Regression to the mean, not the statistical phenomenon but the societal one, is the idea of when the going gets tough, when desperation rears its head as a primary motivation, then meanness often appears as its alarming derivative. With this kind of regression to the mean comes the angry mob effect, where mean attracts mean, and the next thing we know, mean and meanness has become the expected standard societal behavior. It is a phenomenon captured far too vividly in man’s search for meaning and depicted in Viktor Frankl’s account of life in the concentration camps during World War II. Written in nine days in 1946, just after the end of the war and his release, he describes daily prison life filled with unfathomable cruelty by not just the guards but the prisoners too. It is a bleak picture of what happens to people when hope becomes lost, and survival is their only concern, leading to no capacity to care for others or do the right thing with the belief that doing the right thing will no longer serve them well.

Today I discuss how the stark phenomenon of regression to the mean is happening in American politics and demonstrated by Donald Trump’s shocking remaining popularity among a large percentage of the voting public. I share how feelings of desperation pull people away from moral obligations, rational and commonsensical thought, and the truth. I share how Viktor Frankl’s memoirs show that those fueled by meanness and cruelty did not survive. I also discuss the essential tasks for our leadership and where we can discover the purpose of life and meaning of being an American.

“It is a view that sets up an essential task for our country’s leadership to quell the angry mob and reunite our country, not just by providing jobs and reducing the economic divide but by helping us all see that the purpose of life, the purpose of being American is to be found in meaning.” - Chris Colbert

This week on Insert:Human

• How Donald Trump’s followers essentially act as a mean-spirited and irrational angry mob made up of primarily white blue collars Americans who have lost their jobs, hopes, and way in their quest to realize the American dream
• How desperation leads people to walk away from the truth, rational, commonsensical, and moral obligations
• How, in Frankl’s accounts, most of those powered by cruelty and meanness ended up not surviving
• Rising above your imminent desperation to find meaning, not meanness
• The essential task for our country’s leadership outside of providing jobs and reducing the economic divide
• Discovering the purpose of life and being American

Resources Mentioned:

• Book: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

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