[Slate] "Must Starve to Survive" Smart Kids, Why Did They Fall into Collective Delusion?

Director Jessica Hausner's Film 'Club Zero'
Nutrition Teacher Exploits Students' Vulnerabilities to Induce Fasting
Provides Sense of Belonging and Omnipotence... Justified by Praise and Obedience
Resembles Mad 'Totalitarianism'... The Answer Is Democracy

Noback (Mia Washikovshika) is a nutrition teacher at an elite school. She secretly encourages seven students to fast. "It's best to keep it strictly secret and not tell other students or parents. They won't understand, will question it, and weaken your faith. You could become one of the few who survive when the world collapses." After class, two students declare they are quitting halfway. The remaining students mock them for lacking faith. "They're too narrow-minded." "(After fasting) They don't even know what might be there." "Why don't they just try?"

In Jesika Hausner's film Club Zero, students come to blindly believe in fasting after just a few lessons. Even if parents try to stop them, it's useless. They have already become machines obedient to Noback. It's not because of high persuasiveness. By cleverly exploiting vulnerabilities such as parental neglect and pressure, she thoroughly cuts off their interactions with others. In this isolated world, the students find comfort in each other and fall into collective delusion. Because they see the world only from a limited perspective, they don't know how to escape the quagmire. "I feel really good. Unbelievably so." "My body feels so light too." "We are part of a revolutionary moment."

This is not just their illusion. Modern civilization is full of collective delusions, errors, and prejudices. Organizing and manipulating collective emotions happens frequently. Psychiatrist Jost Meier, in his book The Psychology of Brainwashing, asserted, "If someone isolates the public, does not allow free thought, interaction, or external correction, and hypnotizes the public daily through noise, media, radio, and television with fear and false enthusiasm, any delusion can be implanted."

"People will begin to accept even the most primitive and inappropriate behaviors. It is usually external forces that trigger the hidden neurotic and delusional complexes in people. Collective madness justifies the personal madness each individual has been suppressing. That is why it can be so easy to draw people into the madness of war through slogans. The external enemy attacked through slogans is merely a scapegoat, representing the anger and anxiety inside the persecuted people."

Once a delusion is implanted, it is difficult to correct. Even if one repeatedly reasons to find the key, they often get swept away by the collective movement. This is because they mistakenly value the collective delusion that gives a sense of belonging and omnipotence more than personal perception and understanding. In Club Zero, Ben (Samuel Anderson), who has never missed a scholarship due to excellent grades, is like this. He knows well that poor nutrition makes it hard to concentrate on studying. He also wants to show his mother, who loves cooking, that he eats well. However, he joins the fast for Elsa (Ksenia Debrient), whom he has a crush on, and quickly moves to the center of the collective delusion. "Now I realize how brainwashed I was. How much I depended on others' expectations of me. Especially my mom. But now I see it. (Omitted) I want to free myself."

Ben explains and interprets everything with a simple ideology in his pocket. This arouses admiration and obedience in other students who crave rational explanations for incomprehensible phenomena. The whole process resembles totalitarianism, where the contagion of thought is hard to avoid. Simple mental constraints cannot treat or prevent it. First, the freedom to exchange ideas must be guaranteed, and democratic ways to fight must be taught. Only free humans live with the hope that problems will somehow be solved.

Of course, even if these conditions are met, it won't be resolved instantly. Correcting collective delusions is considered one of the most difficult tasks in democracy. Democracy demands freedom of thought, which means there must be a right to test all forms of collective emotions and thinking. This testing can only happen by encouraging continuous individual and collective self-criticism. The characteristic of democracy is that diverse opinions clash and influence each other. While it may not lead directly to truth, it will surely pave the way.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.