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gestalt - A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

Take a single leftist and follow him throughout the day. He/she/it? will have little trouble interacting with the world because as a single organism, the negative reinforcement of his/her/its peers isn't punishing it for some limited rational thinking.

Put two together and you will start seeing minor friction when they start dealing with things that otherwise would be simple interactions. As the two potentially semi-rational beings take in the situation, their negativity begins to build, creating a feeling of alienation with the outside.

Increase the number and you will soon have a critical mass of reinforcement that crushes all reason and leaves the member of the hive-mind incapable of thought beyond the bounds of the group. Reason becomes impossible. Emotion (Which is a much more primitive form of communication) becomes the only effective means of interaction. Fear(they are all against us), anger(why can't we be the ones making decisions), rage(bastards, if I could just get my hands on them!) become the most powerful motivators because reason has been successfully excluded from the group.

Have you ever seen a cult leader in action, he/she/it intentionally creates situations where emotion is amplified and fed back to the members of the cult. It's a control mechanism that precludes thought of any sort and punishes anyone who does. Even without the presence of the leader, the resonance of the group limits how far reason can progress without strong backlash from ones cultists peers.

Leftists do the same thing, but they do it without (usually) external guidance to limit and guide the emotional course. This leads to a loop of ever increasing self destruction. Once the group gets in harmony (dissonance of reason), they feed off the emotional sink.

Remove the person from the group and like a cultist, some will deprogram themselves. Allowing them to return to a reasonable ability to interact with the world on a rational (limited) basis without problems. However this will only last until the group comes back into contact again and the reason-washing begins again.

Or something like that.... :-)