Crowds
E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
A crowd pushed, shoved, trampled, and killed eight people at a concert in Houston.
A member of the crowd told a reporter:
It’s not the crowd’s fault at all, because there was no way you could even move, it was just like a mass loss of control.
The Travis Scott concert was sold out. He had a reputation for whipping up a crowd. The crowd surged toward the stage. When one person moved, the people around them had to move.
Trump had a reputation for whipping up crowds and getting people to chant. "Lock her up. Lock her up." and "Stop the steal. Stop the steal." He told supporters to come to D.C. "It will be wild," he tweeted, and it was.
We have known from earliest history that crowds are different from individuals. They are capable of mass panic or world-conquering power, depending on whether the crowd maintains leadership and cohesion. When shields were locked together and men operated as a group they were unstoppable. Each shield protected the soldier and the one to his left.
Modern armies understand that drilling as a unit is essential to maintaining cohesion.
I have been in dangerous crowds. The beginnings of marathon races are dangerous. I was a slow runner, so I lined up near the back, but there were others, even slower, behind me. When the starting gun fires, the crowd of runners--20,000 in Rome, 30,000 in Paris--starts moving toward the starting line. The street underfoot is littered with discarded clothes: Trip hazards. The people behind me cannot stop or move to the side if I were to stumble. We are warned to go slowly but we are all excited in the moment. It is starting! We are here! Go. Go. Go. The crowd shuffles too fast. The crowd is an undisciplined unit.
The end of the race it is entirely different. People have spread out and I am nearly alone among the laggards.
We are affected by people crowded around us. It is not an illusion and it isn't subtle. We take cues and the response is emotional, not rational. Laughter is contagious. Panic is contagious. Rhythm and repetition have power. People respond to drumming, and chanting is a form of group drumming.
Many of the January 6 rioters are explaining their actions as having been part of a crowd. An Ohio defendant said:
I one hundred percent know better than to do what I did that day. . . . I do apologize for my individual actions that day. I did get caught up in the moment.
An ongoing theme of this blog is that humans are not as rational as we think we are. We make political decisions with our guts, then justify them with rationalizations. Being in the presence of crowds that are excited and acting in unison exacerbates this effect, thereby better exposing it. I have observed it. I have felt it.
I have mentioned to others the danger of being in the midst of a marathon starting lineup, and people have asked me a sensible question. Since my running time is based on a chip attached to my shoe and there is no disadvantage whatever to lining up safely, at the back, why don't I?
The answer is irrational but very real. When I am in the middle of that group of runners, ready for the adventure of the run, I get caught up in the moment. It is exhilarating. I feel extraordinarily alive.