In the late ’80s and ’90s, the psychiatric profession became obsessed with “memory recovery.” Although it was invented in the United States, it also caught on in Europe, including the United Kingdom. Practitioners have found that patients who have been sexually abused as children naturally repress memories of their suffering as too painful, but therapists use specialized techniques to recover these terrible experiences and help patients. He claimed to be able to heal trauma. The immense power of recovered memory has resulted in countless adults “reliving” childhood abuse, usually at the hands of their parents, as a plethora of books, articles, and documentaries have developed greater cultural appeal. Patients dredge up memories of rape and oral sex by their parents as babies. Accusations continued. Families were torn apart.
In hindsight, it is now accepted that therapists frequently implanted these “memories” in their suggestible patients. The memories recovered were of social mania: moral panic, social contagion, mass-forming psychosis, and mass hysteria. In the throes of public delirium, many people found this practice of psychic archeology entirely convincing (and more than a little provocative). For several years, recovered memories were even admitted as factual testimony in American courts. It’s only from a distance that sneaky psychological dowsing looks creepy.
So for me, since roughly 2012, what has been more disturbing than the specific content of hysteria is how we continue to be affected by the collective chaos that has the potential to spread and take hold at an alarming rate in the digital age. It’s easy to do. My latest novel examines the eerie phenomenon of mass fever, often destructive but rarely discussed at its peak. mania I invented it myself. Suddenly, everyone accepted that all humans were equally intelligent and that “cognitive discrimination” was “the last great civil rights struggle.” In other words, there is no such thing as an idiot. That claim itself is ridiculous, so my fabricated mania seems to have a point.
In the surprisingly short period of 10 years, I can count four actual outbreaks. Transgenderism, #MeToo, coronavirus lockdowns (which sparked a sub-boom around masks and vaccines), and Black Lives Matter. I also fear that we are already in the thrall of social mania #5.
Take a trance. Gender dysphoria was not that long ago a very rare psychiatric diagnosis that was primarily limited to men. A slew of TV documentaries about young boys wearing dresses and playing with dolls around 2012, just after the movement for gay rights and even gay marriage suddenly became so successful that homosexuality became obsolete. appeared on the screen. Fast forward to the present day, and renamed diagnoses have exploded by thousands of percent in the Western world, and are now more commonly associated with girls. Teachers teach young children that they need to decide whether they are a girl, a boy, or something in between. We give our children powerful, life-altering experimental drugs and surgically remove healthy breasts and genitals, all at the cost of permanent sexual dysfunction and infertility. It has become a truism that some people are born into the wrong body, and it seems to me as medically reliable as phrenology or phlebotomy.
Social enthusiasts share several consistent characteristics. First and foremost, I never thought of myself as a social freak back then. In the midst of widespread preconceptions, the teachings simply seem to be true. Trans women are women too. get over it. Or that masculinity is toxic. Virtually all women are victims of sexual torture and abuse of power by men. Women must believe their accusations, no matter how outlandish or trivial. Alternatively, COVID-19 is so deadly and such a threat to our staying power as a species that we are forced to shut down our entire economy and use every civil liberties to contain the disease. There is no choice but to give up. Or that all Western countries are “institutionally racist.” All white people are genetically racist. All police departments (even black people) are racist and should be defunded or abolished. The only remedy for “structural racism” is anti-meritocracy and over-rewarding racial quotas in employment and education.
The seeds of mania are often planted a long time ago, but for most normal people, it comes out of nowhere. Transgenderism quickly evolved into a cultural fetish within a few months. After one upstanding weirdo was exposed as a serial sexual abuser, #MeToo spread on his Twitter like the potato plague. Literally overnight, the citizens of March 2020 took for granted that their country’s “liberal democracy” could legitimately deny freedom of movement, assembly, association, press, and even speech; Many people became zealous enforcers of the chaotic, despotic, and sometimes aggressively stupid new regime. administration. It took only a few days for George Floyd’s death to spark massive protest marches around the world. This exaggerated reaction to a single, senseless murder in a mid-sized American city was partially amplified by the pent-up frustration of an entire nation under house arrest during the coronavirus pandemic. However, it is a big deal for Koreans to parade through the streets of Seoul shouting, “Black lives matter!” It was insensitive at a time when there were so few black people in this country. Similarly, the British shouted, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” When their constables are unarmed. Moreover, all these recent examples show that moral panic is reaching an unprecedented international reach.
“The seeds of mania are often planted a long time ago, but for most normal people, they come out of nowhere.”
