Hermann Broch Quotes: Profound Insights on Delusion and Mass Psychology
“Delusion is a self-contained value system that leads to a loss of rationality because it blocks open and critical thinking. When delusion arises in a community, irrational beliefs are amplified in the communal experience, reaching a fever pitch in moments of ecstasy that give individuals a feeling of happiness and power.
Mass delusion can have a neurotic and a psychotic component. Neurosis is the struggle between inner and outer reality. It is designed to win, otherwise it succumbs to panic. Psychosis is a closed value system in which the affected person feels completely secure. They are not in conflict with the reality of the outside world, but live in their own value system, which they perceive as real. A closed system defends its autonomy by developing a self-contained logic and deriving norms from it that must be accepted without question.
People who find themselves in a closed system become blind to reality and, when their irrational forces are unleashed, easily slip into dangerous delusion.”
Hermann Broch