The recent events taking place in Armenia and across the world force me to think about an important issue: where do mass confusion, absurd myths, and conspiracy theories come from? Of course, it would be ridiculous to say that those are new phenomena; those phenomena have existed among humans for thousands of years. However, such mass confusion becomes even more widespread during crises. Over the last few years, the crisis (whose ‘healthcare’ side is simply the tip of the iceberg) has made those demonstrations even worse. The fact that rumors are spread on the Internet at lightning speed also plays a role.
Famous 20th-century psychiatrist Viktor Frankl noted that the symptoms of mass neurosis are lack of plans, worship of fate, collective thinking, the desire to become one with the masses, and fanaticism, which is embodied in the form of slogans. Hence, the fear of responsibility and the avoidance of freedom are consequences. (Frankl knew what he was talking about because he was a victim of that psychosis and spent several years in a Nazi concentration camp). The key phenomenon here is the avoidance of freedom, which is the key point of the aforementioned logical chain. In other words, if someone does not have any vision for their future, if they wish to get rid of their individualism via crowd thinking and stereotypes, then it unequivocally testifies to taking the burden of responsibility off their shoulders and thus, avoiding freedom. Escape From Freedom is the name of a book by another famous psychologist, Erich Fromm.
Fine, if people get rid of their freedom and responsibility, what do those empty people do? The response seems to be obvious: they seek idols. “People need three things: miracles, mystery, and authority.” The Grand Inquisitor says this in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov when God allegedly came to his city, Seville, where they had just burned one hundred heretics at the stake. According to the Grand Inquisitor, those same ‘tools’ were offered to Jesus by Satan when he was trying to tempt Jesus. But the Lord rejected them, which, according to the Grand Inquisitor, was wrong, because people truly do not want freedom. They would rather have idols to worship, which is why they need miracles, mysteries, and authority.
Let’s think about those phenomena on Armenian soil, and, I think, we will receive the answer to many questions. Regarding mass confusion, I do not wish to separate our people and citizens from the rest of humanity. But I also cannot deny that post-Soviet states have their unique characteristics. In our case specifically, people have consistently, cynically, and arrogantly deprived themselves of the opportunity to make free choices and take responsibility for more than two decades. It is very natural that sooner or later, they would be tempted by a popular idol, and when given the opportunity to choose, they decided to choose incompetent individuals, which led to tragic consequences. But people still do not want to take responsibility for the consequences of their poor choice. They are probably waiting for new idols.
Read also
Aram Abrahamyan
