When we talk about community, it gives a pleasant feeling for supportive togetherness. So very wholesome, as the young people say. So how does all this pleasantness grow monsters?
During the first week of 2021, the man of the week was a guy named Jake Angeli. From the distance of exactly one year, it is already difficult to remember this person. So let's give him something that will joggle your memory: He's the guy with the makeup on his face and the fur cap with the buffalo horns. Yes, it is him, who hundreds of his photographs, screaming while breaking into the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., captured on the front pages and the subsequent news editions worldwide. Angeli was not alone when he broke into the Holy Sanctuary of American Democracy. He was an avid supporter of
QAnon. An organization so delusional and disgusting that we would not even want to mention here what it and its ideology is so as not to contribute even slightly to its SEO. How did this pile of hallucination freaks gain momentum, gather believers for themselves, and ultimately motivate them to take action to form a quasi-military force and storm the capital of their country to bring about the non-realization of the voter decision? The answer is a sense of community and its sickly expression in the current world.
Man seeks to belong through the adoption of an agenda. In turn, also grants him/her significance in the physical space. I believe in something. I am doing something. I am not alone. I am a part of something greater than me. I swear allegiance to this huge, simplified thing, to an objective that grants me an existence. From the moment that I have sworn my allegiance, I will do everything on behalf of the men and women in the community. You hurt them? I feel hurt. Have I been called up? I report for duty.
The phenomenon becomes ever-more possible in a social-networked world since we live in a world where no one determines what the truth is, and what is untrue. The various networks facilitate a resonance of all the chatter. They also enable consolidation, joining, building a force that starts from a kernel of support and exchange of opinions and sometimes ends in the organization of a military force.
It can be seen among those who object to vaccines, some of whom moved with horrifying speed from reporting alongside vaccine objectors on behalf of the democracy and preservation of minority rights, where they are the minority, to an almost religious belief in a hallucination that poses a substantial risk to the health of us all. It can also be seen in utterly delusional things like the belief that the world is flat, or Reptilians, whom the wealthy World Jewry are their servants. And, it is fair to say, even among hard-core "Bibists." Heaven forbid, we are not saying it is illegitimate to be a sworn fan of Netanyahu. It refers to patterns of behavior among this community. For example, anyone suddenly perceived as opposing him is defined immediately as a sworn enemy.
Any global event can generate a community. Any community can swell to surprising proportions and transition almost instantly from the virtual and digital world of online chatter to one of the violent acts that endanger world peace. The past year, 2021, began as just such as community, fomenting an attempt to prevent a democratically elected change of government. This year, in 2022, must be the year in which we learn to develop better tools for education and warnings.