The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. The Baader-Meinhof effect

A sudden thought, unclear where it came from, or information, just a word or someone's name - something that in no way before was interested in, arises in the head. The man thinks: "Why did it suddenly come to my mind?" But very soon he again encounters the same information or phenomenon, then again and again. Is it an accident or a sign? Relatively recently, psychologists gave a definition: the phenomenon of Baader-Meinhof.

Subconscious or accidental?

If the dream is suddenly embodied in reality - it is a "dream in hand," and in principle, it does not cause much surprise. Strangely enough, it is sometimes easier to believe in the otherworld than in what is happening in reality. Undoubtedly, the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon finds its opponents among the ardent realists. Their explanation is quite simple: a random thought, caught on the mind (and thoughts and ideas are floating in the air, as you know), surprises the person with their inappropriate or even lack of meaning. After that, he willy-nilly fixes his attention to everything that concerns this information, because two or three coincidences are already a certain sequence. And the subconscious, intuition, or Baader-Meinhof has nothing to do with it. But is it all elementary?

How the brain selects information

All the discrepancies around this phenomenon are based on the fact that the human brain is inclined to perceive ready-made settings in relation to any trends, or patterns. Any deviations alert him and sharpen their attention. There is a certain feeling of deja vu: I just thought about it, heard it, introduced it. And random coincidences acquire significance, even excessive importance. In a word, consciousness itself "promotes" the information received by chance. And at the same time, hundreds and thousands of fragments of information that did not become patterns, completely pass by our consciousness without getting regularity.

origin of name

Baader-Meinhof is not the name of the professor of psychology who discovered this phenomenon. Moreover, these are the two surnames of two characters who have nothing to do with psychological science. Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof - the leaders of the German terrorist group "Faction of the Red Army." Such an organization actually existed in the FRG in the 70s of the last century. The heroes of this story are descendants of the Nazis, who in a strange way considered their terrorist activities as a holy war with fascism. The members of the group considered the embodiment of fascism in the post-war world to be the US - with the unleashing of endless wars in Vietnam, in the Middle East, with attempts to dictate its terms to the whole world. On the basis of real events, the action film "Baader-Meinhof Complex" was shot.

About the film and the psychological phenomenon

The film co-produced by Germany, France and the Czech Republic appeared on the big screen in 2008. It was filmed based on the novel of the journalist from the weekly Der Spiegel, Stefan Aust. The author, it turns out, consisted of a personal acquaintance with some figures of the "Red Army Faction". The director and one of the authors of the script was Uli Edel. Starring Moritz Bleibtroy and Martin Gedek. Events take place in the decade from 1967 to 1976. The organization declared terror against the ruling elite of Germany, which is considered the vehicle of the policy of the main enemy of mankind - America. Numerous innocent victims, blood on the streets of peaceful cities. The police are powerless before the violence. Robbery of banks, dozens of murders, attempts on leading officials - all this merged into a single tangle of nightmare.

The film "Baader-Meinhof Complex" was nominated for the Golden Globe, Oscar, BAFTA, Deutcher Filmpreise. True, it did not go further than the nominations.

Truth and fiction

The release of the film became a kind of catharsis, purification. As the performer of the role of the main ideologist of the terror movement Moritz Bleibtroy admitted, it was a rare opportunity to talk openly about the tragic events of his history, which were shyly concealed. The producer of the picture of Bernd Eichinger found his explanation: the embodiment of such an "animal" plot was made possible in the country that survived the horrors of Nazism, which had deep roots in the nation's mind. It does not matter how it is called - Baader-Meinhof syndrome or post-war syndrome.

In German society, the film caused mixed reactions. Many contemporaries of those bloody events, including relatives and descendants of the victims of terror, saw distortion of facts and even insult to the memory of the deceased.

And what has the phenomenon to do with it?

What is the relationship between the film and the very notion of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? There is no single answer to this question. One of the versions is as follows. In 1986 (the year of official recognition of the phenomenon), an American from Minnesota read a note on the German terrorist organization "Red Army". And very soon he again came across other information about the same organization. An inquisitive citizen perceived this not as a coincidence, but as a pattern, almost a mysterious sign of fate, a warning about something. Discussion began in the press, readers began to discuss with interest: whether there is a random chain of events or it's time to talk about a new psychological theory. And since the starting point for the discussion was the history of Baader-Meinhof, the phenomenon got this double name.

What you are looking for, you will find

And yet, by what principle does a person pay attention to certain random events and phrases, but misses a lot of other, sometimes more important and interesting information? In a word, what is the psychological basis for the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? Many tend to attach a mystical meaning to this phenomenon. In this case, is it not necessary to recall another German, Friedrich Nietzsche, who said: "If you look long into the abyss, the abyss will peer at you"? .. That is, a person lets in the brain a certain fragment from a dense flow of information. If there are at least two coincidences, the conjecture about a non-random regularity and even signs from above comes by itself. It turns out that there are still coincidences, and nothing supernatural happens? What do the best minds of humanity say about this?

Jung's Theory

There is another theory, or an attempt to understand the essence of the issue under consideration. It is based on the concept of a Swiss psychiatrist who is considered one of the creators of the so-called "deep psychology", the philosopher Karl-Gustav Jung (1875-1961). The shortest explanation of his concept might sound like this: any ideas have the property of being in the air. According to Jung, not just in the air, but over the surface layers of the collective consciousness. And there is nothing surprising in that ideas can be perceived and reproduced simultaneously by different people. Thus, for example, a scientific discovery made almost simultaneously by several people, or a metaphor in literature and art, embodied repeatedly (except for cases of direct plagiarism) can be explained. The concept of Jung even asserts that there is far from an accidental strong dependence between these people and their discoveries. And there is even a measure of this dependence!

It would be surprising if such a paradoxical theory, explaining the Baader-Meinhof effect, had no refutators. The most notable figure on the side of Jung's opponents - sociologist Bryand Thousand - calls the searches of his predecessor a "mystical fog". You can agree or argue with any point of view. For today, one thing is clear: there is no exact definition of this phenomenon either in the scientific sense or in the philistine. But it is by his uncorrected nature that he forces people to come back to him again and again. And if someone today for the first time learned this strange phrase - "the phenomenon of Baader-Meinhof", you can be sure that soon he will suddenly hear about him again, and his consciousness will present him a new riddle. This is the good life.