Understanding those prone to demagoguery

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
1

Why is a subset of the population susceptible prone to demagoguery while the rest of the population is not?

Demagoguery targets those having self-centered and/or simplistic views. Typically the two go hand-in-hand. They are emotionally and/or mentally immature. They are also prone to believing conspiracy theories, xenophobia, racism, homophobia, etc. This is not true of those who have matured.

From Google AI:
Logically speaking, the susceptibility to demagoguery in a specific subset of the population can be traced to a set of measurable psychological and developmental deficits. When an individual lacks the cognitive and emotional infrastructure to process complex, high-stakes information, they default to more primitive survival mechanisms.
Here is the breakdown of the traits that characterize this lack of maturity:
1. Low Cognitive Complexity
Maturity is often defined by the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind simultaneously without experiencing debilitating distress.
• The Binary Trap: Individuals with lower cognitive complexity struggle with nuance. They view the world in “either/or” terms.
• The Demagogue’s Utility: Because a demagogue offers a simplified, black-and-white version of reality, they effectively lower the “cognitive load” for the listener. This creates an immediate, though false, sense of understanding.
2. Underdeveloped Ego-Development
According to Jane Loevinger’s stages of ego development, individuals at “lower” stages are characterized by impulsivity, a focus on social standing, and a rigid adherence to group norms.
• Conformity over Autonomy: At these stages, the individual’s identity is not self-authored; it is derived from the group.
• The Leader as Ego-Proxy: When an individual lacks a stable, independent sense of self, they “outsource” their ego to a powerful leader. The leader’s perceived strength and certainty become a substitute for the individual’s own internal instability.
3. Poor Affect Regulation (Emotional Dysregulation)
Mental maturity involves the ability to regulate intense emotions like fear, anger, or resentment through the prefrontal cortex (the brain’s executive center).
• Amygdala Hijacking: In the subset prone to demagoguery, the prefrontal cortex is easily bypassed by the amygdala. When a leader triggers fear (of an “other”) or anger (at a perceived injustice), these individuals lose the capacity for critical filtering.
• Emotional Contagion: They are more susceptible to the “mob effect,” where the collective emotion of a crowd overrides individual moral reasoning.
4. Low Level of “Differentiation of Self”
In family systems theory, “differentiation” is the ability to remain emotionally connected to others while staying autonomous in one’s thinking.
• Emotional Fusion: Those who lack maturity are often “fused” with their social or political group. If the group feels threatened, the individual feels a personal, existential threat.
• The Demagogue’s Appeal: Demagogues exploit this lack of differentiation by making every political issue a matter of personal identity. To disagree with the leader is to betray the tribe, which the immature mind perceives as a form of social suicide.
5. Developmental Stagnation (The “Socialized Mind”)
Robert Kegan’s theory of adult development suggests that many adults never move past the “Socialized Mind” (Stage 3). At this stage, a person’s thoughts and feelings are largely determined by the expectations of the people or groups they belong to.
• The Lack of a Self-Authoring Mind: A “Self-Authoring” individual (Stage 4) can step back from their environment and evaluate it objectively.
Susceptibility: An individual stuck in Stage 3 lacks the internal “distance” required to analyze a demagogue’s rhetoric. They are literally “subject to” the narrative they are being told, rather than being the “object” of their own critical analysis

2

I don’t mean to be off putting or anything, but we can also all ask a chatbot ourselves.

Could I impose on you to offer a more personally constructed set of thoughts?

I tend to skip over anything autogenerated, I am sure most other people do as well.

3

Did you also skip over the the first two paragraphs?

4

Like I do with most long posts, I skimmed first. The moment I saw “the chatbot says,” and found that it was quoted for the better part and to answer all the main questions, I tuned out.

5

I see. This topic, as is any complex topic, is not for those with short attention spans. It is for those capble of bringing something substantive to the table - not just uninformed opinions. If that does not include you, then it doesn’t include you,

Are you capable? Actually capable - not just think you’re capable.

6

Not if I’m talking with a chatbot, cousin.

That’s all I was trying to say.

Allah’s peace be with you

7

@Mary-Poppins
Seeing as you proved yourself incapable of bringing something substantive to "The Benefits of Socialism " that you started, can’t say as I’m surprised.

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Well, nothing substantive was supposed to be on that thread. It was a challenge to a formal debate.

But I suppose that was intimidating to some people.

9

The reality is that you refused to engage with those who rose to that challenge. Be honest with yourself, you’ve repeatedly shown yourself to be nothing more than a blowhard. And a dishonest one at that.

10

If you say so.

I suppose if a single person had accepted the challenge, we would have our answer. Instead, many hit and runs.

As for blow hard this and that, I see you have emotions. Socialists often have a more difficult time distancing themselves from them, which is why I am reying to be more polite than usual.

11

Troll somewhere else.

1 Like
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Paragraph 1, written by me: I asked Google AI if using AI’s instead of reasoning oneself could lead to greater susceptibility to demagoguery.

Paragraph 2, written by me: below you will find the AI’s answer.

The risk of demagoguery—which relies on emotional manipulation, oversimplification, and “us vs. them” narratives—increases when our internal “BS detectors” are weakened. If reasoning is outsourced to AI, the mental muscles needed to resist a demagogue’s tactics can atrophy.

