Personality cults: toxin of our times

One of the benefits of having dogs is that you have to go for walks. It may be cold and wet, or oppressively hot, but the dogs always know that what you really need is another walk.

And they’re right.

Now, and I hesitate to write these words, in case they read them, but even with the company of two charming dogs, I find those walks not entirely exciting. So I take earphones, and an audible book downloaded to my phone. That passes the time satisfactorily, while Luci and Toffee hunt around smelling any patch of ground that seems potentially interesting, or playing with small dogs and running away from large ones.

Luci with Toffee behind her.
Great fun but walks need a little more...

Currently, I’m listening to a book I previously read, Ian Kershaw’s biography Hitler. I seem to be getting more from it this way than from reading it. Perhaps it’s the intimacy of a voice speaking directly into my ear. But what perhaps 
makes the book more vivid to me now is that it feels so much more topical. 

Whether on the first or second time through, the picture that emerges is of a Hitler who was not unintelligent, but hopelessly limited. Perhaps one could describe him as selectively stupid.

For instance, he warned the Jews before the war that if they dragged Germany into another world war, they would pay the price, through the annihilation of Jewry. 

He then invaded Poland, and found himself at war with France and Britain.

Two years later, with Britain still undefeated, he invaded the Soviet Union, convinced the German army could strike a knockout blow in a matter of months, leading to a complete collapse of the Soviets. So now he was in a major European war.

A few months later, Hitler’s ally Imperial Japan attacked the United States and he declared war too.

So now he was in a world war.

The Jews had absolutely nothing to do with any of those steps. Indeed, they had been increasingly victimised as each military adventure got under way. Even so, this was the point at which Hitler, claiming that the Jews had indeed dragged the nation into this terrible conflict, decided that his warning was about to be verified, and Nazi Germany launched its programme of Jewish extermination.

As Kershaw points out, there’s little doubt that Hitler believed what he was saying, however contrary it was to any real evidence. That’s what I mean by blinkered. It’s also what I mean by selective stupidity. It allowed him to delude himself into adopting a series of views with no basis in reality.

It wasn’t, however, the only form of stupidity at play. Or the only form of delusion. Much more widespread was the poisonous beliefs that formed the bedrock of Hitler’s power: the personality cult that developed around him and which meant that any statement he made had to be true, simply because he’d made it.

Hitler was a self-deluded limited man, and profoundly dishonest, but he came to be thought of in Germany as incapable of error.

No attitude is more dangerous. Because if a man is infallible, to question him isn’t merely an error, it’s a lie. To disseminate such a lie is nothing short of treason.

If such questioning is by someone powerful, say the newspapers, then the treason is particularly deadly. The damage is done not to the revered personality – he is above such damage – but to the people who may read or listen to the lies. To protect them, not the leader, it’s necessary to shut down the purveyors of these distortions. Indeed, it may even be necessary to punish the people who produce them.

This is a crucial step to take. Because democracy itself is based on suspicion of its leaders. We elect people to power, but then we surround them with institutions designed to monitor them and question their actions. We never give way to unqualified faith in leaders but expect them to be, like any human, fallible and therefore likely to have to be replaced at some stage.

Personality cults represent an opposed point of view and, consequently, tend to lead to authoritarianism.

Now in long-established and deeply-rooted democracies, such as the United States or Britain, there are mechanisms in place which may be able to prevent that decline into autocratic rule. It may be possible to remove the personalities at the centre of a cult from power before they can consolidate their hold. The great question of our time is whether they are strong enough. Because, and this is why Kershaw is so topical, personality cults are back with a vengeance.

Donald Trump in the US is the head of a personality cult, that sees him as infallibly right, a view he shares. So anyone who questions him is not merely incorrect, but an enemy. Again, the media, or the mainstream media to use today’s dismissive term, are the among the most dangerous. 

Trump would not, I think, launch a Holocaust as Hitler did. However, I’m convinced that he would have no hesitation in locking up opponents if he could. He’d be sure he would be serving the people by doing so.

It’s no accident that the cry of ‘lock her up’ rings out at his rallies.

Not so different as one might think
as both lead personality cults

We have a similar problem in Britain. The Labour Party has been invested by a personality cult. Jeremy Corbyn is seen by his supporters as incapable of error. I’ve been told that I need to show ‘faith’ in the leader, the most dangerous attitude towards leaders. I’ve been told that he is being ‘savvy’ when he refuses to back either side of the Brexit debate, though that merely strikes me as dishonest. And I see in him the same self-deluding tendency to believe that he cannot err: he’s a man of the left so that all his positions are left wing, even when he is pandering to hard right Brexiters whose support he feels he needs, to win office.

