Back in the days of the pandemic, I ran across the analysis of Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet who argued that a mass formation was developing in Western nations whereby public discourse was dominated by a peculiar type of absurdist groupthink. Those who dared to challenge the narrative were subjected to a barrage of criticism while strange ritualistic behaviors became the order of the day. I recently applied Desmet’s analysis to the current Canadian election and came to this conclusion: Canada is in the grip of another mass formation.
The problem is that this focus of anxiety, this latest mass formation, has led to the psychological obliteration of the Liberal Party’s governance record of the last decade. The palpable disappointment and sense of betrayal among voters which previously led to Justin Trudeau’s own cabinet publicly demanding his resignation has seemingly vanished. The new object of anxiety, Donald Trump, demands every bit of the masses’ attention to the exclusion of all other considerations. What matters is not that Canadians think critically, but that they think together, even if that thinking embraces blatant contradictions.
