Years ago, they ran an experiment where they turned a lab chamber into a large maze and let rats run free within. They fed the rats & cleaned, took care of basic needs but little else. Rats did what rats do and soon the place was crawling with them. It started to look like Hells Kitchen. With bully rats, gang rats & little gang wars. The rats, when autopsied, had swollen adrenal glands & other signs of great stress. To the social scientists this was disturbing. Though to the rest of us it now seems like they were playing "obvious man."
This post is a follow on to Turning "Our Revolution" into Piqueteros which refers to the authoritarian impulse in both the far left and far right. I'm trying to make sense of why people would want to burn down our system. I hope this helps.
Spasms of Mob Behavior
Humans go thru spasms of mob behavior as well. Social Scientists have observed similar behavior in mobs to how rats behave in a giant maze. But the behavior of crowds also changes for some normally solitary grasshoppers, which transform into locusts when crowded. It is observed to some degree in herd & pack behavior too.
Humans are social animals and the Adrenal response is well documented. When people feel constrained & threatened they react with flight or fight behaviors. If fighting or fleeing fails they/we submit to dominant individuals.
It is biological but it doesn't have to be malevolent. The nature or nurture argument distorts the creativity with which we can use both. But that is for another post.
Like Locusts or Humans
We don't have to swarm like locusts, scour the landscape like army ants, or be human cannibals. For one thing "cyberspace" existed in our heads as creativity & imagination long before anyone thought of using digital computers. A scholar with new ideas in books or his imagination has more space in his universe than the tiny stall he and his books (or computer) inhabit. We humans cope with crowding by combining imagination & labor to create things. There is no excuse for creating malevolent human mazes where people act like rats except lack of a clear imagination.
EMAD Humans and Authoritarians
Of course, in reality human mazes are created by imaginative & manipulative people, who use words & images to spin ideations of movement. Sometimes those ideas and the movements spun by them produce a better world. But some people take advantage of fear responses to take advantage of them. The fearful prey on others, but the manipulators teach them to be afraid.
Authoritarian movements know that fear and anger narrow the ability to think imaginatively & make people follow the leader, believe what he (rarely she says) and distrust those the fearless (actually fear-full) leader targets. A movement that stimulates the imagination aims at benefiting everyone, even, ultimately enemies. An authoritarian movement looks similar & often promises future Utopia, but in fact excludes & targets enemies.
The Fear Response
It is hard to fight authoritarian movements, gangs & cults, because their Universe shrinks down to the membership of the cult. Efforts to fight them risk kicking in one's own adrenal response, circling wagons & "hating on", targeting "enemies" as well. Often society divides into two equally crazy mobs, fighting each other & attacking anyone in their way.
We see that with genocidal or totalitarian movements. Before they ever go after their main targets (rivals, Serbs versus Croats, Turks versus Armenians, Hutus versus Tutsis) they go after the people in the middle, the ecumenical, intellectual, open minded, intermarried, secular, what have you. And they usually go after heretics, reformers & critics using all that fear as a cover.
Burn it Down?!
The urge to "burn it down" is authoritarian behavior while it is still rivalrous. Authoritarians consider the "establishment" the enemy as part of their fear anger reaponse. When we encounter such people we are dealing with folks who believe the ends justify the means and have the Adrenal gland fight or flight narrowed focus going on. If you resist them with violence or hateful words they won't even hear you until someday down the road when their PTSD is acting up.
Evolution or De-Evolution
Hannah Arendt says about revolutions:
"Speaking generally, no revolution is even possible where the authority of the body politic is intact, which, under modern conditions, means where the armed forces can be trusted to obey the civil authorities. Revolutions are not necessary but possible answers to the devolution of a regime, not the cause but the consequence of the downfall of political authority." [HannahArendt]
Authoritarianism as a Traumatic/Traumatizing response to injury
We have a problem with authoritarian movements. One selected Bernie Sanders as it's leader. The other Donald Trump. Authoritarian behavior is a traumatizing reaction to Trauma. We don't have to go there. But that is for another post. But we do have to heal. If we can heal before our system is subverted, it will be a lot less expensive in terms of misery and cleanup effort.
On the other hand we must resist by:
- Resisting the darkside in our own hearts
- Resisting what is coming without succumming.
- If we can't do that, then we must survive what is coming as best we can, while doing our best to not succumb to the darkness
- Once we survive we need to recover, overcome the injury and then thrive.
- If we do that we'll be better for it.
For more on this you need to study up on "Social Dominance Orientation", "Authoritarian Followers", and Narcissism/EMAD behavior.
Further Reading
- General Self Education
- Masha Gessen's Rules for Survival
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/fighting-authoritarianism.html
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/07/hannah-arendt-on-revolution-liberty-and.html
- Trump and his Narcissist Followers
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2016/11/emad-trump-why-wheels-wont-come-off-in.html
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/01/trump-and-narcissist-flying-monkey.html
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-unholy-alliance.html
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-trumpster-dumps-lee-atwaters-advice.html
- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/08/overview-of-russian-challenge.html
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