Staticity and Totalitarism (What world’s leaders must know)

Staticity and Totalitarism (What world’s leaders must know)

The profit replaces the need. Let’s to start from the meaning of these two words: need and profit in order to realize: first, as far as leading class and mass are distant between them about needs, second how much is difficult to reconcile and manage them in accordance with ethics and truth. Need means lack of something which is indispensable. Manslow did a classification of the needs: physiological, of security, belonging, of self-esteem, and finally of self-realization. All of these focus on the individual, the higher of these is the self-realization according to Freud and us too. In the economic activity, profit means surplus of the total of the returns on the total of the costs and commonly it means advantage. The latter does not refer to what is indispensable for the single, bat to the advantage an individual can acquire on the other and it is a consequence of the interaction among the individuals into the constituted society.

But, because the interaction can realize according to ethic and truth, everyone must have the possibility to develop own self freely and in accordance with own needs without to harm the freedom of the other’s self-realization. The advantage should be a consequence not a purpose/aim, also, it should result from satisfaction of the individual needs in the comparison among different potentialities.

But the leading class of the current society does not care needs and even less the self-realization of the individuals who compose it. Rather she cares the profit/advantage she herself can gain from the individual’s use as a tool. To make use of mass, the leading class controls and discloses the knowledge as much as she likes.

In course of the history it has always been so, but the technology of the postindustrial society, which produces and sells information, it magnified the phenomenon and its consequences as well. The new hierarches of power, of national capital, of control are defined by production and selling of information. This control gives rise, on the one hand, a totalitarian and static regime, in which the power is in the hands of a dominant group who prevents any democratic control, development and transformation too; on the other hand, it causes new human and social conflicts.

The new technologies, the development of the computer science together a common language, which conveys information, they constitute the main factors of the economic and financial integration at international level, named globalization: we can say the globalization is based on the profit.

The global dimension of the financial trade offers big possibilities of growth, decentralization of production and lower labour cost. Dramatic forms of exploitation are also caused, in particular child labour.  The rising consciousness of global dimension about the relevant issues of the economy management was to the origin, on the one hand, of a new form of coordination among greater industrial powers; on the other hand, successively, of a transnational protest movement (no global) on behalf of defense of local identities and of a fairer wealth distribution.

As a globalization consequence, areas of rich people and areas of poor people originated, they have fostered migratory flows and given rise to multiethnic societies. This phenomenon constitutes a problem difficult to solve for the economies and public opinions of the industrialized countries. It has caused different and opposite reactions; on the one hand, the trend to get immigration positive aspects, on the other hand, it caused reaction and refusal like xenophobia or racism. In the subjected countries, the same phenomenon gave rise a strong freedom restriction in the self-realization, poor attention to their economic, cultural and religious reality. The balance either of the industrialized countries or the subjected ones have been altered. As a reaction, the trend to the rediscovery and to jealous defense of the national and religious identity have been before feed then magnified by the fall of the great ideological systems.

The joined impact of the globalization and multiculturalism, on the one hand, it drives toward the creation and strengthening of international entities, on the other hand, it supports explosion of micro-nationalisms, localisms, separatisms and of fundamentalisms; they are the first cause of tensions and conflicts in the contemporaneous world.

The historians assert the most felt, fundamental, cultural reference is the religious one for the majority of the people in the world. The foreseen decline of the religious beliefs and practices in a society more and more characterized by secularization process has been denied. It is our intention to explain this phenomenon taking into account the methodological hint of Freud to which we will give a scientific ground by the biological theory of the mind by Bernardini A.

To understand the psychological, we add, cognitive processing of the single into the mass, Freud, in his book “Psychology of the Mass”, looks for a definition about suggestion and libido. Whereas he defines libido in neutral terms like emotional bonds, on the contrary, he was unable to define the nature of suggestion (“that is about the conditions on which the influence without sufficient logical basis is exhibited); he refers to a further research he did not come to an end.

Freud, anyway, constructed his hypothesis about psychology of the mass; the fundamental ideas are two:

1. The mass is kept together by some power, Freud identifies the latter in Eros;
2. The single renounces own will and allows to be influenced/suggested by other people.

