A discourse
By SAIMIR LOLJA
THE SPIRIT (PSYCHOS) OF CROWD coexists with the human. It is a feature of the history of humankind because the human is naturally a gregarious entity who continually seeks to be socialized. But any awareness of this spirit, any consideration of itءnd above all, any acknowledgment of its capacity to exploit others to achieve its own goalsأonstitutes the other side of the coin. The fundamental matter is the extent to which the spirit of crowd is emphasized within a society, because a person with such a spirit bears in the foundations of his mind the inseparable duality of the Ruler and the Crowd. This is a major issue because thoughts and feelings, as expressions of the human spirit, determine personal social behavior; that is, they are the dividing line between what is called good and what is called bad. Behavior and work are two different things for an individual, yet they complement and correlate to one another because they accompany the individual throughout his life. Social mood determines social events because the individual does as he pleases.
In a crowd, the individual has a suppressed spirit which is neither free nor dynamic; and such a spirit reacts by birthing a desire in the recesses of the individual’s conscience to see his own self as the head of the crowd. His spirit weeps, grief-stricken, and then frightened he keeps watch on others. He is afraid of and embittered by the goodness of others. He considers others necessarily equal to his own self; he distinguishes no difference between himself and others or at best perceives only the slightest distinction. He feels at one with “his own equals” and imagines his own self as their representative. Naturally, this caged spirit requires release, freedom and self-distinction. Therefore, the individual in the crowd inclines his conscience towards the One, the selfish one, and towards the emotional self-notion that this self-one has no value. As a consequence, a desire is birthed to exalt himself above others or, according to his mind, above “his own equals”. The easiest solution for him is vanity. He is always in search of the chance to brag and to cast blame, because he feels bad and ashamed when he does not show off or blame others. His wicked ears are always open to gossip because he himself is a gossip, too. Thus, the individual in the crowd constantly wastes his attention and energy on needless emotions and unpleasant suppositions, on impulsive nervous nagging, on daydreaming and inexhaustible hearsays.
The individual in the crowd is incapable of acknowledging that not everything belongs to everyone and not everyone is for everything. His manner of thinking is not capable of accepting that the works of others should exist besides his own work. It never occurs to him that his work can complement the work of others or vice versa. As far as he is concerned, it is good and only proper that, in a common wall built by many, his stone only should be recognized. He considers himself to be indispensable, and there are times when he tries to demolish the common-built wall because he has a disloyal character with rotten smell. Such a spirit neither commands respect from nor respects others. For him, different ways of thinking do not exist. He cannot understand that respecting different opinions strengthens relationships. In other words, that individual does not value harmonious relationships and as a consequence he does not accept progress; he even despises it.
The individual in the crowd incomprehensibly converts himself to a narcissist: he keenly seeks images of himself in the crowd. Others are either just like him or should be thus converted. He experiences immeasurable self-gratification from seeing and feeling himself in the midst of a crowd. While the ancient narcissist remained all day beside a stagnant pond to derive the self-satisfaction and pleasure of seeing his reflection, the narcissist of the crowd sees his reflection expanded like widening ripples for as long as the crowd exists. This extended reflection inevitably becomes fragile, easily broken and prone to crumbling at any moment due to its spreading and size. The satisfaction rendered by an infinite mirror cannot be shaken loose or forgotten. The only tools that enable the narcissist in a crowd to preserve this feeling are vigilance, envy, hatred and aggression toward even the slightest movement on the surface of the mirror of water, against the slightest variation or distinction in sound. In particular, the narcissist of the crowd becomes deeply afflicted and filled with sadness and hatred when he sees good happening to othersئor him, others do not merit any good. He mocks others who express themselves differently or who appear to be different; he prevents them from making progress. In his view, only the ruler of the crowdبis idol, his desired selfةs worthy of good, embellishment and elevation.
Such an individual finds self-worth only in being a suppressor of others. By either discounting the value of others or by degrading the civic, cultural and national values of the society to which he belongs, he ascribes value to himself, recognizing only his infinite wilderness to be of worth. Spiritually, he takes part in the crime and betrayal that his ruler (the Super-one) brings about. He does not rationalize either himself or his Super-one, because his own self aspires to be a ruler. He distinguishes rights for himself only; for him, there exists his freedom only and not that of others. And, when he ceases, others should cease as well. Such a spirit is voracious, unhappy, unsettled, and so malicious to others for keeping alive his insatiability. He self-thinks to be flawless, intangible, with absolute rights and unbounded liberty. Like the ruler Ali Pasha Tepelena, he does not feel any responsibility for himself or towards others. Rather, he aims to contain everything of worth within his possessions; he desires and strives to build his island only, his tower with loopholes. He shows no interest in the surrounding environment and even considers it to be hostile because he has no interest in common things. He prefers to build his own rocky island and tower with loopholes, and he is exulted when he destroys bridges and cuts communication lines to erect a fence around himself. He does not like peaceful coexistence because he does not respect others or their belongings. He is an awful neighbor; he hates and darkens his eyes upon seeing any positive change in “his own equals”; yet at the same time, he observes what others do and emulates them so as to avoid falling emotionally behind.
