If the phrase “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was listed in the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, surely a photo of Robert De Niro would serve as the accompanying illustration. For years, De Niro has been ranting and raving about Donald Trump. In nearly every Hollywood-related public appearance, De Niro sees an opportunity to express his unstable emotional reactions to Trump.

In his latest outburst on May 28, De Niro attempted to deliver a speech in front of the New York courthouse where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is conducting his preposterous trial of the former president. During a rather awkward press conference presumably set up by the Biden campaign, De Niro tried to keep his cool, but eventually lost it—especially when confronted with the Trump supporters who were also outside the courthouse and daring to share the same space as the famous actor.

In many ways, it was a funny sight. The man who has spent most of his film career playing gangsters called the Trump and his supporters the same. One of the people then yelled, “Your movies suck!” Straight and to the point.

Of course, we’ve seen this kind of ideological derangement from Hollywood actors before, and not just regarding Trump. Remember the days before the establishment celebrated George W. Bush and insisted, instead, that he was the reincarnation of Hitler? It’s not a surprise the trend has continued, and even intensified, since Trump was elected in 2016.

One almost hesitates to mention De Niro because it feels like feeding a toddler’s desire for attention during a temper tantrum. Although De Niro has been singled out, not just because of his fame but also because of the fervor of his attacks on Trump, his behavior also serves as an example of where our political culture is today.

Human beings have always suffered from self-centeredness, and the advent of television certainly exacerbated that part of our nature. The desire for those proverbial “15 minutes of fame” is strong. But satisfying that desire today is so much easier, as the means through which narcissism is expressed have greatly multiplied. People don’t have to wait for the news cameras to be rolling to capture their narcissistic complaints—they can simply film themselves spouting off and post their rants on a variety of social media platforms. This is the marriage of democracy and technology—made not in heaven but in hell.

In many ways, none of us is immune. We are complaining creatures and we have invented a way to get our complaints widely and immediately heard. We can create a post for whatever pops into our minds, anticipating the gratification resulting from the recognition that someone, somewhere, agrees with and admires us for our vented outrage.

Yet there remains a real difference between lodging a silly complaint about, say, a driver who cut us off on the highway, and these endless displays of politically inspired anger or “virtue signaling,” to use a now cliché phrase. Both sides of the political divide now engage in the practice in their own way.

Although there is “nothing new under the sun” concerning human nature, human behavior has been modified andcommodified in important ways. Social media platforms rely on this relationship between the modification and commodification of behavior. Indeed, they were created for that purpose only—to change the way people think and behave so that they could become commodities—identities and personal brands to be bought and sold in some bizarre combination of Marxism and oligarchical capitalism.

The biggest challenge in the West has always been personal sovereignty and freedom of mind. Throughout most of human history, and certainly since the beginning of 20^th century, our most important political fights have surrounded the dichotomy between collectivism and individualism.

Foolishly, many have accepted the “metaphysical imperialism” of this technological revolution, to use Jaron Lanier’s expression. Given the form social media takes, these companies have convinced many that users are in control when, in truth, we are faced by repetitions borne out of imposed collectivism. We casually use expressions such as “hive mind” when posting inquiries online that we mean to be taken seriously, as if a hive mind should be something accepted as part of who we are as human beings.

It’s sad commentary on our species, but history has shown us that people often want to be told what to think and what to do. They are perfectly fine with obedience to authority, and now even that tendency toward obedience is personalized and optimized—elevating narcissistic voices that deem themselves individual but are, in fact, mere pawns, working tirelessly (and mostly for free!) to advance the oligarchical system of fake life.

In her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff points out that these technological forms “feed on our fellow feeling to exploit and ultimately to suffocate the individually sensed inwardness that is the wellspring of personal autonomy and moral judgement, the first-person voice, the will to will, and the sense of an inalienable right to the future tense.”

Time is an important component here, too. With collectivism reigning supreme, the temptation is to believe there is no need to think about the future because we have a safety net. But this is yet another illusion. All of these illusions that we are repeating are catching up with us as we have found the technological means to intensify their effects. Yet the false sense of comfort and freedom is more intense, too. Despite all of these obstacles, there is still a way to have personal sovereignty in the world we now inhabit. We cannot let the system use us. An awareness of that all-too-human need for recognition that can easily succumb to the temptations of narcissism is the first step toward regaining a notion of self and of real moral judgment which beats a hive minds judgment every time.