Mattias Desmet: Totalitarianism is the Ultimate Consequence of the Materialist View of the World

Mattias Desmet: Totalitarianism is the Ultimate Consequence of the Materialist View of the World

Prof Mattias Desmet issues a stark warning:

"In the final analysis, as I presented it in my book, I believe that totalitarianism is the ultimate consequence of the materialist view of the world. The materialist, rationalist view of the world which believes that everything in this universe – including our soul, our mind and everything at the level of consciousness – can be reduced to a material basis and that the universe, in the end, is a set of elementary particles which all interact according to the laws of mechanics and – that is crucial, I think, that is the most important aspect of the materialist view of the world – that the universe is a kind of a machine which can be completely understood in rational terms. So, a machine which can be completely understood, controlled and manipulated by the human rational mind.

I believe that is the essence of the view that is dominant now. It was this view of the world, I think, that on the one hand created a new elite which believed that the only way to lead the population was by manipulating it, by leading it astray. Since, let's say, the French Revolution, we have seen the emergence of more and more institutes of propaganda and indoctrination. And at the same time, the population has gotten in a state where it is lonely, isolated, which means the perfect state for propaganda. And, I think, in the final analysis, indeed, it's this rationalist, this materialist view of the world which is the real problem you are facing.

I often hear that people are surprised or baffled when they see this technocratic, transhumanist ideology seizing control of society. But I am not surprised at all. I think it is perfectly normal. As soon as you start from a materialist view of the world which believes that the universe is a big machine and the human being a small machine, then it is perfectly logical to conclude that society should be governed not by democratically elected politicians but by a kind of engineer experts who know the machine rationally very well and who are the perfect people to repair the machine when there is something wrong with it.

I think, in this respect, we should realize that our major problem and the root problem we are dealing with is this ideology, this materialist ideology. And we should start to think of how we can really overcome this ideology.

In the end, science shows us that the universe is not a machine but in a strange way we'd rather follow this pseudo-science which continues to claim that everything is mechanical in nature and that the human being should merge with technology and that this will bring it to a kind of new paradise. I want to quote Hannah Arendt in this respect who said: 'There is only one problem with this totalitarian paradise and it is that it looks suspiciously like hell in the end.'"

Full presentation: https://BetterWayConference.org