Losing Reality by Robert Jay Lifton (2019)
My take: What is reality? The question can be crippling in its existential nature where the facts of existence are contorted into multiple, purposefully meaningless shapes with the objective being to create division and chaos. A theme of this work is who owns your mind? Mind ownership is expressed in Ideology, totalitarian politics, the spread of disinformation….the psychological-political list is lengthy.
The author is currently a visiting Lecturer in Psychiatry at Columbia University and examines in depth the nature of the meaning of reality and the nature of “reality fatigue…we are thrust into a realm in which a major segment of our society ignores or defies the principles of reason, evidence, and shared knowledge that are required for the function of a democracy.”
The author attributes President Trump’s appeal, in part, to that which he identifies as “psychological apocalypticism,” a pull toward “a new collective mindset that is pure, perfect, and eternal.” Lifton’s research focusing on historical figures is significant, e.g., Mao, Hitler and Trump, etc. The idea of psychological apocalypticism is combined with a desire to be part of something bigger than oneself with a call to share in the effort of destroying reality by espousing falsehoods in order to save the world….a symptom is “I alone can fix it.” Lifton observes that what we are experiencing today as a malignant normality.
The author probes the disturbing and disruptive nature of zealotry, cults, political absolutism and mind control and the downstream consequences. Religious zealots and fundamentalists give up their thought processes for the sake of absolving themselves of deeper thought while being played and refusing to acknowledge they are being played…the line between cultism/fanatical religious movements and political extremism is very thin.
Can we regain reality through ethical and political commitments as “witnessing professionals?”
Lifton has spent decades exploring psychological extremism and ideological totalism and thought reform.
An overview of thought reform includes:
Milieu Control – control of communication with the theme of mind ownership…
Mystical Manipulation – the leader suggest that he is the chosen one (stated at times with a sense of humor but the point is made)…
Demand for Purity – the world is black and white and not shades of gray…winners and losers, etc…
The Cult of Confession – confession becomes a cultish ritual behavior – confessing to a controller…confessing to crimes one has not committed…
The Sacred Science where the doctrine of the group is considered the ultimate truth and beyond dispute…
Loading the Language – developing a jargon that is inclusive to the group…
Doctrine over Person – The person and their experiences are subordinated and secondary to the group doctrine…
Dispensing Existence – “The totalist environment always draws a sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognized, and those who possess no such right…”
In summary, this is a solid, scholarly, psychology reference tool.
