The power of the masses  II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBsA7S8jxfU

Aldous Huxley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGkymdspups
The power : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Eutci7ack

The human masses, that have organized themselves in order to achieve a dynamic that is diametrically different from a mass resulting from a mere material aggregation, as is the case of an audience in the stands of a football stadium, or the masses that circulate in large cities, because their immediate end is to have fun or to reach a destination, that is to say, they are trivial ends, not constitutive of a powerful dynamic. The power to influence the behavior of the human masses has always been, since the dawn of history, the great concern of good and bad rulers, of military leaders, of every legitimate or usurped authority. Thinkers of all kinds have written about this, against the background of an ancestral prejudice that is embedded in all civilizations: the behavior of the mass is mysterious, because in extreme moments the principles of individual behavior have little to do with each other, as can be seen in the great wars and social conflicts. The masses, in extreme situations, can have the overwhelming force of a tsunami, both in the violent and the peaceful form that is observed in politics, in the market, in sport, etc.

The relevance of personal ethical principles

In the formation of a state, normally leaders emerge from the human mass knowing how to express the will of the nation in the articles of the constitution. In the past there was a dynastic monarchical system, with powers generally limited by some agreement with the base or mass of people. It is enough to remember here the conflicts that have occurred, during many centuries, in the ancient world, when so many times the political authority has abused the masses to pursue selfish ends of increasing their own power, and how, so many times, the masses have rebelled in search of greater social justice. In fact, the traditional conception of History is the history of wars between kingdoms/villages and of conflicts within kingdoms. For example, the French Revolution of 1879 and then the war of secession in North America. It is impressive to see how each century has seen so many victims sacrificed in the ploughing of vain aims.

It is important to ask: How is it possible that people have supported these conflicts, because they have not always been forced by Law, which is a relatively modern phenomenon? In other words, how is it that so many honest people have thrown themselves into the killing of each other? To answer these questions is to set oneself up as a judge in a case in which the motives and intentions of these people will never be known, because generally, in both defense and attack conflicts, an attempt was always made to claim a moral justification, aimed to justify the conscience of the soldier. In itself, an armed conflict can be legitimate, which would result in an obligation to go into combat. Love one’s country, one’s flag and the entire wartime outlay, has been used so many times as a symbol of a just cause, even though it might not be so at heart.

For example, Nazi propaganda, long before the war, fostered a cultural environment where poetry and songs were extolling the great cause of war, abounded as a form of protest against the humiliations and injustices imposed on the Germans after World War I. On this occasion, and on so many others, the individual conscience has been manipulated to the point that an important part of the German soldiers thought that they were executors of a divine will, which came to be condensed in the famous battle cry ‘Gott mit uns’ (God is at our side) that the soldiers, who invaded Russia, had on their lips. Not so among Catholics, because already in 1933 they were warned about the moral evil of Nazism by the Encyclical ‘Mit Brennender Sorge’ (With burning concern).

History offers us examples of the moral justification for the killing of the tyrant, which is a derivation of the principle of self-defence. In the ancient world there was not much difference between the weapons of the government and those of the people, so uprisings could more easily occur. Today the masses have at most firearms at home, as is the case in the USA, but they do not possess the high-tech weapons that only the State can have, thanks to the taxes paid by the masses. And then, with these same weapons the State sometimes controls the masses, whose powerlessness has been seen in the imposition of the communist regime in Russia.

The origin of the leaders

From the masses, leaders have always emerged who have deeply influenced them in multiple sectors, including the economic and social sectors. I am referring to the inventions and technological developments of the last two centuries, which have been the basis of the industrial revolution in the West and the starting point of demographic growth and a profound transmutation of the lifestyle itself. In view of the prejudice that these few people were not of the masses, but something special, it must be stressed that almost all of them were people who did not come from the nobility, just like the great artists such as Raphael, Michel Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, or the great musicians, painters, sculptors, architects, etc. So much so that many of their achievements have been possible thanks to the patronage of the rich and noble, because the vast majority were not people of fortune.

The open and free market of the West has shown an enormous dynamic of growth and creativity, precisely thanks to the mass consumption of the services created by the technological leaders, which have made possible the accumulation of large private capital, thus allowing research and development of new products and services. For example, if the market or the global human mass had not welcomed Steve Jobs’ first small mobile phone, today we would not have global Intercom almost for free. The same goes for the internet and large social networks. All of these companies have come out of the masses of people and are living off them. In other words, between business leadership and the market there is an open dialogue that is constantly adjusting to what the masses dictate, based on the law of supply and demand.
There is a certain prejudice of global scope that critically examines the immense power of multinational companies. In reality, it is forgotten here that the ultimate power lies with the mass of people who support them with their purchases and the people employed in them. And in the case of the State, the masses maintain it with their tax contributions.

The management of the human mass

Obviously there are many legitimate reasons for influencing the masses, from political propaganda, to advertisements, to fund-raising campaigns for a good purpose. But at the same time there is a lot of abuse, using a whole science and techniques of control of the masses initiated by Goebbels, in the time of Nazism. Today there is a tendency to influence the masses in the style of Aldous Huxley, not by brute force, but by brainwashing through ideologically charged films, by changing the content of concepts such as family, marriage, love, freedom, etc. The media mainstream, which controls about 80% of the media-market (excluding China and Russia), is fully involved in this process. The video offered at the beginning of this reflection is worth watching, because, without wanting to, Huxley shows us the extraordinary drama what happens when man forgets or does not know his own identity, as a being created and redeemed by God for a life in freedom.

Political leadership

Where the human mass is at stake for the whole is in the moral quality of political leaders. As is well known, the democratic system offers no greater guarantee that senior officials will behave with moral integrity. Unfortunately, those who seek a political career are rather people with a low human and moral profile, without academic titles. Just think of Venezuela, Brazil before the current President Bolsanaro, Argentina and so many political opportunists around the world, who through corruption are parasites who exploit the human mass, which they should serve with the utmost altruism. Therefore, the big question is how to elect, motivate and promote high moral profile politicians. This is perfectly possible thanks to the low cost of digital communication, so that citizens could monitor government management more closely through their own social networks, which would also serve selection processes for future rulers with a good professional curriculum.