From the White-PillBox: Part 22
Psychology - a little White Pill just waiting to explode onto the scene
Psychology is currently a minor player in the liberty movement (the dominant subjects of libertarianism are philosophy, ethics, economics, politics and legal theory). When psychology is explored, the analysis commonly focuses on the personal perspective: statism’s impact on our mental health, or how best to psychologically navigate a statist culture 1.
But there is little in the libertarian sphere that examines the psychology behind the belief in the legitimacy of the State.
The major libertarian work on the psychology of statism is The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose. It is a brilliant analysis of this topic. It builds the case that the public's belief in the legitimate authority of the State is the fundamental reason the State exists at all. It focuses on the psychology that makes this belief possible. And in true White Pill fashion, it explains that once a sufficient percentage of people overcome that belief, the State will no longer be viable and will dissolve into obscurity.
Despite being the only significant work on the topic, this book has had enormous success in opening the eyes of its readers. This shows that psychology is a fertile untapped resource for advancing toward a free society.
The psychological perspective identifies the root cause of statism
All those in liberty circles have their pet gripes about the State, and all of these have validity. But most of these are tangential effects of statism. We oppose taxes: an effect of statism, not a cause. We oppose public schools: likewise an effect, not a cause 2. These are but a few examples of real world effects that arise from the existence of a State. They do not, however, identify the root cause of the State.
The cause cannot reside in the State itself
Observe: the State does not impose its authority by means of an ever-present occupying force watching every single street and home. It doesn't have to. The population simply self-complies; they assume a governing authority is natural and necessary.
This is fortunate for the State. After all, in any State, the small minority of enforcers could not possibly subdue the population that vastly outnumbers them. The State desperately needs people to believe it is legitimate. Because without that belief, non-compliance would emerge and grow. The resistance of a surprisingly small percentage of a population is all that would be needed for the State to crumble.
The eye-opening reality is that the State only exists because people think they want it. At the root, the State stands on a mere thought. Namely, that it has legitimate authority over men.
The importance that the belief is no more than a superstition
It takes but little thought to appreciate the significance of this psychological insight. Since the State persists only because of a myth that resides in the minds of men, then it is of interest to examine what happens when we overcome the belief in its authority.
When the individual overcomes the myth
An individual person experiences this as a Red Pill - the realization that something they considered real and significant was merely a product of their own false belief 3. It frees the individual from a mental prison.
But this of course does not eliminate the State itself. It merely puts the State on an equal footing with any common thug...as an impediment or danger to one's life.
When sufficient numbers overcome the myth (the real White Pill) 4
As the illegitimacy of the State works its way through the culture, we will see greater clarity of thinking concerning the nature of the State, until it is "in the air". All of these outcomes will unfold (outcomes that, as we know, are already true regarding our small minority of anarchists/voluntaryists):
The increasing regard of the State as an enemy.
Resistance or non-compliance with State directives.
The circumventing of the State financially.
The mocking and disparaging of the State as an institution.
The shunning of those who represent, work for, or promote the State.
Put simply, as people's belief in the State wanes, they will withdraw their moral and financial support in kind.
And eventually the State will wind down as if a power cord were disconnected.
The progress of this White Pill
As indicated earlier, libertarianism has given little attention to this psychological insight. This suggests its true potential. After all, the economic and moral arguments for liberty are already reaching mainstream audiences. If the psychological analysis gains traction, the chances of Red-Pilling millions expand, precisely because it strikes at the root of the issue.
No need to reinvent the psychological wheel
For psychology to make headway in undermining statism, it is not necessary for scholars and writers to innovate or make new discoveries. This is an important aspect of this White Pill.
The insights psychology has to offer already exist. They are found in the study of unhealthy conditions and behaviors already well understood and researched by psychology. Examples are addiction, spousal abuse 5, superstition 6, deference to authority 7…
…and cults.
The State as a cult
Most importantly, identifying statism as a cult offers the best opportunity to leverage existing psychological insights to undermine the perceived legitimacy of the State.
The State is not merely "metaphorically similar" to a cult. Psychologically, statism is an instance (an example) of cultism. The cult and its leaders correspond to the State and its leaders. In both cases, there is belief in unquestioned authority and the exclusion of competing ideas 8.