We reformulate Freud’s hypothesis according to the biological theory of the mind as below reported and we consider it true/scientific and useful in order to demonstrate society and individual follow the same cognitive-psychological process:

1. The mass is kept together by a power; for us, the power conforms with the mental process/structure of the self which is managed by the same laws in everybody; for that the suggestion is possible. Our theory explains the suggestion as a consequence of the passage from objective to subjective, at the same time, it gives the biological basis to the consciousness Gerald M. Edelman considered useful in order to the psychology could turn into science.
2. The single renounces own will and allow to be suggested by other people because he can share with them the same motivational, emotional, cultural and religious bound.

Hence, according to this theory there are two principles which manage either the development of society or the individual one; that is:

1. The cognitive process/self-structure, (logos)
2. The need-motivation which gives rise the answer/behavior. (Eros)

For these reasons, if the leading class is able to keep a coherent correlation between consciousness/knowledge/self-structure and need/motivation (Logos and Eros) at individual and social level, we will have balance and wellbeing, on the contrary conflicts and discomforts will be inevitable.

That being stated, let’s to see why the most felt cultural reference remains yet the religious one. How we have already discussed, the logic of the current technological society is the formal one which lives out the acquisition of information through the conscious, subjective experience (the passage from objective to subjective). The leading class does not want an individual conscious of his real needs, but she wants an individual like a tool who follows the “wave” she motivates by means of affective/emotional bonds.

Right on the emotional bonds the current society founds its structure. So that the individual behaves like the leading class currently wants. The latter is able to do this by the traditional psychology and the spreading information by technological tools.

Summarizing:

1. The formal logic lives out the subjective conscious experience. It prevents intuition, logical thinking, innovation and change.
2. The leading class stimulates the emotional wave/motivation by advertisement etc.
3. The consequent answer loses the subjectivity while it satisfies the needs of the leading class.

In the book above mentioned, Freud refers to two artificial mass (in order to protect them by dissolution and to prevent modification of their structure, it is employed an external coercion): the army and the church.” In the church like in the army, even if these two institutions are different with regard to others aspects, it is in force the same illusion on the basis of which a sole commander-in-chief exists: in the catholic church is Crist, in the army is the commander-in-chief, both love the singles component of the mass in the same way.”

In these masses it meets again the same condition that the society follows, the difference is in the fact that in the current society, the commander-in-chief does not share the same needs of the mass and he does not love everybody in the same way. This explains why the most felt cultural reference is again the religious one; the man can forgo the conscious subjective knowledge only when he is loved, shares the same needs and trusts his leader (like in love).

In the religious field the knowledge/truth identifies with the God whose will is freely accepted by man, in the social, economic field the knowledge is managed by the leading class that uses it to make the mass a tool. The exploitation of the mass of the current, global, technological society, in the individual, it causes perceptive, cognitive, behavioral deficits, as we are going to see later; in the society, it gives rise to a different distribution of wealth, lack of employment, poverty, racial discrimination and terrorism. The latter phenomenon, according to us, can be explained taking into account the religious cultural reference.

The two main religions in the world are Catholic religion and Islam. The Catholic religion, on the one hand, appears inflexible in defense of dogmas and traditional cults, on the other hand, is opened to social problems, to dialog with other religions and with not believers. The catholic can renounce to his own self for love of the God. On the contrary, the Islam, in its continuous expansion, assumed more and more the form of integralism and it saw the subordination of the civil power to the spiritual one. The Muslim people are yet intolerant to any imposition of the civil society over the renounce of their own self. They perceive that like an abuse of power and exploitation not only towards the individual but towards the Supreme as well (the knowledge/truth of the civil society is not the truth).

In our view, this explains the aggressive, terroristic reaction of the fundamentalist in the strategic areas of the world as a consequence of the globalization. From this point of view, the terrorism, in its more genuine form, must be considered a reaction of protest against the individual’s exploitation and/or like Freud could say against the sick world in which we live; finally, we add,  as a partial development of the cognitive process the advanced, technological society encourages in an arrogant, dangerous and criminal way.

Summarizing:

1. The formal logic which the current society encourages and adopts either by mechanization or by digital tools of communication, causes a structure of the self on which the motor experience and the logical reasoning are greatly reduced.
2. The emotional wave, strength point of the exploitation, is altered in its perception by the same tools which were used to alter it. It is unidimensional, without meaning and empty.
3. The answer the subject is able to formulate miss both the main fundamental principles of the theory of the mass we have reformulate: a) – logo- conscious knowledge and b) – Eros- motivation.

