>the Woke movement is an organic cultural wave (organic in that it didn’t need to be created and organized by any sponsoring organization, it just sprang up “organically”)
It’s not accidental, organic, or unthinking; but directed, planned, and purposeful.
Organic movements quarrel within themselves, because they’re made up of real individuals who have differing opinions. You can always tell manufactured thought by its uniformity.
I have read the book a couple of times and am now going through it slowly once again.
I think Desmet overlooks the fact that there are organizations that contribute to it. That said, the Woke movement is too large and powerful to have been completely designed and managed by a single or even several organizations.
Perhaps that is true but the inverse isn't. People and/or groups which exhibit uniformity of thought are not necessarily members of or influenced by an organized manufacturer of that manner of thought. Many (perhaps most) movements that simply evolve have great uniformity of thought.
Collectivism itself has been around since the start of human history and even adherents to that idea who are not part of or are being influenced by a collectivist organization exhibit uniformity of thought.
I have family members who are devout collectivists but have absolutely no idea where the idea came from and are not influenced by any "organizing" group.
Very interesting point.
A normal movement would argue and disagree with itself.
But not those who become "mass formations." They become self-hypnotized and develop into a kind of cult. Desmet makes the point that some groups become "mass formations" by living in an echo chamber...they become hypnotized and individual members of that group give up their individual identities for a group identity.
We see that in the Woke movement. These people seem hypnotized and completely unwilling to even consider opposing ideas.
We see this kind of mass formation developing in Germany as early as the 1920s. The Nazis were able to eventually get in front of it, but the group was developing long before Hitler started gaining power.
Even Prof Desmet's theory of "mass formations" is still just a well-developed theory.
Here's a thread I posted earlier on a video interview of Prof Desmet by Tucker Carlson. It's a very interesting discussion of this subject:
Mattias Desmet about Mass Formation and modern society (1 hr video interview of Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet by Tucker Carlson)