Gang psychology

The greater part of modern philosophy is devoted to the support of the prevailing ideology by asserting the unique status of collective agreement as a source of validation and significance, and eliminating the claims of objective reality and of the individual.

So it is not surprising (although I found it so when I first experienced it) that the individual without social status, especially if failing to agree that the position in which society has placed him is entirely comfortable and appropriate, is regarded as fair game for slander. This really follows if one realises that protecting social mechanisms from criticism is the sole consideration, that there are no such things as objective reality or autonomous individuals. If a person’s position might appear anomalous all that matters is to preserve, say, the educational system from blame, so no slander need be spared to locate the source of the anomaly within the misplaced individual.

However grievous the harm that may have been done to the lives of individuals, there is not in human psychology the slightest tendency to take up the cudgels on behalf of the individuals who have been wrongfully treated, or to seek reparation on their behalf.

So of course one can be exposed to terribly effective hostility and it is simply dangerous to mention it. Influential people right down to people in local education have a tremendous sense of solidarity, and will close ranks to deny that anything has happened. So of course you have not, in reality, been slandered, because there is social agreement that you have not been. What other criterion of truth is there?

How does it come about that human psychology supports only the gang or tribe and wishes it to have unlimited power over the individual?

I once read something about why delinquent boys join gangs. On the lines of ‘they feel inadequate, but become powerful in association with a group’. People appear to have no sense of their significance as individuals, they derive significance from their solidarity with a professional or other gang, and any criticism of any member of it detracts from their own status. There is no objective standard of honesty or decency to which they refer the actions of other members of the gang.

Actually one should not be at all surprised at the doings of the Nazi regime. People have no internal standards of their own, and if they join a social gang or power group which decides anything goes, then anything goes.