As with Trump’s followers, Corbyn’s also loathe the ‘mainstream media’.

Corbyn is no Hitler, of course. However, he necessarily embodies the same tendencies towards authoritarianism that mark all personality cults. Equally, by their unqualified faith, his supporters encourage and reinforce that trend.

Forget the man. Forget his policies. It’s the qualities of a cult themselves that are toxic and need to be resisted.

I’m indebted to Kershaw for reminding me of that vital lesson. And to my dogs, of course, for obliging me to listen to him again.

Health warning to parents: recognising the signs of Personalitycultoma

A new and insidious condition is affecting growing numbers of children today. It has hit epidemic proportions in the United States and Britain. It is a malignant and highly resistant form of cancer which, unusually for this kind of disease, primarily affects the mind rather than the body.

That makes it no less serious, however. Indeed, in many ways its detrimental effect is all the greater for being essentially psychological.

A Personalitycultoma reveals itself as an irrational and groundless belief that a particular individual is endowed with special powers, making him (or far less frequently her) a man (or woman) of destiny. Where in the past, policy or concrete achievement has been what matters, with a Personalitycultoma sufferer, merely being who they are is enough for the object of the cult to attract the reverence of sufferers from the condition.

Since it isn’t particularly difficult for people to be who they are (most of us manage it most of the time), and sufferers sees that as a sufficient basis for worship, you can imagine just how serious a condition Personalitycultoma is.

Interestingly, the objects of the personality cult generally share the view of the worshippers around them. In many ways, they may be the most afflicted victims of the disease.

So Donald Trump can change his position every few months, sometimes by as much as 180 degrees, and his worshippers, afflicted with Personalitycultoma, will simply follow. He has achieved nothing? It doesn’t matter. The worship is directed at the Donald for what he is not for what he does.

Similarly, it doesn’t matter that Jeremy Corbyn – the British Labour Party’s answer to Trump – has nothing to say on key matters, his silence itself must be evidence of his commitment to principle. This is not because sitting on the fence is principled – it clearly isn’t – but because Corbyn being the very embodiment of all honesty and principle, any position he takes – however obviously opportunist – must be a shining example of integrity.

What are the signs of Personalitycultoma? It’s vital to recognise them if any kind of action is to be taken by parents to effect a cure in their children.

Look out for the use of rules that apply only to people other than the object of worship. For instance, if a sufferer argues that any Labour MP should be discipline for lack of loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn, but believes that Corbyn should not have suffered the same fate for lack of loyalty to previous leaders, suspect Personalitycultoma.

Then there’s loyalty itself. A fixation on it, and on a far higher level of loyalty than most people would expect, is another sign of this pernicious condition. Donald Trump is known to value unquestioning loyalty above all other qualities, far ahead of competence, intelligence or know-how. Which is why his staff either screw up big time or let him down, in his own estimation, lamentably.

Similarly, Corbynistas make loyalty to Jeremy the keystone of any political position in British Labour. The notion that members, and above all Members of Parliament, should hold a leader to account is shelved. What is due is unqualified support. ‘Back the leader or shut up’ is the key slogan. Telling truth to power? Forget it. Outmoded. Not left wing enough. The true believer takes truth from power, where ‘truth’ is what the leader says.

Finally, there’s the wild claiming of success and denial of failure. Corbyn, with a little help from others, achieved a huge increase in Labour’s vote in the last general election. That’s a triumph for him. 

Did he win? No. That’s an indictment of those who questioned him.

Similarly, Trump achieved a major diplomatic success in his talks with Kim Jong Un. By doing so, he ensured the nuclear disarmament of North Korea. Personalitycultoma sufferers will celebrate the breakthrough. 

Has North Korea actually disarmed? No. That’s the fault of the fake-news brokers in the media, who spread this kind of uncomfortable news.

Truly an insidious and debilitating condition. Sufferers lose all capability to reason critically. With their heads in the dust by his feet, they can no longer see the glaring faults of the object of their reverence. His failings are invisible to them, however obvious they are to the rest of us.

What’s the cure?

Absolutely not the right treatment for Personalitycultoma
However tempting it may sometimes seem

Sadly, treatment options are unclear at the moment. The best hope seems to be regular dosages of reality. Unfortunately, it’s unknown how long the treatment would have to last to bring a sufferer out of the delusion. Would a defeat for Trump be sufficient? Or a second defeat for Corbyn? We fear that it might take far more, so parents should persist in delivering doses of reality over an extended period, until it is quite clear that the patient is beginning to return to sanity.

And, in this context, ‘parent’ means anyone with their feet on the ground. Because although the condition particularly affects children, those children are not necessarily young. Why, I know one sufferer well into his seventies.

Childish, certainly. A child, not necessarily.