The individual in the crowd does not feel satisfied unless he continually sees the image and hears the voice of his Super-one. The stamped portrait of the Super-one embodies the mirror image of self for the mini-One and as such he finds the greatest pleasure and inebriation for himself in that figure; this is sweetness for his bitter spirit. The throne and deeds of the Super-one provoke in the mini-One a flow of echoes without which his machine cannot start or drive and the One does not feel like himself. The individual in the crowd returns to the littleness of his childhood, when he dreamed of being a big, dreadful Super-one; when he found infinite enjoyment in childish irresponsibility. Therefore, his confidence is propelled by winds the source of which emanates waves and sounds that keep him diminutive; that is, to the direction that the ruler of the crowd deflates and to the lane where the power of crowd flows. The crowd requires elfin individuals, like sand particles, in order to produce a tempest. As a mini, he thinks only about bringing into play the unforgettable prejudices of his childhood. Overtaken by his imagination, he sends himself back in time though self-praises for this. Thus, voluntarily and involuntarily, he loses his shrewdness and becomes incapable of discerning and understanding the truth, lowering himself to the level of neither knowing the rudiments of a simple machine like the wheel nor the logic of 1+1, and repeatedly doing wrong or making mistakes. The individual in the crowd is incapable of remembering or viewing himself objectively, and thus he is incapable of remembering or connecting past events or deeds. The memory of the individual in the crowd is but momentary. He remembers only what he desires at the moment to remember or what suits his hopes or fears.
The individual in the crowd reasons on the basis of the suppressed self-rationality of the One. That is, he requires other Ones to justify his inept mind because he fears the One, his probable nemesis, and he thinks that other Ones likewise fear him for the very same reason. He is like a ruler petrified, frozen like a stone, because it is only in this way that he can be the One; and as such, he does not allow other Ones to be distinguished in the crowd. When he is attacked, he only tries to find others to blame because otherwise he cannot understand why he is being attacked. Such a spirit is not interested in cooperation; he is only interested in the Super-one who rules him spiritually. No matter how far away he is, he is always vigilant to ensure that his Super-one, the ruler of whom he boasts, is not disturbed, does not desert him, remains everlasting and untouchable, like a monument reaching up to the sky, because thus only can he turn his eyes upward. Hatred has him always set to conspire with kindred spirits to fall maliciously upon “his own equals”, to plunder and abuse them, to deceive them as the chance arises or at the command of the Super-one. One example of this was the movement of the equals (communists) in Albania which during and after World War II swept through like a contagion because people were lured by the slogan “Get up to attack those who are different and take all that they have.”
The individual in the crowd has no spiritual power and increasingly becomes unable to recover the independence naturally granted to him, to question or judge himself, to detach himself from inner claws, to avoid dependence upon others, to not deny himself, to tap into any gleam of understanding originating from himself; to be curious about who he is, where he is coming from and going to, and why. The individual in the crowd is a No-one. His thinking is heavily influenced by the crowd, by official propaganda, and he loathes anything contrary to his mode of thinking. The individual in the crowd can be compared to an iron splinter suspended only by the magnetic field of the Super-one. Without this vital magnetic field, the individual withers away and vanishes like the dust. But under the influence of the Super-one, the individual in the crowd solidifies himself and is converted into a fanatic, that is, an individual unable to change either his mind or its contents. He is an emotional and nervous being, a fan, a majesty devoted totally to his higher majesty. He stays in the crowd because of the hatred he feels toward others, toward those whom he knows, against his neighbors. The Super-one is his spirit, the one who drives his emotions and brings him satisfaction, because the crowd wherein he resides exists due to his divine Super-one and the hatred that the Super-one imparts. Both the hatred itself and the piercing from emotions that nourish the hate are what keep the crowd together. It is the Super-one that imparts to the mini Ones in the crowd the loathing and other emotional necessaries without which the individual in the crowd would question his existence. In such a case, he would be discontented and would wear himself out searching for another crowd where the poison of the Super-one would sweeten his emotions again. The crowd is his world that seems right to exist, at the borders of which other alien and hostile worlds (crowds) collide.
