Indoctrination: Susceptibility v. Immunity

Why do some people become infected with every ideological contagion that comes along while others remain immune?

A few years ago, a heated debate erupted over the publication of Mattias Desmet’s The Psychology of Totalitarianism in which he presented his theory of mass formation to describe how a large mass of people becomes susceptible to a hypnotic-like state of delusion. I found the book fascinating and persuasive, and it seemed to offer at least a partial explanation of why so much of mankind behaved in such an obviously irrational way during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Dr. Peter Breggin countered with the argument that the vast majority of people were not deluded—that is, they had not suffered a psychotic dissociation from reality. As Dr. Breggin saw it, the irrational behavior we observed in so many was a normal response to being terrorized, isolated, propagandized, and manipulated by government agencies and their accomplices in the mainstream media.

At the time this debate took place, it seemed to me that both Breggin and Desmet made valid points. The depraved governments of the world and their media partners were indeed waging a campaign of terror and propaganda on their peoples, and also singling out for destruction the dissidents who were trying to restore reason and prudence to public discourse.

However, it seemed to me that propaganda and PSYOPs alone were not sufficient to explain why some people were highly susceptible to these manipulations, while others were immune. Pondering this prompted me to rewatch Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, about a frustrated, recovering alcoholic writer who is demonically possessed by the evil spirits that inhabit the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

I’d not watched the film in over twenty years, and was stunned by how effectively Kubrick captured the spiritual terror of the story. Virtually every shot captures two basic elements:

1). The susceptibility to evil in the frustrated writer, Jack Torrance.

2). The extreme evil that resides in the Overlook Hotel.

The trouble with Jack Torrance is that he doesn’t know himself. He is filled with desires and ambitions, but due to his inability, lack of discipline, and history of alcoholism, he cannot achieve the success he craves. His relationship with his wife and child is cold, and the audience senses he regards them as a burden and hindrance. Kubrick adds a subtle and perverse twist to his psychology in the film by having him look at a Playgirl magazine while standing in the lobby, waiting for his interview to be the hotel caretaker. You have to be paying very close attention to notice this, which gives it a subliminal quality.

Already in Jack’s interview, the hotel goes to work on him, as the interviewing managers go out of their way to emphasize that he will be tested by five months of extreme isolation after winter sets in. Revealing his essential lack of self-knowledge, Jack insists that isolation is precisely what he wants (so that he can write his novel).

As Jack and his family tour the hotel, multiple allusions are made to the extermination of the American Indians. There is also an extremely creepy scene in which the hotel cook, Richard Halloran, (played by Scatman Crothers) shows Mrs. Torrance and the boy Danny the hotel’s vast meat locker, the shelves of which resemble the wooden barracks in photographs of Nazi concentration camps. Again, you have to be watching very closely to notice these details, but they are definitely there.

In other words, the Overlook Hotel is a portal to hell, and in it resides all of humanity’s most terrible emotions—seething resentment, homicidal rage, the desire to dominate, control, and annihilate others.

A scene from The Shining.

And yet, only Jack is susceptible to the hotel’s evil. While his son Danny is able to see it, he isn’t seduced by it. Likewise, Jack’s wife—a simple, kind, and loving woman—is completely immune.

What are the qualities that make some immune to indoctrination while others remain highly susceptible to it? One could write an entire book about all the factors, but as food for thought, I suggest it has something to do with how much or how little we are given to the seven Cardinal Sins.

In Jack’s case, he suffers from Pride and the Wrath that arises when he cannot achieve his proud ambitions. In his mind, he is too good to be a mere schoolteacher, and he feels humiliated by the necessity of doing ordinary jobs to earn a living. Especially toxic is his impulse to blame others for his problems and to rationalize his rage.

When you closely examine the awful people who run our world today, you will notice that they are animated with pride and are quick to express wrath at those who oppose them. Lust, Greed, and Envy are also ubiquitous among this set.

Finally, we have our epidemic of extreme intellectual Sloth. In an 1822 letter, James Madison remarked:

A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

If the U.S. is to remain a Constitutional Republic with limited government, “We the People” are going to need to do a much better job of arming ourselves with knowledge. An ignorant people is extremely easy to frighten and manipulate, which is why tyrants have always shown a keen interest in censorship and distracting the people they rule with garish entertainment that conveys no knowledge or moral ideas.