a week on Fox Nation.
01:00:47.300 --> 01:00:48.740
Of course, we'll come back and see you every weeknight
01:00:48.740 --> 01:00:50.300
at 8 p.m. on the Fox News Channel.