It is already well known that not isolated individuals, but the combination of them can produce, in certain situations, true catastrophes. History abounds with examples. The actuality, too. The stupidity, in itself, is serious when it reaches power positions. But even more dangerous it becomes when it meets pride, fanaticism or lack of democratic culture. From this combination is born what we could call “chemistry of crazy” – a chain reaction of mediocrity and vanity, which destabilizes not only institutions, but also the confidence of a nation in its own destiny.
Democracy, by its nature, has no perfect filters. Tocqueville (1835; 1840) has been observed since the 19th century that political equality also has its reverse: the access of poorly trained people to management positions. The difference between his era and today is that, in the contemporary world, social networks, populism and successive crises exponentially amplify the effect of harmful combinations. What once could be perceived as a mere “weakness” of the system today becomes political explosion.
Madness as a political theme
The problem of “madness” in the public space is not new. Plato warned, in Republic and in The lawsthat the political regime can be confiscated by leaders dominated by unstoppable desires, the “madmen” of power, who govern according to impulses and whims, not after reason. Erasmus from Rotterdam, in The praise of madness (1509), Ironisa precisely the fact that the world is often led by those lacking wisdom, and stupidity and madness are not only tolerated, but also celebrated. Later, Nietzsche (1887; 1888) observes that madness is in individuals something rare, but in groups, parties, peoples and epochs – the rule. This observation, often resumed in the debates on the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, remains valid today: the collective madness is more dangerous than the individual madness.
Michel Foucault (1961), in The history of madness in the classical erashowed how societies define and control what they consider “crazy”. If we look at the policy through this lens, we find that many behaviors that we catalog as irrational are, in fact, institutionalized and validated by formal democratic mechanisms. The “madness” acquires legitimacy not despite the system, but through it.
Gabriel Tarde, at the end of the 19th century, added a complementary perspective. In Les Lois by L'Istation (1890), he showed that society works by imitation: gestures, ideas, even excesses are copied, multiplied and propagated in informal social networks. In politics, this explains why the “madness” never remains individual: it is transmitted, becomes contagious, transforms into a mass phenomenon. In L'rereion et la foule (1901), Tardi made the distinction between opinion – more stable and rational – and crowd – dominated by collective emotions. Political madness appears when leaders choose to address only the crowd, not opinion, relying on the show, emotion and instant reaction. What we call today “virality” on social networks is nothing more than the modern confirmation of Tardi's intuitions: policy becomes contagious not through solid ideas, but through strident gestures.
The show of madness
Another reading key is that of the show. Guy Overdue, in The show of the show (1967), described politics as a theater of appearances, where reality matters less than the image. In a world governed by screens, the politician is no longer judged for what he does, but for what he displays. Neil Postman, in Amusing ourselves to death (1985), he went even further: politics turns into entertainment, and leaders become serial characters.
Murray Edelman underlined in The Symbolic uses of politics (1964) that modern power works through rituals and symbols, not through rationality. Peter Sloterdijk added, in The criticism of cynical reason (1983), a bitter note: in contemporary politics, all actors know that they are attending a farce – politicians know that they lie, the public knows that it is lied to, but the game continues, as if this were the natural rule of democracy.
Chain reaction
What makes this chemistry really dangerous is the chain reaction. Isolated stupidity can be supported, even ironized. But the stupidity amplified by institutions, toxic alliances and massive communication mechanisms becomes destabilizing.
A government made up of such “elements” does not make only bad decisions, but produces a cumulative effect: it weakens institutions, degrades public language, cancels people's confidence and cultivates a climate of symbolic violence. In such a framework, extremism blooms, because it offers the appearance of an “antidote” in chaos, when it actually only prolongs the toxic reaction.
The catalysts from the outside
The “chemistry of crazy people” becomes even more dangerous when catalyzed from the outside. If stupidity, pride and fanaticism are the local ingredients of the toxic reaction, the external manipulation plays the role of accelerator of the process.
Hostile actors do not invent local “madness” – they identify, amplify and instrument them. Former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev explicitly declared, in 2024, that Russia supports “in all possible ways” – Apertum et Secretum – candidates and parties in the West who serve their interests. It is not about creating new characters, but to catalyze what already exists – that is, simply said, to work with the “customer material”.
Gabriel Tarde understood this dynamic perfectly: imitation works based on the social laws of entropy. In other words, the weak link is sought, respectively the point where the state protection barrier, of the society can be easily broken, because the opposite resistance is minimal. External manipulators identify these ways – vulnerabilities, resentments, local fears – and turn them into highways for their own messages. The local “crazy” thus becomes an involuntary multiplier of the foreign agenda.
How do we neutralize this chemistry?
The essential question remains: how can we neutralize the “chemistry of crazy”?
Part of the answer is about education – not only as a school system, but as a formation of civic discernment. A society that does not know how to distinguish between the show and reality becomes vulnerable to those who mimic competence and recite slogans. And here we return to a recurrent, painful theme for the Romanian state: neglect, to the point of insecurity, some fundamental fields for the foundation of a country – education, culture, research – that is, in short, the power of a country to think and innova.
Another part is related to institutions. The political parties have the fundamental role to filter and select the leaders, but they become too many incubators of mediocrity. The press, in turn, can choose to be part of the show or to start the farce. Justice may remain a control institution or become complicit.
Finally, there is also the cultural dimension. To tolerate imposture, normalize aggressive stupidity or applaud the grotesque show is equivalent to providing legitimacy to this toxic chemistry. The society must learn to say “no” and to sanction the slippages publicly.
Conclusion
Politics is inevitably a form of chemistry. It combines ideas, interests, characters and ambitions. But when the ingredients are stupidity, pride and aggression, the reaction can only be toxic. The “chemistry of crazy people” is not only a metaphor, but a daily reality, which we see in improvised governments, in incoherent speeches and in meaningful alliances.
Nietzsche was right: individual madness is rare, but collective madness is the rule. This is why the defense of democracy is not just in avoiding individual madness, but in preventing the chain reaction that transforms it into a collective norm.
If we fail to make this distinction, we risk staying captive in an improvised laboratory, where “crazy” mixes toxic substances, under the eyes of an audience that, instead of stopping the experiment, applauds the show.
History often invokes Nero as a symbol of political madness. But even this case, transmitted as a legend, shows something else: Rome did not just burn from an individual whim. He burned because a whole system of complicity, weakness and indifference has made an unstable leader dangerous. This is, in fact, the essence of “chemistry of crazy”: never one man, always a combination.
Machiavelli observe, in Prince (1513), that the driver's stupidity is transmitted to the whole court. It is not just about individual incompetence, but how it contaminates the entire state apparatus. Political madness should not be regarded as a personal defect, but as a collective phenomen. This is, in fact, the central mechanism of the “chemistry of crazy”.
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A close friend, a career diplomat, makes me almost after each editorial observation – fair on the background – that I lack the concrete examples, from the actuality that surrounds us. Coming from someone who lives daily the practice of international relations, this observation has even more weight: examples give strength and visibility, make them tangible. And yet, in the vast majority of the articles I write, my choice is different. These texts do not want to be diagnoses of conjuncture, but wider reflections, interpretation frameworks that remain valid beyond an electoral cycle or a passing crisis. Therefore, I prefer to leave the reader the freedom to bring his own examples, to compare, to judge and to decide alone where he recognizes the “chemistry of the crazy” in today's politics. In this way, the text does not close the discussion through a list of cases, but opens a reflection space that everyone can fill with the realities they live daily.
Remus Pricopie
September 1, 2025, Bucharest
Article published and in Culture magazine (Chemistry of Crazy in Politics – Culture Magazine)
