The Harmful Herd
Democracy leads to a loss of individual liberty, increased mediocrity, and ultimate tyranny.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them” - Deuteronomy 31:6.
The illusory truth effect, also known as the illusion of truth, describes when people hear the same false information repeated again and again and come to believe the false information as true.
This illusory truth effect happens to people who should know better.
For example, when you hear someone say:
Democracy is good for the world!
You experience the illusory truth effect.
You take for granted that the lie, “Democracy is good for the world,” is a true statement.
You’ve heard “Democracy is good” said over and over again by media pundits, politicians, teachers, family, and others, so you assume the saying to be true.
But you’ve never taken the time to consider and reflect for yourself if the majority’s mentality, the majority’s morality, and the majority’s rule is always good.
According to the Founding Father’s of the United States, democracy is not good.
Democracy Is Harmful
Democracy means “the rule of the majority of people.”
Our Founding Fathers feared democracy, because they understood that “inalienable rights” - the right to life; the right to to speak, believe, and worship in liberty; and the right to individually own property - come from God and cannot be taken or given away (“a lien” able) by majority rule or majority power.
Democracy is harmful because the rights of the individual aren’t seen as coming from God (and preserved for all time in a Constitution and Bylaws). In mass democracy, life can be taken if the majority wills. Liberty can be oppressed if the majority rules one man’s liberty to speak spreads “misinformation” or one man’s liberty to not take a vaccine is dangerous to the majority. In mass democracy, the poor may decide one man’s right to own property and pursue his happiness through hard work by saving is not fair to those who don’t have the skills, tenacity, or means to own property.
The herd harms.
An Atheist Intellectual With Wisdom
Herd morality, a concept introduced by Friedrich Nietzsche, refers to the moral values and norms embraced by the majority of society, which prioritize:
Conformity
Safety
Mediocrity.
Over the higher human traits of:
Individualism
Strength
Excellence.
The herd morality is rooted in what Nietzsche calls "slave morality," which surges out of resentment towards those who exhibit power, creativity, and independence.
Herd morality discourages self-determined thinking and promotes a collective mindset that seeks comfort and security at the cost of personal growth and greatness. Nietzsche contrasts this with the “higher man” which celebrates strength, ambition, and individual excellence.
The Covid-19 vaccine debacle illustrates the harm of a heard mentality.
A Christian Intellectual Who Agrees with Nietzsche
My modern Christian hero is Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1900-1999).
In his classic work, The Menace of the Herd, Eric presents a bold critique of democracy:
Erik argues democracy fosters mediocrity, suppresses individuality, and gives rise to tyranny.
Kuenhelt-Leddihn’s core thesis is that democracy, when driven by the will of the masses, inherently leads to conformity and the "tyranny of the majority."
Instead of promoting freedom, democracy often pressures individuals to conform to the lowest common denominator, resulting in the erosion of personal liberty and the rise of authoritarianism.
Kuehnelt-Leddihn views democracy as fundamentally flawed because it prioritizes the majority’s desires over truth, justice, and excellence.
He warns that when political decisions are made based on popular sentiment, rather than reason or virtue, they open the door for demagogues to manipulate public opinion and seize power.
This system, according to him, nurtures a "herd mentality," where independent thought and cultural diversity are crushed under the weight of popular opinion. Individuals are reduced to mere numbers in the electoral machine, their unique perspectives and values sacrificed in favor of simplistic, collective judgments.
He contrasts this with aristocratic or monarchical systems, which he argues are better suited to preserve freedom, uphold moral values, and protect individual rights from the whims of the masses. Kuehnelt-Leddihn contends that such systems provide a buffer against the volatility of public opinion, preventing society from descending into chaos or despotism.
In short, The Menace of the Herd is a powerful warning about the dangers of mass democracy. It challenges the assumption that majority rule inherently leads to freedom, arguing instead that unchecked democracy can lead to uniformity, the suppression of independent thought, and, ultimately, the rise of totalitarian regimes. For Kuehnelt-Leddihn, a society’s true strength lies not in the collective will of the people, but in the protection of individual liberty and cultural richness.
You can read all of Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s brilliant works here (for free).
Don’t Follow the Herd - Be COURAGEOUS and THINK for Yourself!
Nearly 80 years ago, a photograph captured a man standing with his arms crossed amid a sea of Germans giving the Nazi salute. Taken in Hamburg in 1936 during the launch of a new ship, the photo shows a crowd—believed to be workers—raising their arms in the infamous gesture, except for one man - August Landmesser.
Landmesser joined the Nazi Party in 1931 but left in 1935 when he decided to marry a Jewish woman, Irma Eckler. Under the Nuremberg Laws enacted in September 1935, they could not marry, so they remained unmarried. Their first daughter, Ingrid, was born in October 1935. In 1937, with Eckler pregnant with their second daughter, Irene, Landmesser tried to flee Germany but was arrested and jailed for "Rassenschande" (racial dishonor).
Eckler was detained by the Gestapo in 1938 and sent to a concentration camp. Her last letter to her mother was sent in January 1942. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis killed millions, including six million Jews.
Released from prison in 1941, Landmesser was drafted into the war in 1944 and later declared missing in action. Irene, separated from her sister after her parents' arrests and raised by foster parents, documented her family's history in a book titled A Family Torn Apart by "Rassenschande": Political Persecution in the Third Reich. In 1991, the German newspaper Die Zeit published the 1936 photo, and Irene identified the man as her father.
The photo went viral in 2011 after being shared online.
While we can’t know what was going through August Landmesser’s mind when he stood without saluting, he’s remembered as one who stood alone against the majority.
Stand alone; be of good courage; the LORD is with you, even when the herd is against you.