To the end of the seventies, Christopher Lasch, American, historical and social critic, drew a faithful interesting portrait of the man of the advanced industrial society which conforms with what we have so far explained; he defined him narcissist in the pathological meaning. C. Lasch asserts:” the culture of the narcissism developed more and more as an answer of slavish devotion to means digital of communication which prosper on superficial images which are unaware of substance and deepness.”¹⁹

The DSM-5 (Diagnostic Statistic Manual of the APA, American Psychiatric Association) organizes the narcissistic disturbance of personality in the cluster B.²⁰ With regard to the disturbance’s etiology there has always been debate, opposing positions are often come out: Kohut²¹ and Kernberg²² are un example. Kernberg maintains, there is a division of the self to the base of the disturbance, describing a picture near to psychosis; Kohut disagrees with him. Anyway, what conciliates is the fact that the narcissist does not respond to the transfer in psychoanalysis or he is able to do that only under particular conditions like Kohut illustrates.

In accordance with our theory, the transfer happens when the passage from objective to subjective on the three directional axes is possible in the examined subject. In the narcissistic subject it appears a particular picture which checks in the initial phases of the child development and normally it is overcome.

According to the biological theory of the mind, the narcissist perceives the two aspects of energy of the internal and external world in a synchronous way (this justifies the Kohut’ s position) but along a single, unidirectional axis (this, partially, gives reason to Kernberg). The perception of his internal space is not complete; this causes a deficient perception of the external space as well. The information goes and comes back on the same axis, it reflects on itself, the three-dimensional perception is impossible, the logical thinking is prevented.

The visual and auditive information of the narcissistic child does not synchronize on the reference system body by proprioception yet. The narcissist adult of the advanced industrial society underwent an involution or his cognitive process stopped to the initial phase, being influenced by technology since his childhood. This perceptive condition does not allow him to give meaning to three-dimensional movement of energy. He is unable to understand the history because he is unable to get the connection between past and present (starting position by starting position) then he is unable to plan the future and consequently he fears for it. As a consequence of the missed passage from objective to subjective he is unable to compare his actions with the actions of the others. Without the comparison he cannot evaluate his action and estimate himself. Poor self-esteem and need to be supported by others they are his characteristics. He is unable to comprehend the emotional state of the other, has poor empathy and consider the others as well as objects. He feels all-powerful, without limits because he is unable to do a real esteem of the situation in front to him. For the same reason, he is unable to plan an answer/behavior in a conscious, adaptive way.

Even Christopher Lasch, on his critic to current society, he highlights the continuous decline of the fundamental cognitive abilities and the waste of talents of the advanced technological society. “Always more often the people realize to be unable: – to use the own language with confidence and possession, -to reconstruct the fundamental events of history of own country, – to draw logical conclusions, – to read and understand tests more than elementary”. And he continues again “a lot of editors made easier test books in order to support the protests of new generation of students who, wean from television, cinema and from what un educator defines – the not verbal preamble of our culture – they find incomprehensible the current tests book”.²³

A man impoverished in his resources poorly conscious of himself how we have above described, subjugated by political power of technology, he is unable to promote any change in a static and totalitarian society. The machinery replaces the man in his job, the overproduction and unemployment go on together.

This contradiction/discrepancy points out unemployment and poor economic possibilities. If, to all of this we add the weakened power of the man and the stereotype the advertising and all communication tools promote, it will be possible to get such a difference among to be, want to be and must be that the man of the advanced industrial society will not be able to get. This powerless will cause unfit behavior and the man will try to fill up the empty space the wave without means causes in a more congenial way for him. The reaction will be of overwhelming, aggression or flight.

Depression, suicide, alcohol, drug, individual or organized aggressivity referred to age, genus, or migratory flows are the possible behaviours/answers.

The current psychology, besides, lives out the conscious subjective experience (the passage from objective to subjective, transfert), for that it cannot take into consideration the man in his essence, his own self. It considers only the object, the context as well as the advanced technological society proposes and wants. In short, the psychology of the current society, which cannot be considered science, tries to support a weak self, by persuasion, drugs and a distorted use of the knowledge.