Europe's Mass-Psychosis Getting WORSE | Prof. Mattias Desmet - Kyoto-Japan

Kyoto University Symposium 2026:

"Geopolitics in the Time of Monsters" Presentation 3: Prof. Mattias Desmet Why do even intelligent people fall for the most ridiculous narratives? At the Kyoto Symposium, Mattias Desmet presents his theory of mass formation, linking loneliness, anxiety and collective identification to propaganda and intolerance. He argues that sincere speech can rebuild human connections and resist destructive conformity. The discussion tests his account against history, modernity, class, racism and contemporary geopolitical conflict. Audience members challenge his assumptions and explore whether psychological explanations can complement structural analysis when diagnosing the dangers facing societies today.

Mattias Desmet argues that contemporary geopolitics must be read through mass psychology: rising loneliness, narcissism and diffuse anxiety create fertile ground for propaganda to bind fragmented populations to single fear-objects (e.g., a virus, a foreign adversary). He links modern democratic propaganda, technological amplification and social atomization to the emergence of mass formations that narrow attention, suppress critical distance, incentivize self‑sacrifice and produce extreme intolerance toward dissent. Desmet traces this dynamic from psychological measurement failures to pandemic and Ukraine narratives, arguing successive mass formations can replace one another as new fear-objects arise. Drawing on Le Bon and historical cases (Soviet and Nazi mobilizations), he identifies a small resilient minority as the therapeutic bulwark: persistent, authentic speech that restores interpersonal bonds and resists totalizing narratives. He situates the crisis deeper—at the level of truth, authenticity and the culture of the Enlightenment—contending that reversing massification requires cultivating vulnerability, honest communication and committed minorities willing to sustain dissent.