Individuals in a crowd are fierce and violent. Their spirit violates and longs to be violated. In other words, their spirit is enslaved. Their enslavement becomes their character, habit, demand, desire and way of living. The individual in the crowd converts into a voluntary slave; he is incapable of living without suffering. He no longer needs physical chains to keep him. The more time passes, the more he admires his own slavery and the prouder he is of it. Since this spirit neither accepts nor respects distinction in “the equals” of his mind and at the same time appeals to be violated, then the only viable solution for him is to experience this intimidation and enslavement at the hands of the merciless ruler of the crowd. That is, he seeks from his idol that to which his spirit aspires. Since this ferocious spirit is unkind to “his equals”, since this spirit does not accept new and harmonious change in “his equals”, his only motivation is enslavement, and his only response is violence. His ferocity causes sharp pain in his spirit when he notices harmony among “his equals”. Only the brutality of the strongest, of the cruelest, of the most vicious, of the most nefarious, of him who has “the right” to degrade and ill-treat others, of the ruler of crowd, can eliminate the pain of his stern instincts. Only this major violence carried out by the ruler of the crowd, who has the exclusive right to speech and action, can suppress his fierceness, the cause of his pain, and can calm his sour spirit and inebriate his emotions. This spirit neither values nor seeks peculiarity or any distinction in relation to others. The ultimate wish of someone like this is to become a ruthless vassal. Even when forced into a freedom that has been defined for all, he is unable to break free of the enslavement and violence that was perpetrated onto him in the past. Freedom means violence for him; it is a chance to purge the fierceness of his emotions. By violent means, he tries to recreate his former enslavement, complete with the same conditions and possibly with the same malicious ruler for the crowd. His restless, vexed spirit yearns for the severity of his previous ruler, his vicious suppressor, whose loss he feels far more deeply than any loss of his own self or of “his own equals”. He continually longs for the resuscitation of the suppressor and he hopes in this.
The individual in the crowd becomes a machine and as such he neither recognizes nor can he identify himself. Like a machine, he is blameless for his deeds and he neither desires nor seeks knowledge or understanding. Thus, he converts to a mechanical entity to whom anything can happen. Since social slavery relies on fear, the ruler of the crowd unceasingly incites fear and dislike for anything different, new, or unknown to the crowd. Machines are blind and unconscious; they cannot be otherwise, and their deeds must reflect their nature. The individual in the crowd, a mechanical person, assumes the characteristics of a machine. As such, he is neither a free man nor a civilized upholder of virtue. In order to be unchained, first he needs to knowingly reach the internal virtuous freedom of his consciousness and spiritual self. Otherwise, he remains mentally enslaved because, above all, he neither recognizes nor understands himself. Therefore, the individual in the crowd loses touch with himself and does not remember himself, because he lives or acts through profound daydreaming and does not make the necessary efforts to wake up and detach from hypnosis.
The individual in the crowd unconsciously allows himself to be hypnotized, because the hypnotic trance has become a habit for him; it has entered his subconscious, and his compass is no longer controlled by his conscious self but by his unappeasable Super-one. He is always in search of a horde where he can reach the deepest hypnotic trance, where the hypnotic voices and suggestions never cease, where the deepest drowsiness is reached, where his destructive emotions swim in sullen depths, where the command of what to think feeds his mental narcosis and alleviates the burden of fear that comes from waking.
THE NO-ONENESS is an extreme social feeling that in a panic situation causes overwhelming anxiety and degenerates the person. Under excessive suppression of his spirit, under the infatuation and vanity that his spirit incurs, under the devaluation of the history in his mind, he grows foolhardy due to irrationality; and there on the twig of No-oneness a pale burning-pine flame begins to set alight his spirit. No-oneness becomes for him breath, freedom and his motivation. Thus, he becomes a machine without origin or purpose, without compass, a boat without a rudder that sea waves set adrift, propelled by random winds or tides. By consciously or unconsciously forgetting, he loses himself and obliterates from his mind the values and history of his origin, his roots. He no longer distinguishes himself from others. At the same time, he tries to adopt new values, but he does not grasp that they are baseless for him, they are like leaves that turn yellow and are blown to and fro by the wind.
Like the nature from which it originated, human society is inherently diverse. In other words, people differ in terms of their looks, thoughts, height, birthplace, wishes, pleasures, skills, knowledge; moreover, there are differences in local accent and attire within a social group (nation). Beyond a nation, differences multiply in terms of external features, color of skin, language, etc. Social groups (nations) and social subgroups (within a nation) share both similar and common things, but not necessarily equal things. If nature is respected, including the multi-kind human society, then life is peaceful. Otherwise, efforts to create illusions of equality represent and generate crimes against humanity and nature. In the case of official Albania, a compulsory education in the names of both social and international equality was mandated for about fifty years and enforced with such determination that “brothers” were even enlisted from among inhabitants of the Amazon jungles and Asian tundra. In the most vicious ways, people were mentally and physically collectivized. Efforts were exerted to create the “new man”, that is, identical clones of the No-one educated with crowd psychosis.
