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1. 00:00 No text The world is ruled by dozens of authoritarian, autocratic, some of them charismatic narcissists and in the minority of cases psychopaths. This is a state of affairs nowadays. It's very difficult to find a country where the leader is institutional or
2. 00:24 verbarian, bureaucratic, technocratic leader. It's very difficult to find wherever you look. Turkey, Israel, India, uh United States, uh you name it. What you see are charismatic demagogues, populist leaders and they operate via cults. They create a
3. 00:50 personality cult. None of this is new. Of course, the cult mind, the hive mind has been documented for almost for more than a hundred years actually, starting maybe with Lebon's famous book. None of this is new. But today, I would like to inject a few talking points into the
4. 01:08 situation and try to decode the mind of the populist, the mind of the cult, not the mind of the leader. I've dealt with the mind of the leaders of such leaders, the minds of such leaders in other videos. Today I would like to discuss their followers. I've done it before,
5. 01:24 but I would like to add a few insights. So first of all, all these cults I think have four things in common. Nihilism is an organizing principle. These cults are focused on um destruction as an exalted uh revered aspiration and goal, not construction,
6. 01:51 but destruction. The idea is that if you destroy things, you're setting the ground for renewal, for rejuvenation, and that destroying things is a noble noble, not a savage pursuit. And that the phase of destruction should be extended, extensive, intensive, all
7. 02:15 pervasive, ubiquitous and so on. It's not minor destruction, but it's a total demolition of the system. Nothing left behind, scorched earth, all the bridges burned. This is nihil the nihilistic philosophy of populist regimes okocracies mo rules and so on. The
8. 02:39 second principle is improvisation and gut management. Management by one's gut by one's intuition albeit chaotic are far preferable to bureaucracy and planning because bureaucracy and planning are soulless. They are impersonal. They're in this sense inhuman.
9. 03:02 Whereas management via one's hunches and intuitions and perhaps even messages from God if one is deranged enough. This kind of management is at the very least more human. It's it has a human face. So there's a preference for knee-jerk off-the- cuff reactivity
10. 03:27 rather than tedious interminable sessions of planning, weighing all the angles and aspects and risk aversion. No text The third element I think in all populist religions because religions they are they are cults is a cosmic the perception of cosmic historic mission in
11. 03:48 which all the members of a cult the cult are participants. This endows them with a sense of agency. They are change agents and they reassert control over their lives. This cosmic historic mission is both an organizing principle in the sense that it dictates goals and
12. 04:05 and so on and also a hermeneutic explanatory principle. It imbusses life with meaning and make sense of things. The last element in populist regimes is opposition, defiance, antagonism, seeking conflict, not conflict aversion. uh adver ad advers and it's an
13. 04:29 adversarial system where the adherence the fans the base whatever you want to call them oppose anything and everything that the elites support and they oppose what the elites support just because the elites are in support of it. The elites support of anything guarantees its
14. 04:51 rejection by the masses within the cult. This of course has a lot to do with um malignant egalitarianism and so on. I'll discuss it in a minute. Now intellectuals like me hold the masses in contempt. Now very few intellectuals would admit to it. They would pretend that they love
15. 05:12 the people. They want to help the people. They want to improve the people's lot. They're altruistic and charitable and uh compassionate and empathic and you name it. This is pro-social narcissism. The overwhelming vast majority of intellectuals, maybe like 99.9%.
