“We've gotta stop them, somehow!”

Fear, dehumanization, incrementalism, and propaganda can lead humans to unspeakable actions. But there are antidotes.

One of the eeriest things about Soylent Green, the 1973 dystopian film starring Charlton Heston, is actually quite subtle. In a climactic scene, NYPD Detective Robert Thorn (Heston) infiltrates a factory run by the Soylent Corporation where human corpses are being turned into edible green wafers. He is spotted by employees, who proceed to chase him through the factory. (Spoiler alert: he gets away and the employees die. Love you, Hollywood of old!)

There are many alarming scenes throughout the movie, but what makes the factory scene particularly poignant is that humans — actual people — were willing participants in the manufacturing horror taking place to produce Soylent Green. Worse, when an intruder was spotted, they chose to defend their employer, even if it meant paying the ultimate price.

Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t even begin to explain it.

What makes people accept and participate in activities that go so severely against their own nature? There are a few psychological and sociological principles that may help explain it.

First, it’s unclear whether the factory workers were there forcibly or voluntarily. If there by force, the fear of violence or punishment may partially underpin their actions. Either way, it’s likely they had become desensitized to their questionable actions by incremental exposure. Desensitization is often used as a technique to rid people of debilitating phobias by making them face the thing they most fear. The process involves slowly working up by introducing things that are less frightening.

Dehumanizing others is also a powerful mechanism that allows people to justify activities that go against their nature. The movie doesn’t go into the details, but it’s likely the deceased were dehumanized and scapegoated to make those turning them into food accept using them as an ingredient.

Propaganda does a wonderful job of manipulating opinion so people willfully accept and participate in their own demise or the demise of others. With only one source of truth, people might easily believe this barbaric practice is a ‘necessary evil’ to save lives, to rid society of its burdens or vermin or ‘useless eaters’, or any number of other warped justifications.

Extreme overpopulation and dire living conditions as depicted in the movie also contribute to the desensitization and dehumanization. When resources are scarce, people may become more willing to accept morally questionable actions to ensure their own survival.

Thankfully, there are some fairly simple antidotes to all this. In fact, Dr. Jordan Peterson has sold millions of books prescribing simple solutions, such as honoring your words, telling the truth to yourself and others, and straightening out your own life before zealously targeting other people’s business.

Activists and social justice warriors abound in this world (after all, that’s what our education system has cranked out for the past three generations), but time and time again throughout history, it has been shown that these folks are nothing more than ‘useful idiots’ for nefarious actors. Our society is now polluted with and led by useful idiots.

Faith also has a role to play as an antidote to fear; if we understand human psychology correctly, humans actually need a higher power. And, in the absence of that higher power, humans do some pretty crazy things, like substitute tyrants — or worse — the state, to take up that role. The 20th century was filled with experiments in post-faith secularism — the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and dozens of other places come to mind. All of them largely led to genocide and disaster. You know those iconic posters of Che, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao? They weren’t kitschy art posters, they were religious icons.

So yes, the counterpoints to fear are faith, truth, and human connection that defuses dehumanization. The powers-that-be know this. For those of us with eyes wide open, that’s what made the entire COVID-19 exercise so deeply dark. Social distance, they said. Mask up. Trust us, the government, not your family. Willingly accept that personal sovereignty is actually granted by the state. Want to travel? Accept this jab and this vax passport. The unvaxxed? Dangerous threats to society.

Germany tried the same tactic about 80 years ago.

In the closing scene of Soylent Green, Thorn is alive but injured after another dangerous chase. On a stretcher, he leans into the ear of his boss, police chief Hatcher, and implores him: “You tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You've gotta tell them! Soylent Green is people!”

There you have it. This entire movement to save the West, its values and its freedoms is akin to Thorn on a stretcher shouting the truth to as many as will listen.

Our movement is clear-eyed about what we’ve seen, we know what comes next, and therefore it’s incumbent on all of us to get the word out far and wide because, to quote a bloodied Thorn as he’s being carried away: “We've gotta stop them, somehow!”