I am growing rather convinced that a new type of mass paranoia is at large in society today, a sort of anxious, delusional state of mind that hallucinates forms of racism/sexism/transphobia, etc, that do not actually exist.
Yes, these things do exist, obviously. What I mean is the inclination to apportion an offensive meaning, and thus draw an offensive conclusion, when no such offence was meant - or even vaguely in evidence.
Many good examples of this can be found in the Cancel Culture Examples thread. The most recent victims of this woke zombie virus were of all things the Muppets, and Dr. Seuss, on grounds of racism and/or sexual stereotypes. To me it appears as though a 'thing' does not have to contain or display actual racism these days, it only has to be arbitrarily perceived and called out as racist. Cancellation ensues and that's it.. What chance do we have if perception alone is the measuring stick by which we judge the world? Literally none. How can we judge the qualities and properties of existence based purely on implied perception?
'Wokeness' is strongly linked to virtue signalling, and political correctness. They are all variants of the same disease. It's genesis was totally benign, however. Woke was a watchword for discrimination (particularly racism), and sociopolitical awareness, and of course police brutality. It has since morphed into something far more pervasive and sinister, where each and every thing can potentially be ruled, implied or otherwise, as racist, or sexist, or homophobic etc. Is this by design (conspiracy theory), or is it organically driven? Whatever the case, today's woke warriors are on the rampage, cherry-picking examples of discrimination, bigotry, white supremacy (or what happens to spark their outrage) simply on a whim. Images, slogans and household brands, to films and books and now even kids' shows, nothing is sacred to this modern day witch hunt.
Overt examples of real social injustice are usually quite obvious where and when they arise. You don't need to be that astute in detecting them. Just basic conscientiousness is all you need. Wokeness has lost all meaning now. We have entered the realm of hysteria. Society has become more and more disposed to projecting its own cognitive biases onto the world, and seeing/hearing/inventing examples of bigotry and discrimination where none really exist.
"The term social projection was first coined by Floyd Allport in 1924. The idea refers to the process of creating knowledge about the characteristics of an individual or group of individuals based on the self as a reference point. .... Further, the process can and does occur without clear information [emphasis mine] about the true consensus of the individual or reference group. [Source, wikipedia]. So is this what is happening?
I'm not a psychologist, I'm no expert on this at all, just an observer, and I'm only reporting what I observe. And what I observe is a growing state of mass delusion sweeping society. Delusions on this scale have plenty of precedent. Humans are extremely pliable and have a herd mentality. Think the widening political schism absorbing western culture. Think the banal trance of consumerism that absorbs our youth, that glazes the social fabric. Think feelings, which seem to matter more now than facts. Think religious conditioning! All these things not merely lend themselves to, but define, human (un)awareness in our current age.
Perhaps cancel culture and woke madness could be attributed to a form of Apophenia, itself a form of Pareidolia. This is "the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between seemingly unrelated things. Apophenia is defined as the "unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness".
So, is society suffering from a mental illness? A shared mass delusion? I would say, quite emphatically, yes. And it's catching.
Here are just a few psychological disorders that I've been looking at, which I suspect are at large in society today. Although, I do think we have all been subject to one or more of these phenomena ourselves at some in our lives. We are fickle creatures, and flawed. No one is perfect.
Pluralistic ignorance
A situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes".
Anchoring bias
The tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor", on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject.)
Confirmation bias
The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes.
Selective perception
The tendency for expectations to affect perception.
Reactive devaluation
Occurs when a proposal is devalued if it appears to originate from an antagonist.
Semmelweis reflex
A metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.
Subjective validation
A cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opinion is affected by subjective validation will perceive two unrelated events (i.e., a coincidence) to be related because their personal beliefs demand that they be related.
Truthiness
Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.
Illusory correlation
The phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists. A false association may be formed because rare or novel occurrences are more salient and therefore tend to capture one's attention.
Motivated reasoning
A phenomenon that uses emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still reducing cognitive dissonance. In other words, motivated reasoning is the "tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe".
Availability cascade
A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or "repeat something long enough and it will become true").
Bandwagon effect
The tendency of an individual to acquire a particular style, behaviour or attitude because everyone else is doing it. It is a phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases with respect to the proportion of others who have already done so. As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence.
Groupthink
The psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
It might be said that these disorders do not merely explain wokeness, but whole variety of modern manias, and cultish behaviour in general. But all this has been made possible - and made to positively flourish virtually worldwide now - by mainstream media spending an inordinate amount of time and energy on 'social justice' stories, and fanning the flames in this regard. The vast power of social media is also largely responsible. Woke insanity can all but destroy a company, a product, or indeed a person, in a single afternoon with just a few words.