16. 05:31 They hold uneducated people, ignorant people, blue collar workers and so on in utter unmititigated virulent contempt. Period. Consequently, they misjudge the masses. They think that the masses are incapable of coming up with an alternative system. But the truth is that the masses
17. 05:56 present an alternative. It's a different civilization admittedly with different core value systems. It's all true what the masses call civilization would not be recognizable to most intellectuals and what the masses call values would be hotly contested by intellectuals. It's
18. 06:16 all very true, but these are values and it is a civilization. Whether it's inferior or superior, that's not something that can be determined objectively and neutrally. This is not a scientific question. It's a political question if anything, philosophical
19. 06:32 maybe. But be that as it may, the rejection of the elites by the masses and the rejection of the masses, the betrayal of the masses by the elites set the ground for the emergence of an alternative civilization at the core of which there's a different
20. 06:47 value system. We are right now embedded, we are right now experiencing in the throws of a culture war and it's a global culture war. And so um this culture of war presents a um different axiological and doxostic systemmology. In other words, different beliefs and different
21. 07:14 values. Let's review a few of them. Whereas the elites are promoting the rule of law, the masses believe that the law is rigged and weaponized, that it's a tool of social control. Therefore, the masses consider crime to be forgivable, kind of foilable or
22. 07:34 mistake, especially when the crime is offset against other qualities and behaviors which the masses deem um superior or benevolent or great or commendable. So crime always is the act the criminal act is always part of and the criminal intention men and the actus always a
23. 07:59 part of some calculus larger calculus where the crime is forgivable absolution is granted and the person is redeemed if he contributes to the greater good in some other way. This is not the rule of law, of course. This is relative morality in many ways, but this is how
24. 08:19 the masses view things. So, if Donald Trump is accused of being on the Epstein list, his supporters, the base, the masses don't see this as a problem. It's a minus. It's a deficiency. It's a lack. It's a defect. But by and large, it's compensated for by the
25. 08:43 um alleged imputed positive traits and behaviors of Donald Trump. That's one example. Of course, the same goes for Erdogan and Netanyahu and all other populist leaders. Number two, whereas the elites regard corruption and nepotism as irredeemable
26. 09:01 and unforgivable, utterly criminal and expungeable, the masses consider corruption and nepotism okay if they're invisible.
27. 09:14 The masses presume that the elites are also corrupt, that they're also nepotistic, which they are, by the way. And so they regard the whole thing as hypocrisy and say as long as you don't rub it in my face, as long as you don't make it visible, I accept the corruption
28. 09:30 and nepotism. It's okay. It's part of life. It's even human. It's human to be corrupt. It's inhuman or dehumanizing to demand that people be people become angels. These standards that were set originally during the enlightenment, these standards that intellectuals adopt,
29. 09:51 their sole intention is to set up people for failure and thereby justifying the disdain of the elites towards the masses. The elites impose standards that the masses can never meet. The masses fail and then the elites say, "You see, I told we told you so." They are
30. 10:09 contemptable. The masses are contemptable. Okay. Next, hard work. Hard work is promoted and propagated by the elites. Always has have always has been. There are serious questions here about the collusion between the elites and the capitalist class. Um, No text
31. 10:33 rich people. Elites are bribed. Rich people bribe the elites in a variety of ways. And so the promotion of hard work and work ethic, they play well into the hands of billionaires and and so on so forth. And the elites are happy to collaborate and to spread the word. But
32. 10:52 the masses regard hard work as a as a form of slavery, attenuated slavery, mind you, but slavery all the same. So hard work is not a value to be to aspire to. Hard work is for fools. and and hard work is is uh something that should be best avoided if if at all possible.
33. 11:16 Shortcuts to fame and riches are much preferable. Um and that's another example of the clash between the the elites and the masses which the elites consider to be tools and stupid people. Next is due process. due process is is much heralded and much supported much
34. 11:38 but mutressed by the elites. It is supposed to be the only defense um against the egregious arbitrary exploitation of power. It's an integral part of every set of human rights and civil rights and so on so forth. But the masses don't see it this way. Exactly
35. 11:56 like the rule of law. They think due process is weaponized and illegally um if if not immorally. And so the the masses as they see it due process should be confined to the members of the inroup, members of the cult. Everyone outside the inroup is in the out group.
