This is a bit left field and out there, but its not the hokum it may initially appear when you start reading it. (Also worth keeping in mind that its written by an American with an Anonymous background on twitter). It has relevance to a few things happening here though. Worth sticking with and reading. Immigration and Brexit fit in well with it.
We are all vulnerable to this type of psychology. It is being deliberately exploited in politics and the press at the moment. Its radicalisation of inner fears into political ideologies. Significant elements of the Trump and Brexit movements are cult like in behaviour and language (plenty of intelligent people end up in cults). It is incredibly difficult to deal with, without creating alternative ideologies, solutions and understanding the sources that drive it. (See how efforts to tackle Islamic terrorism by governments too frequently backfire). It requires tackling from the ground up, by tackling small pieces of the puzzle so eventually the pieces of the imagined jigsaw no longer fit together and it shatters the whole illusion.
1/ A thread on the issue of the stand-alone complex, as requested by a follower.
2/ The stand alone complex is a hard concept to find on Google, unless you're after the anime/graphic novel/movie after which it is named
3/ So, a set of definitions
Stand Alone Complex
A phenomenon when a collection of similar, but unrelated, behavior by unconnected individuals creates a seemingly concerted effort.
The internet group 'Anonymous' is considered by some to be a Stand Alone Complex
Accidental collectivism made up of detached individuals, resembling a highly organized conspiracy and lacking a deliberate origin.
A Stand Alone Complex is usually observed after a major incident such as a murder. People decide to follow the behaviour of a person, be it fictional or real. It also describes teamwork in which all the involved members share a common goal and information, but work alone to achieve it in their own way.
Anonymous share information via image boards and other mediums. They have a single goal yet each member works of their own accord. There is no hierarchy and so are a real example of a Stand Alone Complex
Phenomenon where in behavior by unconnected individuals creates a seemingly concentrated effort. This behavior is copied from a previous source without an original. In short Stand alone complex is multiple copies of a behavior, object, view, ect, existing without an original.
4/ As you can see from the slightly differing, but largely converging, definitions, there's a few elements involved which come together
5/ Actors in stand alone complex:
- pareidolia
- "monkey see monkey do"
- media
- group psychology
Similar things exist with these elements
6/ Para- what? What- eidolia? Pareidolia is the capacity for the mind to make up stories based on patterns which otherwise would confuse us
7/ This video shows a couple of innocent examples & how powerful this capacity really is:
8/ But, sometimes this capacity for a mass of people to see chimeras can influence politics, as explained here:
Here’s how the principle works in real life. During the early ‘80s, a group of women in Orange County, California, were convinced that the dark forces of “secular humanism” were using elementary school textbooks to destroy their children’s minds. The women’s groups was certain that the godless foes of true religion were trying to swamp their youngsters with brain-crippling pornography.
To find out if their suspicions were true, the women’s group members examined the illustrations in the local school’s textbooks through a microscope. Sure enough, they discovered minuscule pictures hidden subliminally on the pages. These microscopic images portrayed women with naked, nippled breasts and men with enormous erections. The outraged mothers actually succeeded in getting some of the textbook illustrations changed on the basis of their “discovery”.
But where, in reality, did the pictures of the naked men and women lie? Not in the printed pages, but in the minds of the women peering through the microscopes. Like Marigold Linton, the psychologist who “forgot” the events in her own life that humiliated her, the microscope-wielding religionist threw a mental sheet over their sexual impulses, hiding them from view. They they conceived an enemy – the secular humanist – roiling with forbidden sexuality and working in devious ways to insert sex into their innocent children’s lives. The only way to prevent this intrusion was to be eternally vigilant, perpetually on the lookout for the humanists’ sexual invasion. By searching for the humanist danger, the clubwomen of Orange County managed to keep their thoughts focused on sex. But this sexual obsession, they could now tell themselves, was not their fault. It was the fault of their sex-crazed enemy, without whom sexuality would never have crossed their minds.
Of such rejected pieces of ourselves are our devils made.
9/ Page 70 - 71, The Lucifer Principle, (c). 2000 Howard Bloom (PDF version)
10/ Now, imagine the women from California mentioned above had convinced some people from Arizona of the same thing & it spread from there
11/ Or another factor of the Internet age - trolling - had been possible. In either case, feeding a chimera'd start a real-world phenomena
12/ The existence of Anonymous may come to mind re: the stand alone complex, but the far Right has a similar version
13/ As you can tell, the stand alone complex can be a force for destruction, & surveillance of it has been suggested
www.reflectionsofthevoid.com/2015/01/terrorism-and-emergence-of-stand-alone.html
14/ This insight into how we visualise maps (assuming I can explain what I mean here) offers a solution to the ignorant mob potential
Which of these statements are true?
Madrid is farther north than Washington DC
Seattle is farther north than Montreal
Portland, Oregon, is further north than Toronto
Reno is farther west than San Diego
The Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal is farther West than the Pacific entrance
They are all true. Almost everyone get them wrong, reasoning along these lines. Nevada is east of California. San Diego is in Californa, Reno is in Nevada, therefore Reno is east of San Diego. Of course this kind of syllogism is invalid whenever regions don’t form a checkerboard. Our geographic knowledge is not a big mental map but a set of smaller maps, organised by assertions about how they are related.
15/ Pages 295 - 296, How The Mind Works, (c.) 1997 Steven Pinker, 1998 Softback Preview edition
16/ Just as one may mistakenly think Japan's south of Korea due to their world map being a melding of smaller maps, so we build a worldview
17/ A copycat incident can only copy what the imitator thinks has happened, which may have come from an unreliable source, for instance
18/ Similarly, the ladies of Orange County could only assume of secular humanists what their magazines & church group told them.
19/ So if such groups fit together, fully formed in their attitude to the world, or a new "discovery" is bolted onto old ideas, then what?
20/ Well, the fan of Gilles Deleuze is probably thinking "rhizomatic structures form," which they do, but that's trodden turf already.
21/ What else? The Taipeng Rebellion A fever dream led a Chinaman to see Jesus & his imperial destiny. He temporarily formed his own kingdom
22/ One group of people who thought Jesus had called them, combined with another group who thought they could replace the Qing dynasty
23/ Their timing could be better- the British Empire couldn't wait for the Taipengs to destroy Chinese rule on their behalf
24/ Why did so many say "I believe in your Heavenly Kingdom too!" when before they didn't? Were they just copying him to ride his wave?
25/ Is every member of ISIS an al-Baghdadi in waiting? Is every adamant Trump fan hoping to be him? Likely not all, or many, of them.
26/ Or Hillary, Stein, or Sanders for that matter.
27/ Another- several Moslems were attacked by civilians 5-14 days after police raid which found one terrorist.
www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-30/as-it-happened-counter-terrorism-raids-in-melbourne/5778208?pfmredir=sm
28/ Confucius said civilians imitate the leaders, but in case I just mentioned, what if the civilians can't even tell Islam from terrorism?
29/ Since we mostly lack research on the stand alone complex from others & I lacked time to think before threading, I'll leave you with that