When the Most Awake Among Us Fall Asleep

13 August 2016

 - When abuse is acted out and covered up in a system, the psychic blindness of wetiko—in which many members of the system turn a blind-eye to the abuse—propagates itself through the field via people’s unconscious reactions of looking away from both the abuse and what it is triggering within themselves. To spread itself throughout the field, wetiko needs a group of people to be its purveyors, which is why collective situations are breeding grounds for its destructive influence to flourish. A collective psychosis, wetiko is highly contagious, spreading through the channel of our shared unconsciousness—reciprocally reinforcing and feeding off and into each of our unconscious blind spots—rendering us oblivious, i.e., blind, to our own madness.

In subscribing to his version of the way things are, Gafni’s enablers are colluding with his illusions; etymologically, the word “collude” has to do with “the sharing of an illusion.” In a self-perpetuating circular feedback loop, by buying into and hence agreeing with Gafni’s illusions, his supporters are further validating and confirming the seeming reality of these delusions, thereby co-dependently reinforcing both his madness as well as their own. An impenetrable field, like a protective bubble, gets collectively conjured up around their shared unconsciousness that actively—and aggressively—resists both facts and self-reflection at all costs, thus perpetuating the spell-like trance of those in its thrall. Anyone reflecting back to them their state of unconsciousness—in our example, Gafni’s accusers—gets demonized and seen as a threat. This is how a collective psychosis keeps itself in business.

It is a rich contemplation to attempt to understand why good, well-intentioned and highly intelligent people allow themselves to be hoodwinked and bamboozled by the figure of the abuser and wind up protecting him. To quote scientist Carl Sagan, “If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.” When we have been taken—captured—by the bamboozle, at a certain point it is too painful to admit this to ourselves. Facts become meaningless; it is easier to reject evidence than to admit we’ve been wrong. To quote Mark Twain, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”