Collectivized hypnosis breeds the forces of its own collapse.

Evidence

Freud made a distinction between hypnosis and group psychology by defining the former as taking place between two people only. However, the leaders’ appropriation of mass psychology, the streamlining of their technique, has enabled them to collectivize the hypnotic spell. The Nazi battle cry of ‘Germany awake’ hides its very opposite. The collectivization and institutionalization of the spell, on the other hand, have made the transference more and more indirect and precarious so that the aspect of performance, the ‘phoniness’ of enthusiastic identification and of all the traditional dynamics of group psychology, have tremendously increased. This increase may well terminate in sudden awareness of the untruth of the spell, and eventually in its collapse. Socialized hypnosis breeds within itself the forces which will do away with the spook of regression through remote control, and in the end awaken those who keep their eyes shut though they are no longer asleep. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 222

Categorization

• SEED: The idea that widespread performative false-identification carries the seeds of sudden collapse is an essay-worthy lens on modern online mobs and influencer politics.

Related

• Collectivized suggestion grows phonier and self-destructs over time. (similarity 0.81)