36. 12:17 Everyone outside the inroup is an enemy. And one should never grant any rights to the enemy. What one should vanquish the enemy? One should eliminate, exterminate and destroy the enemy. All rights reside within the cult and emanate from it from the structure of the cult. It is the
37. 12:36 cult that legitimizes human rights and civil rights and due process should be an integral part of cult membership. The benefits of cult membership. No text Don't get me started on dei uh diversity, equity, and and inclusion. The masses perceive this not as a way to
38. 12:58 equalize the rights of people or access to opportunities but as a form of oppression. They perceive walk movements and victimhood movements as compromise by narcissists and psychopaths which on this they're completely right and they perceive them as tyrannical ideological
39. 13:16 tyranny of the left. So DEI is perceived as oppressive not as liberating. Next is the commitment to factual truths. Truth to facts and truth uh investigated and explored and discovered via the scientific method. This is the creed of and the gospel of
40. 13:40 the ruling elites especially the intellectual elites but not only whereas the masses reject this. This is malignant egalitarianism. My opinion is as good as your truth. My ignorance is is has equal status to your irudition and learning and truth is something malleable and
41. 14:04 relative and facts are are funible and
42. 14:10 my facts are as good as your facts and so on so forth. So this relativiz rel relativization of the truth this post-truth society this truthism if you wish and so on this is typical of the masses because the masses are denied education they they
43. 14:28 know very little they're ignorant and nichient they are and and this they feel humiliated and feel ashamed of themselves because they are like that the defense is narcissistic I may not know physics but I know astrology. I may not know biochemistry,
44. 14:45 but I'm great in football. And my opinions are as as um valuable and my No text opinions are as influential as your um five years in college. So this is the masses way to restore some semblance of balance knowing they feel inferior and they pretend to be superior. And it's a
45. 15:10 classic narcissistic defense. And this is where masses are highly narcissistic. So expertise, intellect, and learning, all cherished and valued and revered and woripped by the by the elites are rejected as suspect as Mchavelian brainwash by the masses. They hate
46. 15:31 experts. They abhore and deplore intellectuals. They find learning obnoxious. And this anti-intellectual streak in in the mob underlies all populist movements. They mock and ridicule uh scientists and and experts and medical doctors and and you have it. And
47. 15:56 sometimes they become very aggressive in this rejection when they believe that these experts are abusing their advantage in some way. Ethical values are therefore luxuries. I'm reminded of a famous scene in the fair lady where the father of of uh the woman
48. 16:20 comes to professor Higgins and he tells him that she wants money and professor Higgins says aren't you ashamed of yourself? Do you have no dignity sir? And the father says I'm too poor. Dignity is a luxury. So ethical values are great when you are rich and affluent
49. 16:39 and you have the leisure and the pleasure of you know considering them and applying them. But they're not for the masses. The masses reject ethics. They reject morality. Forget religion for a minute. In practice the masses are amoral. They're not immoral. They're not criminal most
50. 16:58 of them but they're definitely amoral and they're not unethical. simply have no ethics. They get by. They have to survive somehow. Survivor often calls for ethical compromises which the elites um never have to confront. Uh the elites usually when the elites deal with
51. 17:20 ethical dilemmas, it has to do something with some kind of straw man or some kind of straw argument or whatever. And so patriotism in the eyes of the masses is not an ethical standard. It's exclusionary. It's xenophobic. It's aggressive or even violent. It's
52. 17:41 about pushing people away, not about embracing them. Patriotism, nationalism actually is about isolating yourself hermetically uh fending off the outside world which is perceive as perceived as hostile or at the very least exploitative and abusive and creating self-containment
53. 18:04 and self-sufficiency within the cult within the inroup. So it's exclusionary and xenophobic and religion is an ideal. It's something to aspire to maybe at least you know uh perfectorally and parentally to say that you aspire to but it is not prescriptive. It's not a prescription.
54. 18:27 Religion doesn't tell you how to behave and what to do, what to believe in, what to think and how to conduct and comport yourself. No way. This is lip service. In reality, the masses are highly pragmatic, highly opportunistic and highly exploitative of situations.
55. 18:50 They leverage every every scrap of advantage they come across normally because they have to survive. This is the picture of the of populist movements and populist cults. And now to two additional segments and I wish you a kish day.