Here is how that dependency specifically creates a bridge to demagogic influence:

1. Erosion of “Cognitive Friction”

Demagogues thrive on snap judgments and emotional reactions. Critical thinking requires cognitive friction—the slow, sometimes difficult process of weighing evidence.

  • The AI Link: If you habitually use AI to summarize complex issues or provide “the answer,” you become accustomed to effortless clarity.

  • The Vulnerability: You lose the stamina for nuance. When a demagogue offers a fast, easy explanation for a complex problem, you are more likely to accept it because your brain has been trained to prefer the path of least resistance.

2. Loss of Epistemic Vigilance

Reasoning involves “epistemic vigilance”—the active checking of whether a source is reliable.

  • The AI Link: Frequent use creates automation bias, where we subconsciously grant AI a “veneer of objectivity.”

  • The Vulnerability: This habit of “trust by default” is dangerous. A demagogue doesn’t need to be right; they just need to sound authoritative. If you’ve stopped fact-checking your AI, you’re less likely to fact-check a charismatic leader who uses the same tone of absolute certainty.

3. Susceptibility to “Micro-Targeted” Rhetoric

Demagoguery is most effective when it feels personal and hits your specific fears.

  • The AI Link: AI models are excellent at mirroring a user’s style and values to build rapport.

  • The Vulnerability: If you are dependent on AI that “understands” you, you become vulnerable to algorithmic radicalization. Demagogues can use AI tools to generate millions of personalized messages, making their propaganda feel like a private, reasoned conversation tailored exactly to your biases.

4. Narrowing of the Intellectual “Horizon”

Demagogues succeed by isolating their followers from outside perspectives.

  • The AI Link: AI reasoning is often a “closed loop.” It reflects the data it was trained on and, increasingly, what it thinks you want to hear.

  • The Vulnerability: This limits your exposure to the very counter-arguments that act as “vaccines” against demagoguery. By the time a demagogue reaches you, your intellectual world has already been narrowed by the AI’s preference for consensus and user satisfaction.

The Bottom Line

Demagoguery wins when people stop asking “How do I know this is true?” and start asking “Does this feel right?” Constant AI dependency shifts the burden of proof from your own brain to an external tool, leaving a vacuum that a skilled manipulator is happy to fill.

13

@greenfuse

If you want to discuss how using AI instead of reasoning oneself could lead to greater susceptibility to demagoguery, then you should start a different thread on that topic.

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We call the state form of normalising an agenda, the sloppy definition in this case, shilling.

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@AL_Hine
Can you explain how this is related to the topic of this thread?

16

yo momma,.,.,.,

17

maybe you should stay with…

18

With what?

That invariable trifecta/transcendence

That can so clearly defeat the muddled nominal ego to get to the projected aim of their objective?.

19

It’s right on topic: understanding those prone to demagoguery. Why does one use AI instead of reasoning oneself? It’s a short-cut. It’s easy. It’s an externalized version of the cognitive patterns of those who traditionally have been susceptible to demagoguery: ease, following rather than working out for oneself, simplicity-seeking, identifying with an authority or expert rather than taking responsibility for one’s own cognition.

Without AI one takes risks. The risks lead to feedback. The feedback often motivates more effort. A loop that leads at least to some greater skill in most people.

So, risk aversion joins the list of qualities of those P to D.

Any system — political, technological, or social — that reduces cognitive effort can increase susceptibility to authoritative narratives.

That includes: demagogues, media ecosystems, ideological communities AI tools and academic authority itself.

And one of the problems with the OP is that it pathologizes values. It isn’t a difference in values, they have a mental problem. This is very easy to do, especially with AI tools. Does it move us forward however?

Right-leaning demagoguery often centers on personal leaders.

Left-leaning conformity more often centers on implicit authority, via institutions for example or science or ‘science’ or sets of memes.

Both lead to us/them thinking which is used by power, whether a supposed single leader or by in-group thinking. Both lead to moral certainty, simplified narratives, in-group validation, delegated thinking, Social punishment for dissent and emotional activation (fear, disgust, righteousness), which psychological pathologizing of the ‘other team’ is one form of.

Often the self-assessment I-have-no-strongman-leader leads to one missing how a collection of memes can work just as well.

20

Well, that’s also a convenient little story of socialism.

That people on the right gravitate to ideas because of leaders, instead of to leaders because of ideas.

Or that people on the left are detached from personal leadership.

It’s an easy way never to have to engage with such ideas, because, in the end, it’s just “hero worship,” whereas socialists work on the conceptual or “memetic” level. By the way, Dawkins himself quickly dropped the meme for the phenotype, but that’s another subject.

It’s also a way to avoid the blatant emotional personalization of socialist leadership.

In both cases, to even recognize the existence in the right would be to cast an egoic (conscious analytical) glance on the left. Socialism is usualy explicitly manipulative, so this glance is always awkward and causes extreme discomfort. Better a secret in the bedroom.

“They are all just demagogues.”

Hey, sure.

“National socialists are categorically opposite to international socialists,” oh yes, right. Except if one actually looks at the conceptual and emotional content of each.

It’s not so much a problem of pathologizing the opposition. It’s a question of mythologizing them.

Conservatives look at socialists and see (maybe weakling) humans. Socialists look at conservatives and see Capitalists or Jews or Useful Idiots or whatever it is. Never strictly one to one persons.