Yet another form of group think/counter mass formation.
Since the fall of 2022 I have been struggling to describe a behavioral group dynamic that I keep observing which is operating within the “medical freedom movement”, and have used the historic term “Jacobin” (referring to one particularly brutal phase of the French revolution) to define a process which commonly tears apart almost all resistance movements. This natural process is actively exploited by opponents using methods such as “Bad Jacketing”; accusations of controlled opposition and the like, to sow mistrust and accelerate fragmentation.
But recently I have discovered more modern terms for the process. Moral outbidding and its consequence – Purity spirals, and “Othering”. These terms and the social behaviors which they describe are related to group think as well as to counter mass formation, but carry their own nuances.
Last night I allowed myself to remain on a podcast with a defrocked UK surgeon for 2.5 hours of the most aggressive, accusatory interview I have ever had. Bad on me. It started off with the surgeon telling me that a lot of people hated me (I should have just left then), and then proceeded to a series of accusations and purity tests which I was told to answer with yes or no, and then berated if I gave an answer which failed the host’s purity standards.
