To summarize, for Nazism to spread, a critical mass of people must be in “Fight or Flight” mode, or else believe a worldview, or cognitive frame, rooted in fear. Long term fear and anxiety changes your brain and narrows your horizons. People might better guard themselves against having their fear button pushed if we didn’t have a wrong idea of how our minds work. The wrong idea goes by different names such as “Descartes’ Error” and “the rationalist mistake”. Another part of the rationalist dilemma is that the emotional detachment which makes science possible can also detach us from strengthening our protective instincts, a paradox Jung mentioned and which I’ve called “Catch 1408”.

A perfect summary for the modern day and it’s political chaos.

Thank you for this!