we are nearly at the equinox (the people, the mob and the mass)

yesterday horsemouth filled out his pages of the census.  they all did. for once the entire house was gathered in the kitchen and there were nibbles. 

they asked questions about his health and employment, gender and passport ownership. 

horsemouth has at last been making progress with his reading of hannah arendt's the origins of totalitarianism (note that there is more than one origin). he has made this progress by focusing on the problematic of the mob - what is it? and where does it come from? pursuing this through the index. he finds counterpoised to it the people, somewhat thinly theorised. 

'the people is not god' remarks a disillusioned clemenceau (or perhaps it is hannah arendt who says this). for the people (who 'always fight for true representation' - hannah again) can become split into two contesting mobs.

the mob is 'the caricature of the people', it 'hates society from which it is excluded', it is 'a group in which the residue of all classes are represented', 'excluded from society and political representation the mob turns of necessity to extra parliamentary actions', fond of plebiscites, produced in a series of great public frauds. for them the ruling class fells parental recognition, admiration and fear. 

'the rise of the mob out of the capitalist organisation' is noted by the philosophers of the decline school (spengler et al.) but they are wrong, this is not the working class (for it is the residue of all classes). the alliance between capital and the mob is the root of imperialism and racism , the imperialist project the solution to the problem of the mobs tearing society apart. 

but this is not enough to form totalitarian societies further shock therapy must be conducted on society to atomise the people still further, to produce people who are only themselves, whose only way forward lies with the party. this produces the masses. 

so where are we in all this with our MAGAs and our brexits and our 5 stars?

are the people storming the capitol a mob or a mass? has anyone really been individuated into such isolation?  but are these 18th/19th century mobs? curiously still walking around in the 21st century. or modern 20th century masses?  

will we stay divided by brexit? or will we be reunited by coronavirus? 

arendt (a philosopher of order) sees no virtue in these mobs and masses, but only in the originary undivided people. (or so it seems to horsemouth on the basis of his limited reading).  there's a david runciman podcast about her - horsemouth will give it a go. 

yesterday howard came round to visit. he doesn't have flu after all (and he doesn't have covid). they sat drinking tea on the front steps (and even played a little guitar).