Maniacs are driven by emotion. Transgender cults have exploited our desire to appear enlightened and compassionate. The celebration and promotion of transgenderism taps into our desire to appear enlightened and caring, and is presented as the next logical step for gay rights, and this movement taps into our desire to feel ultra-modern. #MeToo has fueled and spread resentment, self-pity, and revenge. In confronting the abuse of power, some women tempted men to abuse their power and ruin their lives. The coronavirus lockdown has triggered a primal fear of death and contagion, leading us to see others as mere vectors of disease. BLM stimulated early Christian proclivities for guilt, repentance, and contrition, even in secular ways, while simultaneously providing black people with an opportunity to vent their frustrations, self-righteous anger, and even hatred. all Maniacs thrive on a desire to be included in their herd and a fear of being ostracized or left out.
That’s because proper enthusiasts don’t voice opposing opinions. Under its influence, everyone believes the same things, says the same things, and even uses the same language. Pseudo-religious zealotry makes those outside the bubble of shared obsession appear heretical, dangerous, insane, or outright evil. Lockdown opponents were granny killers. They argue that unvaccinated people are pariahs who should not be allowed to fly, eat out or receive medical care, and that “anti-vaxxers” should be jailed or given the death penalty. There were people too. Their rhetoric and sentiments are often violent, and interactivists denounce their critics like murderers. Not so long ago, writing even one discouraging word about child amputation was like ending your career. (For self-preservation, I kept my own journalistic mouth shut for a good four years; most journalists still cautiously jump on the transgender bandwagon.) #MeToo promiscuity Women who expressed resistance to the sweep were traitors to their own sex. In 2020, she was fired for even tweeting that “all lives matter.”
Manias tend to become more and more extreme and create more victims before collapsing from contradiction. Stalin’s show trials, the slaughterhouses of Cambodia, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and obvious Nazism. The eugenics movement in the West (which we would like to forget), the outrage over lobotomies, the satanism in day care centers and the paranoia about the multiple personality disorder epidemic of the ’90s – all these misguided fervors… It got worse before bursting.
While the hula hoop was harmless, most of the maniacs are malicious. The trans movement has distorted elementary school education, derailed our culture with confusion about biological reality, forced thousands of children into painful surgeries and drug side effects, violated women’s privacy, and disrupted women’s sports. Corrupted. #MeToo has contaminated relations between men and women with so much mistrust that it alone could have lowered the birth rate in the West, while also destroying the careers of countless men who committed at most minor crimes. There is a gender. Coronavirus lockdowns have devastated the economy, accelerated inflation and soared government debt, while damaging the future prospects of a generation of schoolchildren. BLM is exacerbating racial hostility, demonizing meritocracy, and cultivating a useless and parasitic managerial class of her DEI enforcers, who will be painstaking to remove.
But both the priest and the disciple of Moral Panic are driven by good intentions. They truly believe they are doing God’s work. The positively virtuous “Awakenings” are a big bunch of maniacs.
Some hysterics die more easily than others. This hurtful, whining accuser of a U.S. Supreme Court nominee was once hailed as astonishingly “courageous,” but Christine Blasey Ford’s recent memoir has drawn weary scorn. There is. So #MeToo is over. Nevertheless, just as social frenzy rarely subsides just because its instigators announce that they are disorderly, ordinary people caught up in the disorder Just as we rarely admit that we have been misguided. Everyone just moves on, only to end up preoccupied with something else.
There are rarely (apart from world wars or counter-revolutions) points at which the mania’s mistakes become obvious. Few people recant, much less apologize to victims for their excesses. Forgetfulness is more pleasant than shame, so strange amnesia sets in. The Chinese simply erased the Cultural Revolution from their history books. Sometimes, when people outside the dogmatic bubble come forward with accusations, total tosh cheerleaders are held accountable. There were also belated Pol Pot trials in Nuremburg and Cambodia. By contrast, the UK’s farcical coronavirus investigation is being carried out by the same agency that is being investigated. Subsequent reports may criticize single politicians for not locking down sooner, but they cannot conclude that the lockdown was a catastrophic mistake as virtually everyone at the top was implicated. .
Once the mania is gone, most people pretend they never believed these things in the first place. Because people have been infected with the coronavirus 5-6 times after getting vaccinated, multiple boost mRNA fanatics are less inclined to promote vicious accusations against people who didn’t get vaccinated just a few years ago. Just as patients who have regained their memories tend to advertise that they have destroyed the relationship with them. Complained to his parents about the false psychiatry fad. We like to think of ourselves as “modern” (and what modern people has ever fantasized that they are not?), and we base our beliefs on facts. I think there are. But we are still prey to mass delusion, just as we have always been.
Therefore, how about Mania #5? It’s not mania. It’s just the truth: *check*. Suddenly everyone in the media started talking about it and all using the same words: *check*. It is driven by emotions: *check*. It doesn’t disagree, doesn’t even acknowledge that a discussion is needed, and locks all skeptics in the doghouse as evil “deniers” who will bring about the end of the world.check*. It is malicious, increasingly extreme, and driven by the best of intentions: *Check, check, check*. I’m not going to get into a debate here, but the escalating hysteria around climate change, or the climate “emergency,” the climate “crisis,” or even the climate “collapse” is giving us all the signs, right?