The perspective within the mind
Cult followers do not apply critical thinking regarding the cult. Likewise the general public does not apply critical thinking regarding the State. The experience of both cult members and citizens of a State are identical:
A person's mind responds with fear when contemplating a world without the authority.
Good intentions and good outcomes are attributed to the authority.
Bad intentions and bad outcomes are attributed to opponents of the authority.
And the authority’s fangs come out when a person becomes defiant or independent.
The State is essentially a highly ubiquitous cult 9.
Mentally escaping
Tellingly, ending one's belief in a cult requires a mental shift; a clear-headed view that "takes the blinders off". This is a choice the individual must make consciously (else they can find their way back to belief in the cult). Prior to this, the person's mind is imprisoned within itself. To escape the mental prison the mind does not need new knowledge or insights. It needs nothing more than to realize it had permitted a false belief.
And notice that the preceding paragraph is equally true if "the cult" is replaced with "the State".
Publicly identifying how the State is a cult would be an historically important advance in the march to liberty.
Some libertarian examples of topics that explore personal psychology:
The mental prison that statism creates
How style of parenting and trauma may contribute causally to statism
Although to the extent the schools indoctrinate children into believing in the authority of the State, public schooling plays a causal role in the long run.
It is not a stretch to compare this to our childhood belief in Santa Claus. We can all recall our belief as supremely powerful - Santa Claus was very real to us. We may also recall a short period of doubt and even some unease with that doubt. But after that, the truth was painless; more significantly, nothing was needed to replace our Santa belief; it simply dissolved.
And here it helps to keep in mind the final years of slavery before abolition...because here, too, a centuries-old idea was losing legitimacy.
The abusive spouse necessarily uses psychological intimidation. He must deceive the spouse into believing he is superior and in control; that she is flawed; that she can do no better. Here we see instructive parallels with how a citizen submits to the State.
Blind superstition aptly describes the belief in the State. For most people the State is vaguely understood as a separate entity from man; endowed with its own consciousness; whose power and scope is greater and more important than man’s. They quite literally live out their lives having never pondered the questions of whether the State may simply be an assembly of mere men, and whether the institution itself is even legitimate at all. A rare few (typically scholars and philosophers) permit themselves to grasp the former, and even rarer still, consider the latter. But even here, their efforts to analyze it objectively reach a psychological limit. Their indoctrination impedes their reason, and they fall back to mere assertions and vague generalities.
However, this is not meant to label the belief in the State as a religion. There are certainly some similarities to organized religions (rituals, authoritarian hierarchies with special powers). But a key difference is that participation and belief in religions are, at least to some degree, explicitly chosen. Religion is experienced as an identifiable and personal positive in the person's life. The psychological explanations for religious belief seem to have clear differences from that of statism.
The institution of slavery shows us how deference to authority can be culture-wide. Even the majority of slaves were indoctrinated to accept their station in life, thereby becoming self-compliant.
Also, the psychology of authority was explored in the Milgram experiments. People were instructed to harm fake test subjects for giving wrong answers. So long as they felt they were following the orders of an authority, they imposed greater punishment than if the decision to punish was their own.
An interesting area of research would be to determine the role statism plays in these observations. Has the general, traditional belief in statism caused a greater deference to authority, than would have developed without statism? Or is our deference to authority somehow ingrained in our nature? Culture and upbringing do seem to play a role. We all know people who easily do what they are told, and others who utterly "do their own thing". This is the case on the large scale as well. Early frontier Americans were fiercely independent and skeptical of authority. They hardly seem the same species as their generally compliant progeny of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Cults and statism do have a slight difference: how one becomes indoctrinated. For a cult there are many possible causes (emotional vulnerability, loneliness, being born into it, etc.). But belief in the State predominantly arises from only one of these: being born into it. The indoctrination is relentless from our earliest years because everyone around us is already well-indoctrinated.
Also, this is why democracy is a particularly evil form of the government-as-cult. Democracy leverages psychological manipulation to cause people to personally identify ("we are the government") with the State. Once again, a precise description of a cult member’s perspective. And that sense of oneness of a citizen (member) with “his” State (cult) makes it that much more difficult to question its authority.