You may need to care about the degree of institutionalization of corruption and terror, and the timescale relative to people’s developmental timescales (generations or parts thereof). The problems that graspers of power need to solve are somewhat different in earlier and later contexts, and so the solutions that get kept probably are different as well.
When a movement is really a social phenomenon, like fascism or bolshevism in their rising phases, it is not heavily institutionalized. There are communities pushing to see who will take over the larger society. By which I mean: people are not atomized. There, what the demagogue needs to do to survive and succeed is convert the masses into a mob. He doesn’t yet have an intricate interlocking structure that makes him hard to get at, and he needs to utilize the social and non-atomized nature of mobs to suppress the still-large part of the society that wants to stop him. If the disease can get installed and hang on through some transition phase, it needs to then eat away at both character and community. Example is West Point at the moment. Most of the cadets trained there in the past probably wouldn’t immediately shoot U.S. civilians if told to, and they probably believe that the people who carried out their educations had some notions of courage and moral agency. That is the thing that is being reworked now. Demonstrate that those running the place are in fact not brave, and not sure enough of themselves to exercise moral agency, and thus can be bought out and made collaborators. The cadets for whom that was the lesson of their education will not be the same kind of developed people as those who believed (even if it had not been tested and shown, for them) that the rules were otherwise. These cadets are more likely to have the calculus that Jonathan Shay describes in Achilles in Vietnam: better to shoot the civilians in front of me than to get shot by my own commanders from behind, since I know they would do that. Put on low heat and cook for a generation. While people are growing into that different worldview, build up your mafia hierarchies, where everybody is pitted against everybody and the notion of whether or where you are safe gets re-evaluated with each new day, based on what you can learn about what changed overnight. You can start with the ones who were already cynical and amoral or immoral, since there will always be some of them in the society and you just need to put out a red lantern and let them find you. And as more of the rest get tipped over into cynicism and amorality, you can expand the collaborator pool as they come online. In that world, the mafia organization, much like a modern economy with respect to consumer and labor choices, people are atomized, do not act socially (w.r.t. these questions), and act instead with institutions as their counterparties. When everyone faces only an institution as the certain or predictable part of life, and when the institutions are mafia institutions, building up the social mentality of the mob is not “needed”, and perhaps building up the shared identity of the mob is not even desirable (since who might come to control it if it becomes cohesive; maybe somebody other than you). There can be a pretense of demagoguery, as in Castro’s hours-long speeches, or Maduro “teasing” a listener that the listener must be on “the Maduro diet” (meaning starving, while Maduro got fatter and fatter), and there will probably be some rump of the eternally-aggrieved for whom that does something. But they are not the same mob that put the current capo in power before the institutions were built. I don’t think probably nearly anybody feels warmth and affection toward Kim Jong-un, even though there probably were many who felt that way toward Kim Il-sung. The situation of Bekele in El Salvador right now may be interesting in that regard. He got re-elected with a huge majority, but I’m not sure it was because people responded to the demagoguery so much as, like the support for Duterte in the Philippines, they were more afraid of immediate daily presence of violence, and would back somebody who seemed to be big enough to suppress part of it. Eric > On May 10, 2025, at 7:27, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hmmm I am not sure, but I think the emotional connection between the > demagogue and his followers is important, at least in some systems, but not > in all. President Xi in China and president Putin do not show much emotion or > create an emotional connection to their people, right? I am reading Peter > Hessler's last book "Other Rivers" and he says in China they call it "chen > mo" if people turn silent because they are frightened of a negative > government reaction. > > I scribbled this graphical description. Not sure if it makes sense? In > authoritarian systems you are not allowed to criticize the ruler, in > totalitarian systems neither the ruler nor the ruling party. > > <.EmailTempImageHEV_1746829057729.jpg> > > -J. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: steve smith <[email protected]> > Date: 5/9/25 10:43 PM (GMT+01:00) > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Your personal truth > > > > Jochen wrote: >> Knowing >> *their* emotions could be the key. Maybe one major reason why >> Donald Trump's followers find him so persuasive is that they >> have the impression he knows what they feel, because what he >> says fits exactly to how they feel. The most selfish and >> narcissistic person who is incapable of empathy gives people >> the feeling that he knows what they feel. It is a little bit >> paradox, isn't it? >> >> > Unless of course, he is appealing to every(wo)man's inner selfish-narcissist? > First you tweak up fear (and maybe greed in the background) and then appeal > to the (very natural?) narcissistic and selfish sensibilities that come with > that? > > Also Trump has a penchant for a type of vagueness which makes it easy for a > motivated listener to map their own worst hopes/fears onto everything he says > (very polarizing). He blathers so much nonsense about so many things it is > easy to pick and choose what you want to get excited (or incensed) about. > > As for me, the (rare?) times something the Donald does or says appeals to me > I can usually find a limbic system level greed or fear trigger of my own that > he's touched on? Gilded embellishments in the background of the White > House, Supermodels and Pornstars and Inappropriately Young Women hanging off > his arm (or waiting just out of sight) and Personal Jumbo Jets and Golf > Resorts (with fake fake-gold trophies) and outrageous rhetoric about > immigrant crime and the "unfairness" of global trade/relations really do just > the opposite for me. Total turnoffs. But for many I think those things > give them a little tweak... gives them hope for their darkest desires and > confirmation on their darkest fears. > > When I hear that maybe Social Security income won't be taxed, I get a little > bump to my limbic system thinking of the 2 or 3 figure savings I might get on > my tax bill (unless of course I go full tax-revolt as I preach to others). > When I saw the big fentanyl roundup in NM/AZ/NV/OR I was heartened to > imagine that the "worst of the worst" had been at least mildly subdued, even > though I'm pretty sure a careful look will see a lot of collateral damage to > people, at worst, on the periphery or victims of the "worst of the worst" > themselves. > > Musk used to appeal to my latent (or mostly recovered) inner libertarian, > convincing me that just good old fashioned elbow grease and innovative > thinking (and acting) could save me from the existential risks of our own > thoughtless self-destructive ambitions and the selfishness of others. I was > raised on a similar Good Old Fashioned Future SciFi canon he apparently was > (maybe the SoAfrica SciFi literary centroid was a decade or so behind the > US/Europe?). I can't tell he read anything with a "cautionary tale" built > into it though... > > > > > > > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,qWna6LzisQaHtcMnoekCpN9bU0VYgbRL8zZybTnMVjIangoS0Dl68QMMOpFgN9necoeCOgAuU7yzYCOSMAFI3QljuLFX0AywEUi5Yne6QvkL&typo=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,7m5FaZkVNYIt5xE0j05sgCDPpd9b83cggRbDZLRSKSYvQ1BKvIqtuz2jN2JCn_j5KGBMyUi6HgMsujKW8yO6_QSJrnxUUNSdmPx7Rvwa&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,IyBOtgf1mcKVHNOUnJV-AqrquvlmlHZIFTFNHvZ5kpMcTha2py4e8ymfFCKywDxgYFPICAFYtTYjAi43dV1XYMsxUkTaHYgsNc4xNay7yxxYN5Jqm3Hs&typo=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,H9NpsYMhXUcLCXWr_68ViUO6W9Y8GWkbNXSQm35p-NYKoDeP9r__sknTa_UG6n8RAoLL-7hffWQk2v1a1w0pdrmMiXD2Qb4Khug1MRDUqTkRS98,&typo=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