For the No-one, No-oneness is good while everything rational, not-without-name, or with a clear form and content, is bad. He does not understand why he is in an official position nor the significance of that nomination, what is expected and what must be done, what to speak of and what to ask for. The No-one does not know what, why and whom to suggest; he waits for an order from the Super-one to implement a law that is itself the law. Or, in other cases, he is a stealer of work, of job or vote. He does not understand what a nation and the national flag represent or even how best to observe national holidays, what flag he must hold and in what manner so as not to dishonor the emblem of his nation. He also turns into a spy, a stealer of self, ruinous and gnawing at his “equals”. Often, No-oneness drives the No-one to treachery, because in order to be an important One, an emotive wished-to-be determinant, he plugs himself into the path of crime and collaborates with enemies. Surrounded by bad examples, he delves more and more into badness. He sees, wishes or desires bad things only, because he himself is in bad condition and has badness as his reference point. He speaks about irrational and senseless things, and even he is color-blind.
The No-one in a crowd loses his human prominence; his senses lose sharpness and he becomes unable to discern the nature of things. Everything he grasps increasingly becomes more false, not his, not felt by him, just a hallucinating impression of the moment, a big illusive game at the expense of the time that nature has given to him. Morals, honesty, politeness are all concealed by the darkness in him. He does not come to a decision on his own anymore. He lacks the power to heap up his desires or to quench the searing of his feelings. The virtues of loyalty, wisdom, sincerity, patience, kindness, helpfulness, respect and friendliness are no longer his bells.
THE MENTALITIES OF CROWD AND NO-ONENESS, confined within a lone individual, do not constitute any risk for the society. But once the spirit of No-oneness springs up from the spirit of the crowd and intermingles with it, when both the spirits of the crowd and of No-oneness become common social features, that social group as a whole is then at great risk of manipulation and self-destruction. The risk becomes even greater and suffering is experienced even sooner when the foes of that social group are aware of the existence of both mentalities and foster to cultivate them. In such a case, the repercussion is unclear for the moment but grows more evident after some time. Then the outcome is that the social group is self-ruined, loses its humanity, spiritual, cultural and material values, or at best keeps creeping along at the edges of survival; thus remaining backward, self-hindered in progress and unstable. Possession of both mentalities keeps the dream of equality turned on in an individual and, as a result, he aggressively pursues things that do not belong to him or are different from his dream.
Like the malevolent people, those who are nominated as decision-makers and possess these two mentalities of crowd and no-oneness become harmful to the society in their decision-making. Moreover, they engage in crime and treachery from which they find it difficult to break free and from which their controllers do not allow them to free themselves. Such people turn into governing puppets, committing the most irrational deeds. With such individuals holding political positions, hostile foreign activity, in particular that which is covert, is less hindered by obstacles and more easily undertaken, bringing about painful consequences to the country. Albanian history continues to deliver this lecture. Those who deny that there is an enemy either do so under coercion, or due to a lack of intelligence, or as an emotional response. They may also do so for narrow personal purposes or gains, or they may be prompted to do so for other reasons not listed here. The state of the official Albania was routed at the beginning of 1997 simply because of the long prior loss of the enemy (an example of No-oneness), wherein the deeds were inspired by the mentality of crowd.
Both the mentalities of crowd and no-oneness nourish one another and influence the social behavior of the individual, which above all affects how the individual behaves toward the society. Their existence, as well their stimulation by those who desire the worst for Albanians, negatively affects the Albanian society, its appeasement, unification and progress. The negative influence of both these mentalities on the public can be alleviated by enlightening the spirit with moral values and the mind with ideas, by mathematic and scientific education, by educating the individual on how to think rationally, by instilling virtues through example, and by both national and community education. All of these have as their purpose the definition and advancement of the social moral towards self, others and the environment, paving the way to a society led by reason and wisdom; that is, to a truth-based society that with pleasure and full-heartedly perceives the truth through logic. Therefore, the question put forth is either to admit social flaws and mildly react for their amputation, or to not recognize them but let the enemies know them and ferociously act for their deepening. Since the preliminary improvement is expected to occur within the individual spirit, the amputation of the mentalities of crowd and no-oneness in any case is simple: the individual must not think or speak in terms of WE. In this way, he will begin to awaken, to remember his past self and think of his future. Hence, he will begin to see the value in virtues and the beloved benevolences, and will start to exist because he will start to think and be free to choose.
*Saimir Lolja is a former professor at the University of Tirana who currently teaches at Ryerson University in Canada. He writes on various topics relating to Albania and Albanians.
