This relates to the functionalism-intentionalism debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism%E2%80%93intentionalism_debate - the functionalists, also called structuralists, take the view that what happened was an emergent property of German society and the intentionalists take the view that it was imposed by people at the top. I'd suggest that both can be true; an avalanche is a self-sustaining process with its own internal workings and it can start in a chaotic way based on trivial things, a light gust of wind perhaps, but it's also possible to start an avalanche intentionally with explosives and to do things to maximize its impact. A panicked crowd in a theater has its own dynamics, but somebody can trigger those dynamics by shouting "fire". That a system is complex or chaotic doesn't mean that it can't be directed, at least up to a point.
An issue with interpreting the events of the last two years is that in Europe and the Anglosphere, there has been substantial buy-in from the general population, because enough people in those regions are trusting of the mass media, and because in a notionally democratic free society it had to be engineered that way; people had to be encouraged to demand their own enslavement. That broad buy-in does make it look at least superficially like a bottom-up phenomenon. On the other hand if you consider Russia where similar things are happening and have greatly accelerated since their federal elections in September, but with far less buy-in from the general population, it looks much more top down https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com I think it would be hard to argue that their vax mandates and QR codes are the result of general panic.
This relates to the functionalism-intentionalism debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism%E2%80%93intentionalism_debate - the functionalists, also called structuralists, take the view that what happened was an emergent property of German society and the intentionalists take the view that it was imposed by people at the top. I'd suggest that both can be true; an avalanche is a self-sustaining process with its own internal workings and it can start in a chaotic way based on trivial things, a light gust of wind perhaps, but it's also possible to start an avalanche intentionally with explosives and to do things to maximize its impact. A panicked crowd in a theater has its own dynamics, but somebody can trigger those dynamics by shouting "fire". That a system is complex or chaotic doesn't mean that it can't be directed, at least up to a point.
When a mountainside is ready to avalanche, almost anything can “cause” it to start.
https://youtu.be/Bykp05Aa7QI
An issue with interpreting the events of the last two years is that in Europe and the Anglosphere, there has been substantial buy-in from the general population, because enough people in those regions are trusting of the mass media, and because in a notionally democratic free society it had to be engineered that way; people had to be encouraged to demand their own enslavement. That broad buy-in does make it look at least superficially like a bottom-up phenomenon. On the other hand if you consider Russia where similar things are happening and have greatly accelerated since their federal elections in September, but with far less buy-in from the general population, it looks much more top down https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com I think it would be hard to argue that their vax mandates and QR codes are the result of general panic.