Community = herd

What causes this phenomenon that characterizes people everywhere?

Humans have a strong psychological need to belong to some kind of herd. Those among them who are not old enough and mature enough do not master this. I am currently writing a column about it.

Benjamin,
You can read the psychoanalytic analysis of this phenomenon by Erich Fromm (a social psychologist) in his books “The Art of Loving” and ”Flight from Freedom” and ”Disobedience - Thoughts on the Liberation of Man”. He claims that in his opinion this stems from a fundamental lack of security in man's existence, that man has not recovered well from the separation from his mother and his protective womb (symbiotic unity) and he seeks to return to this security by dissolving into the group or community. He gives as an example the fascist regimes of modern Europe or modern factories and corporations in which the individual has no personal specialness but is swallowed up in a large system, man loves his place in the herd because that way he feels protected (everything is clear, there is no need to think or be an independent subject).

Hello Shai,
Do you mean a chronic ”illness”, a congenital defect, the need for an extreme ”protective” feeling that cannot be cured?
PS: All humans tend to belong to a large tribe (for example: the people of Israel), seemingly this affiliation does not impair their independent personality

Benjamin, you are trying with all your might to discredit a public with whom you have a problem and I feel like you are trying to drag me there and put words in my mouth. Forgive me, but I will not cooperate with that.

Shai, reporter “He claims that in his opinion this stems from a fundamental lack of security in the person's own existence, that the person has not recovered well from the separation from the mother and the protective womb…” – I am not trying to discredit members of personalityless cults, people who want to spend their lives in idleness for leaders out of a sadomasochistic symbiosis are not interested in me at all, only the phenomenon and its effect.

It describes a mental dynamic, it does not necessarily apply to one population or another, but rather that there is such a tendency in the mind.

A reminder about the column…