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During one of the last concerts that the Beatles did in the United States, John Lennon found that if he pointed his guitar towards a section of the crowd, there was a surge in energy. If he smiled in another direction, the response was the same. Perhaps partially as the result of ingesting some agent that increased his level of awareness, Lennon recognized that the mass of organic material was not simply the sum of the individuals attending a concert. It was an unconscious force, demanding something more than four individual musicians could deliver, and at the brink of that “out-of-control” behavior that crowds – rather than individuals – are frequently known for. It was for this reason, even more so than the increasingly complex nature of their songs, that the Beatles quit touring, and became a strictly studio group.
A few years after the Beatles' last concert, Martin Luther King, Jr., lead his last protest march in Memphis. It was planned as a peaceful demonstration in support of the city's striking sanitation workers. The forces opposed to King's vision of America injected a small number of agents of chaos into the protest march. After it got underway, those intent upon destroying King's movement began breaking store windows, and other acts of violence. When the confusion spread, the march was aborted. And when Martin returned to Memphis a week later to lead a second effort, he was killed.
Crowd dynamics are funny. Not “funny” like one is at risk of busting a gut laughing, but funny in the strange way. The above examples illustrate how strange crowds can be, even in the context of things that should be entirely positive in energy: Beatles music and a King march.
It's not really hard to manipulate a crowd, although controlling a crowd can be very difficult. Throughout history, both tyrants and other snake oil salesmen have peddled “group hate” to obtain power and riches. Manipulate a group of people to blame a convenient scapegoat for their problems, and the resulting hatred will crowd out all rational thought. The group will focus its energies on hating the target, and will forget entirely about its own low level of being.
We are witnessing those very dynamics at play in our society. In large part, this was caused by the events in 2008, when the majority of the American public gathered together to demand change. A change to the insane policies of George W. Bush. A change from the dark and cruel impulses of Dick Cheney. A change from the greed of Wall Street. After the elections, those crowds went home, mistakenly believing that they had accomplished real change. In so doing, they created a vacuum. And anyone who took science classes in junior high school knows the nature of vacuums.
There were signs of what was to come during the '08 campaign. When a politically impotent John McCain saw that his VP choice was getting a response to her calls to hate, he saw an opportunity. But even he, thankfully, wouldn't cross the line when he witnessed the vile nature of the Palin crowd responses. Others – most notably Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck – are more than willing to feed that hate. They want to ride the wave. Both want the power and money they believe they can manipulate from those attending their meetings and buying their books. More, Beck appears to desire the violent outbursts that he “warns” against.
With the public focused on the confrontations in Washington over the health care bill and the like, there is what could be best described as “reverse looting” going on. Industries such as the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are capitalizing on the madness.
In stories on morality, a character such as Jean Louise “Scout” Finch can reach the individuals in the angry crowd. King tried, in real life, to get people to examine what it means to be human.
It's a strange time in America.
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