I may be alone on this one and truthfully that would not bother me one bit. But, I don't think people think much about how outrageous mob behavior can be. Mass euphoria is something we are bound to witness in life, and every time I do, I'm always left speechless.
It's a thing!
We think the lynching days are long gone, that we are above the fray, but we would be terribly mistaken. It takes but the smallest amount of research to prove me correct on this matter, and burying our heads in the sand makes little to no difference.
There are countless psychologists over the years who've spent a great deal of mental power on this subject, and even though their approach may have differed, the conclusion is rock solid: We behave differently in groups.
If a chain reaction is set off, a crowd of otherwise "normal" people can easily become a dangerous mob. This fact, this observable phenomenon has been in my head for a few days now.
The Dangerous Times we live in
Just in the past few years I've witness movements like BLM, QAnon and so forth devolve into mobs over and over. It seems like someone has been serving radicalism juice at the cafeterias or something. Nuanced thinking is always absent, and the ingredients for behavioral explosions, if such terminology exists, seem to be always present.
In the country I'm calling home these days things are not that much better that back at home. The people are polarized, and the tension, the social resentment, the insecurity, seems to be a permanent black smoke that all of us are doomed to breathe.
A few minutes from where I am currently typing this, five women captured a thief, tied him to a fence and beat the crap out of him. This may be anecdotal, but cases like this are farm from isolated these days, and what is even more interesting to me is that we condone this type of justice. I'm using we, because in general society approves mob justice in cases of this sort.
Why are we like this?
And this is where I'm trying to conclude something relevant. Because it seems like this type of behavior, the mob justice, as misdirected, distorted or confused as it can be at times, is present in all of us.
Yes, I'm stating the gamble that you or I could be part of a mob if the circumstances were just right. I may only be able to speak for myself, but I suspect you've also felt the urge to join a group who is taking justice into their own hands.
I have, however, come up with a plausible answer as to why we have this programmed into our brains. My thesis, because that's all it is at this point, seems to satisfy me very much at the moment, and hence that is why I've decided to slap it on this blog of mine.
You see, all behavior, even the type we don't understand at all, has evolved over thousands of years. Yes, we may not know the logic behind the rebellious nature of a teenager, but that behavior, that teenage angst, has been part of humanity probably since before the first city was ever named.
So, Mob justice because...
In a comuna, in a small group, in a small tribe, it was the only type of justice and probably very needed.
It's not hard to imagine a primitive homo sapiens living in the already difficult environment of the times, having to deal with a member of his tribe indulging in aberrant behavior. What tribes, what small groups of primitive humans would fare better ? Those who eliminate the aberrations or those who turn a blind eye?
Please note that I'm not making a moral argument for lynchings. I'm simply trying to draw a solid foundation as to why the tendency exists still today. Out of all creatures on Earth, we are the only ones able to collaborate in a macro sense, and dynamically so. We are not of a hive mind, after all. So, the aberrants, the elements that would disrupt our ability to edify big societies had to be controlled or we would have never been able to grow from families to tribes, tribes to towns, towns to cities. You get the point.
I'll grant everyone this much. My "thesis" or this somewhat blurry idea in my head is far from a revelation or a hard fact. For one, it cannot be observed, and without evidence... well, you know. But, the puzzle piece would fit, right?
Right?
MenO
Cancel culture comes to mind while reading this. Cancellation via social media - and its corporate enablers -i is the new, shiny mob that routinely seeks to silence the dissenting powerful and destroy the weak. Just this morning I was reading Deadline regarding the backlash to Dave Chapelle’s new standup The Closer. His Hollywood peers call for his show to be removed from Netflix by equating his comedy with danger and violence. If speech is violence then it follows that it’s alright to silence speech using violence. It then follows that the mob is empowered to use violence to get its extrajudicial justice because his speech is protected by law. It’s nauseating having to watch people who rely on free speech turn it into a privilege and a cudgel.
im blow away by some the the "critics" choice of words. They literally said he's using his white privilege to punch down at minorities. WTF?
The madness of Identity Marxism quite literally collapsing in on itself. White is no longer just the lack of melanin, it's a whole ideology/sickness/disease to these people. You can be black and a white supremacist because they're operating in a fantasy world of pure theory and are disconnected from reality.